Fill me in on LP's

[spider64]

G'day axe men!
I'm a new-be on forums, but been swing'n axe for 40 plus, & never owned, either of the US giants, having swayed to Ibanez where at 1st, was purely due to value for $, where then i went to the artist series, when the floyd rose systems were on board em in the 80's making me a convert! & now? I'm still steering away from what ya see on every stage (The strat) , & am think'n about a LP? & not knowing zip about LP's? So to go on a LP forum, & ask other axe swinger's, for their honest experiences? What are the best production years? What are the best models? What are LP's best known for? What style are LP's most suited to? & yea! Ya proberly thinking, "What ya dont know"? & my answer is "Yep"! I've never played a LP, or a strat, but i did play a Tele for an hour's gig once. My axe work has been multiple Ibanez's, george Washburn's, yamaha's, takamine's, & this cheap'o 3/4 Canadian acoustic to learn on at 5 years old. So when get'n a LP? I really would like your wealth of knowledge to flow to me, as I'm looking at a top shelf model, where I'm wanting the quality & performance to match the price's.
So love to hear ya sides?
Keep on swing'n, & rattle the windows! C.Webb

 

[Thundermtn]

Welcome aboard!

Think Ibanez Iceman with mostly a fatter neck, a little higher action, that's heavier in weight and tone, and is probably the most perfect guitar for mid-paced blues based rock ever.

There's keepers and dogs in every model, every year. Find a neck profile you like on a guitar that sounds good and you're off to the races.

Everyone's budget is different. My choice for best LP for the money? A used R7. There will be good guitars to be found at all price points though. I have a good sounding Epiphone too. It's a wide range of "nice guitar" and you'll know when you're holding the right guitar for you.

 

[icantshred]

Best production years: There are great ones in every year.

Best models: Completely subjective. I love the Custom for its beefy neck, ebony fingerboard, and tiny frets.

Best known for: rock, jazz, country, r&b, metal, blues... extremely versatile axe

Best suited to: literally anything. want to do hair metal? LP Axcess has a floyd. Want to do edm? Get an LP with coil splits and phase switching. Like indie/twee/pop/alt-rock? Try an LP Special.

If you can play a bunch of different models, do it. If you want more info from experts here it helps to tell us what kinds of music you like to play.

I think of a Tele as a simplified Les Paul. A Tele is 2 pickups with master volume-master tone. A Lester is two pickups, but each has its own volume and its own tone. So you get a lot of mileage out of the middle position compared to a Tele. Or you can put one volume on 0 and the other on 10 and wiggle the toggle back and forth for a DIY killswitch sound.


What is BEST really boils down to your personal preferences and what YOU want and like.

 

[Duane_the_tub]

All of these questions and many more related ones have been answered on this forum for years and years. My advice is to get comfortable and start reading.

 

[flamesarewicked]

I’d say, try as many as ya can or have access to. There’s lots of great guitars out there.. the internet will have ya believe all kinds of things. If a company makes 5000 guitars a year and 1% of them are sub par.. you’ll hear about how bad that 1% is. That’s only 50 guitars out of 5000. May seem like a lot but from a manufacturing standpoint.. 1% is probably more than an acceptable failure rate.. the 4950 guitars that were great will have far less people talking about them. At the end of the day, these are made by people and people are inconsistent.

Don’t consider needing a setup as a QC problem. Companies tend to give them enough setup to be playable with a broad range. Some people like high action while others like low action. Also with various levels of climate, that setup will need to be changed. Going to the local shop and grabbing the random guitar off the rack usually turns people off since most often the setup isn’t great, dead strings, and it’s been fondled by a couple of hundred people before you.

If you’re going with the buying online method, educated guesses is a roll of the dice. If ya like thinner necks, the 60s slim taper would be what ya wanna go for. I’ve been playing guitar long enough to buy online with success. I can adapt to most any neck shape fairly quickly. Hopefully ya can try some in person to at least get an idea of what ya want so that can aid in buying online.