What are the hallmarks of a great Les Paul tone to you?

[DaveSG]

I've owned a couple Les Pauls in the past - a 70s Custom and more recently a 2016 LP Standard Faded, but both are long gone and I'd been without a LP for about 4 years.

After just getting my 2021 LP Standard 50s, I've been really impressed with what this guitar can do and it's taken me back to all the videos of great LPs I've seen/heard over the years and find some of those same tones w/ this guitar. Traditionally, I've been an SG player for years, so this is all kind of new and exciting. I find myself actually flipping to the neck position more than the bridge, which never used to happen!

To me, a great LP tone seems to include:

-great sustain
-a really clear and useful neck position
-a bridge position that can get really bright/sharp but never be harsh
-a 'wooliness' where some mids come in and add some honk without turning it muddy (I'm thinking 'bluesbreakers' here)
-a 'quack' that gives sort of a hard edged wah-like funk to the sound that is clearer to hear w/ less gain
-can sound pleasing and 'together' either single notes or chords, low gain or high gain

I ain't gonna say that I have the best sounding LP, but I've been very impressed w/ what the guitar can do, and I'm usually pretty critical of guitar tone (and coming from a really critical position on burstbuckers before I ever got the guitar).




Here is the guitar for reference:

I think I really hit the jackpot w/ this one on the looks and the sounds dept. Feeling very blessed.


I realize a lot of this is very subjective, but I'm interested in hearing what constitutes a great LP tone to you?

 

[Dark Horse]

Sustain.
Warm yet aggressive if playing with distortion.
Soulful when playing clean.
A full or thick sound.

 

[VictorB]

This:

 

[peobryant]

Also this:

 

[DaveSG]

Honestly? The body behind its attack.
It can give that "duck on steroids" kind of sound i find really unique. I think of it as a caramel-coated foot kick, but the duck description is probably better ^^

For everything else?
A 335/355, thank you very much. Does it all with some extra harmonics and breadth of air nothing else can.
Everything you describe in your list can be found elsewhere and not in isolation either.

Now given your pic posting and the occasion this isn't what you wanted to read, but one doesn't negate the other. So enjoy your newly favourite LP

Not at all - your contribution is sincerely appreciated! There are very few guitars I've heard that can do everything in that list, and most are LPs (coming from a diehard SG fan). If you have examples I'd love to hear them...the tone quest never ends and all. I do admire a great 3xx series, but that is a can of worms I haven't yet opened!

 

[sonar1]

It’s the midrange “gronk!”

 

[cowsgomoo]

my ideal Les Paul sound is through a Marshall style amp, set at that crunchy sweet spot so that when you pick softly it's clean enough for full arpeggios to ring out nicely, and when you pick normally, it's crunchy but you could still play a major chord and hear the notes nicely, and when you pick hard you get to a nice sustaining, compressing thing good for solos...

that's as much the amp as it is the guitar. But my ideal Les Paul provides a wide-range sound with plenty of low end, plenty of nice vocal mids and enough bite on top. It's fat but also cuts. Bridge pickup. Just a nice, musical setup that you could use in most situations without needing many other things. Maybe an SD-1 or tube screamer to add a bit more edge and tame some flub...

 

[Overture]

My approach to a guitar sound is likely vastly different to a lot of folks on here. I run my 2 Pauls through a Boogie JP2C W/ a Line 6 Helix in 4CM for effects. My go to tone is very 80's with a lot of modern influence (John Petrucci is probably who I would point to as a reference for both rhythm and lead sounds, but my playing is based way more in the 80's style).

For me it's all about thickness and punch. My ideal band set up would be a single guitar w/ a keyboard player, and a Paul just helps fill in a bigger sound, IMO. Obviously this can be done via the amp, EQ, other guitars but I always start with a Paul.

 

[BadPenguin]

Robert Fripp. Need I say more?

 

[GT40]

Very loud, very aggressive, lots of distortion or overdrive with the bass rolled down.
The music equivalent of hot tail pipes at 7000 RPM

For cleans I have a strat which is much better at that stuff.

 

[EasyAce]

For me, it's any one of my four Les Pauls, running both pickups (four different pickup sets for four subtle variations on the sound I developed), through a Fender Blues Junior or Twin Reverb amp clean, with nothing in between but a volume pedal.

 

[questionman]

Not only one of the best solos ever, the best tone one could have for it

 

[Caretaker]

great midrange
a vocal quality to notes that ring/sustain.
A bloom that kind of circles the area and only dies out when you let it.
Gary Moore playing Stripe(better sounding than Greenie IMO)

 

[LtDave32]

Classic, been played here countless times, but there's a reason.

The classic LP sound as performed by Dickey Betts.

FF to 1:57 for this classic Les Paul sound:

No army of stomp-boxes or signal processing, nor drenched in overdrive crunch.

Just the pure LP experience.

(note the the video is a visual amalgam of different shows, just catch the audio, which was played at the Fillmore East, 1971. Dickey Betts on a LP for lead, Duane on slide for a lead duel with Dickey.. )

 

[LuthierVandross]

The most important thing to me in a Les Paul is how does it sing with no amp? You can always swap your pickups to go from cheap tinny import humbuckers, dime sized pots and a broken switch all the way up to active EMG’s. Tone plugged into an amp is subjective, but to hear it alone, the way it sounds when you bend a note and hold it or how long it holds a note when you bend and release, that’s where you should start.

just my $0.02

 

[kelsodeez]

I put my ear to the back of the guitar and if it's loud through the wood, it's going to sing

 

[ErictheRed]

The neck humbucker has to be able to bark and honk, and still sound woody at times. It's hard to explain in words, but you can really feel it when playing.

 

[Jon W]

Sounds like a really good tele with a bit more mids but still has that quack that a tele has.

 

[uncajoey]

Beano

 

[edro]