Les Paul Juniors?? Love em' or hate em'??

I hate Gibson/Epiphone. The necks feel chunky, they have very little to offer in variations of bodies (at least as far as bass is concerned), and the horrible sounding pickups on my Shariton II sealed the deal for me.

I once played a $1000 Taylor right before playing a $3500 Gibson acoustic. The Taylor beat it in every way.

I am going to piss Boom off here and laugh while doing it... love Les Paul Jrs BECAUSE THE NECKS ARE USUALLY HUGE LIKE A BASEBALL BAT EVEN BY GIBSON STANDARDS... P90s sound great and having 1 pickup and 2 knobs is the jam, plus the wrap-around bridge really adds to the caveman aesthetic! honestly you could make me an LP Jr with just a pickup and a jack and I would be even happier, but the 2 knobs are nice to have to control the amount you are overdriving your amp and the tone control is nice if, like me, you really like caveman tube amps without tone controls... they could be positioned a lot better for easy pinky access, but I accept the challenge. I prefer double cut Jrs and SG jrs for fret access, but only the single cuts have consistently chunky necks to scratch my Louisville slugger itch.... you strap on a good Jr and you feel like johnny goddamn thunders.

I once played a $1000 Taylor right before playing a $3500 Gibson acoustic. The Taylor beat it in every way.

taylor makes a great acoustic that's easy to play open chords on, I don't deny that, but the OP was talking about electric guitars, specifically Les Paul Jrs and I think I heard your Taylor story before and I think we all know you don't like any Gibsons you play ever and that if you had a 59 335 sitting around I could probably trade you a mediocre Jackson soloist for it dead swap and we would both part happy. Different strokes and all that. You have a thing against deep necks with wide string nuts and plenty of shoulder and that's okay. Other than the entirely too thin Ibanez wizard profile and the cartoonishly fat U neck on my buddy's jazzmaster, I've never met a neck shape I couldn't make music on. I have preferences for various reasons ranging from fatigue to stability, but I can play for a couple hours on whatever and make it sound good, though if your guitar's neck is too thin you will be mad after I do a bunch of headstock-bend pitch dives and produce TRUE vibrato by warping the neck back and forth rapidly with palm strength while fretting, fucking your truss adjustment up in the process...

I really like the sturdiness of 50s-style fat necks. The way I hold my hand makes the profile relatively irrelevant and the fat neck takes a lickin' if I decide to play aggressively. a good old Jr or decen RI or clone really does it for me. You can abuse a 59 LP Jr and it just keeps on rockin'

I totally agree with you there. I own a Gibson LPJ, which has been dropped, smashed against things and has had a cup of tea spilt all over it and it just keeps going. I don't usually go for the 50's style fat and chunky neck, but the first time I picked it up it just felt right. Great guitar. I think many people are scared off by them when they see it only has one pickup, and then they run back to a Strat or Les Paul.

People always ask me why I don't add a neck pickup to my esquire since most have a route for it (as does mine).... because 1 pickup imposes creative limits that can actually be liberating. Everyone gets scared of the 50s fat and chunky neck until they give it a real whirl during a long stage set and then they find they are less fatigued than they are by their modern slim necks!

i dislike les paul juniors the just don't feel nice at all.

they are not nice, not at all... they are lean and mean, I own 'nice' guitars, lots of them! I miss having a Jr or Special and plan to buy another or build a Precision Guitar Kit and finish it myself.

No neck pick-up? I'd probably destroy this thing just trying to make it function as a double humbucker, or maybe just move the bridge up to the neck.

I need my neck hums. Some bridge pick-ups sound so trebly, It's disgusting. Balance, people. There's a reason dual and triple pick-up combinations are more popular. Billy has a ridiculously linear sound, so he can easily rock that Juniour, but not the people who want more variation and aren't wanking on four chords and a single, "serving-the-song" solo.

You have to give it to Green Day, though, they represent punk and pop rock in general.

I once played a $1000 Taylor right before playing a $3500 Gibson acoustic. The Taylor beat it in every way.

Martin and Co, mate. Martin and Co.

I once played a $1000 Taylor right before playing a $3500 Gibson acoustic. The Taylor beat it in every way.

Martin and Co, mate. Martin and Co.

I am going to go off here, because I have gotten really picky about acoustics in my old age and have the opportunity to play A LOT of good ones on recording sessions and such over the years. So I say "meh" to both of you. I would still take a $2k current Taylor over ANY current martin... the new martins do not play well and they don't sound as good as they used to, moreover the tone is DIFFERENT than an old one.... the Taylor ha no pedigree to speak of. It is a modern guitar that is meant to have a modern sound and I think that sound is the best thing going in current production flattop acoustics, especially when you factor in the solid playability.

Martin had a good run of guitars in the 90s as did Guild and both companies made some decent guitars in the 50s, 60s and 70s.... but Matin's whole rep is built on the guitars from the 30s and 40s, just like the reputation of Gibson's flat-top acoustics is from that era (though to a lesser extent since the jumbos are a 50s/60s thing). I have been lucky enough to play a lot of pre-war era Martins and Gibsons at this great little shop on Broad Street in Philly. They literally do not make them like they used to. Some of it is the old-growth wood (wood matters more in an acoustic, so duh) and some of it is just superior craftsmanship. They do not AND cannot make them the way they used to.

With what Martin and the big G charge for a really well-made current acoustic you can turn around and get a vintage one that's been refretted, probably had some damages repaired as well as maybe being refinished and you will be way happier. They just play and sound better. The current Gibsons play like crap, but the basic acoustic tone is the same if not as good, whereas an old Martin is like nothing else. Its lie Martin forgot what acoustic guitars should sound like! You put an old one next to a new one and do a blind listen? You will pick the old one and wonder if the new one was even made by the same company.... I can't afford to drop $4-5k on a high end, current Martin 000, but if I could spare that kind of coin on 1 guitar I would go to Broad Street and buy an old one that's had some repair work done by master craftsman like the brothers who own this store (they also own the Philadelphia vintage violin store and restoration service, Philly rules and I love this family).

To me my $300 Jap Epiphone dreadnought from the 90s is fine. No better or worse than anything else on the market since that time. If I can't have a stand out acoustic why spend the money at all? Martin and Gibson are both a joke now when it comes to acoustics and if I break a grand on a new Taylor then I feel like I'm throwing away the downpayment on a guitar from the golden age of flat-top acoustics that will outperform anything made since in every way.

No neck pick-up? I'd probably destroy this thing just trying to make it function as a double humbucker, or maybe just move the bridge up to the neck.

I need my neck hums. Some bridge pick-ups sound so trebly, It's disgusting. Balance, people. There's a reason dual and triple pick-up combinations are more popular. Billy has a ridiculously linear sound, so he can easily rock that Juniour, but not the people who want more variation and aren't wanking on four chords and a single, "serving-the-song" solo.

you'll understand 1 pickup guitars when you're older... treble is our friend if our technique is up to snuff (your guitar has a tone control, bud)... harsh, you say? get a better amp... even the thinnest, most ear-splitting fender bridge pickup will be an ear-pleasing sound through an ac30, for instance.... or try that harsh pickup through a tweed deluxe, you might just enjoy the extra bite and spank.

My first grownup guitar was a guild starfire 1 with a single neck pickup. I learned a lot playing jazz on that bad-boy through my old Princeton reverb and also figuring out how to rock out with a fully hollow 1 pickup guitar with no 'lead' pickup.... control the tone and play with overdrive without feedback or even utilizing all that feedback musically and controlling it with stage position, and dampening with my body and arm.

Get outside your comfort zone like that and you are going to make it about the music and start controlling your bass and treble response WITH YOUR HANDS, which are literally the best tone controls you've got if you know how to use them. Stop practicing the notes and start practicing new ways to approach the note and you will find you just need a guitar that plays and an amp that can get out of the way of what you are already doing unplugged, man.

Excelsior!

You sound like you use one pickup and a few pedals.

SHUN

OK, but majority of the time, I use my neck hum, only because I like the sound for leads. I rarely ever use the bridge, usually if I play with light overdrive, something that requires fast strumming. Sounds a bit muddy on the neck.

You sound like you use one pickup and a few pedals.

SHUN

OK, but majority of the time, I use my neck hum, only because I like the sound for leads. I rarely ever use the bridge, usually if I play with light overdrive, something that requires fast strumming. Sounds a bit muddy on the neck.

I am not telling you to like LP jrs, just to consider that working with limits is actually freeing

if by a few you mean a tuner and maybe a boost or OD? then yes. 1 or 2 is a few. I used to have tons though, but I set em up for nothing as I seldom ever engaged them at gigs. Every time I would forget to engage some effects in a song and the audience didn't even care I realized that they are totally pointless!

There' people who use just a few pedals, and then there's this:

http://www.strymon.net/wp-content/uploads/AndyOthlingPedalboard.jpg

I think this is one of the most satisfyingly neat and clean pedalboards i have ever seen, and I hope one day, I can reach this level of cleanliness. For now, I am just getting a Pedaltrain 1, I don't even have clean patch cables!

I think this is one of the most satisfyingly neat and clean pedalboards i have ever seen, and I hope one day, I can reach this level of cleanliness. For now, I am just getting a Pedaltrain 1, I don't even have clean patch cables!

I promise you all the cabling on that is cut to size before ends were soldered on and zip-tied to the pedal board. Its nice and clean like that, however, the layout looks kinda sketchy. I hate tap dancing on multiple rows of pedals, it hurts my performance. I haven't worked with a lot of guys who don't play better when you simplify their pedal setup so they can focus on playng the part with authority. But if you ust have a mountain of effects check out this great non-midi multi-pedal patch solution:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/carl-martin-octa-switch-mkii-effects-switching-system?cntry=us&source=3WWRWXGP&gclid=CMSF37KQkscCFdcXHwodnscOCQ&kwid=productads-plaid^83573308107-sku^H93853000000000@ADL4MF-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^53736456387

when I was using 4 or 5 pedals I came really close to buying one of these for the front of my board so I could call up combinations of multiple pedals with one tap, but then I wound up doing the Yamaha SPX90 and I think later a TC rack and stereo rig for a little with only a fuzz pedal out front and that was super-easy to handle without compromising my actual performance.

I had 4 lousy buttons to deal with... just echo or modulation on/off, tap tempo, plate reverb if needed all AFTER my plexi's full power tube distortion ala EVH in the 70s and the stereo output from the Yamaha or TC feeding a dual mono-block PA that drove my 2 Marshall cabs on either side of the stage... and then there was the fuzz if I needed a little extra into the 1st stage of my plexi to bring the nasty. It just got to be too much of a hassle to carry all the extra kit. I am getting old and my 'roadie' got deported back to Russia when his visa expired, so I have gotten simpler and simpler ever since because my poor back. Once that band got a rhythm guitarist my need for that wide sound disappeared too and I could really just focus on having a great fender or vox clean, a good british crunch and a soaring lead. Hell I just sold a few pedals because I don't use 'em, but a lot of folks are effects driven because of the genres they play in, so for those people who can't afford a reliable midi system I recommend the octaswitch. Its epic.

Well, unlike you (I'm sure), this guy's pedal board is made to make purely ambient music. Kinda like this (Kind of because this is just a cover of a song):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY2ofNZXEaA

If no one else gives any opinions on Juniors, then this thread is derailed.

The nostalgia still stings...

If no one else gives any opinions on Juniors, then this thread is derailed.

I think there are a lot of youngsters on here who wouldn't think to pick up a Jr unless they are a green day fan... I can't think of a lot of current musicians apart from the green day dude who play them. I can think of an army of oldsters who favored them like Johnny Thunders, Leslie West and Mick Ralphs... but I don't know too many young guys who are into the dolls, mountain or mott the hoople Although West also played LP specials, and that's a different beast.... I once had a TV yellow special and I miss her sometimes.

Billy has a ridiculously linear sound, so he can easily rock that Juniour, but not the people who want more variation and aren't wanking on four chords and a single, "serving-the-song" solo.

Not that I am a big green day fan, I am not, but what's wrong with serving the song? I would rather serve the song than try to serve my enormous guitarist ego! I love to play guitar solos, but the song is not a vehicle for my chops, its really the other way around.

Ah, there we go, I confused it. People who "serve the songs" and people who, well, solo and such, and then there's Kanye being Kanye.