The R7 is pretty damn good. Although you can hear the extra chime in the original ‘57 and a bit more clarity, they aren’t miles apart. I wonder what the R7 would be like in a few more years?
I tried my best to be impartial, but my love for anything old just took over. I should have just listened with my eyes closed. I kept seeing the rusted screw heads and the cracked lacquer and my braim went to mush!😂 The '57 sounded so sweet!👍😎🎸🎶
The '57 sounds brighter and the notes are more defined. The R7 sounds a tad muted. That's the best description I can give, Chris. As always, love your playing.
Couldn't agree more and the '57 "sings" more. Not a Les Paul fan myself by any stretch of the imagination, but with the sound of the '57 I'd be quite happy!
I have the hardest time getting that across to people that these typical "PAF" sounds from pick up manufacturers are too bassy and dark sounding. All the classic gibson humbucking sounds are very bright.
Fun fact: Jimmy Page is quoted as saying that the reason he went from playing Telecasters to Les Pauls live was because they sounded "pretty much like a Telecaster, without the hum". Of course, back then a 59 Les Paul was pretty much like a 59 Jazzmaster in the 80s: an "old fashioned" guitar found on pawn shops for cheap. Still, I think you should check out the Eric Johnson pickups by Dimarzio... You'll be pleasantly surprised!
Yes it's lots of marketing bs largely isn't it. I suppose these modern 'PAF' pickups have to cater for everyone and to sound reasonable through all sorts of amps. To wake up these pickups I find setting the screws according to the neck radius really helps and set the slots in this formation /\/\/\ (that last bit I'm not sure if it's crap or not) I would say set the B and A poles flush, the two E strings screw in, and D and G will be highest. Also modern Gibsons have as low as 280k pots so switch those to 500k and put a 470pf treble bleed cap on there and you might find you win back that twang!! I have just done all this in my latest video! :)
I Agree - Classic PAF are much brighter than most people think. They are very clear and sound great with overdrive because you don't lose that clarity.
Aaron W. Yep that will be it. Decades of searching but some guys have found the right way but its won't be cheap. Why it isn't cheap..... well they probably have build a pyramid around the pickups, scattered some vintage bs around it and so you have...... an expensive story.
if the 57 was the one that sounded darker like the r7, and we were told the thinner sounding one was the r7, would we all be saying "wow tthe 57 is so thick and warm, and the r7 is thin and clanky"? lol its a matter of perspective..
I've noticed same thing. When the old ones sound brighter they're clear and defined and the new one muddy, if the old one is darker it's warm and smooth and the new one is bright and thin. Or that seems to be how people describe them.
@@SAGABIJO2 Not sure what you mean, I was actually being a bit sarcastic about how people tend to describe a new one and an old one.When new is bright it's thin and harsh, the vintage one when bright is described as clear and articulate, same with darker. when new is darker its muddy but if vintage is darker it's warm. Personally I think they both sound good, just a matter of taste. I've heard new ones I like better than vintage ones and vice-versa.
man there is not a 100k diference between them xD both sound the same to me, the r7 sound just a little bit brighter, but you can compensate with eq if you want the 57 sound...
That 57 is the best sounding Les Paul I've ever heard. Just tonal bliss. Great demo, we're really hearing the guitar speak to us. Thank you for this, and great playing 😊
Assuming that a player's skill is much more important than an instrument's tone, here are the two observations that actually address the monetary difference. All else is in good fun. - To the collector, the vintage instrument is an investment that gambles on the enduring popularity of vintage music and personalities. - To the player, it makes no sense to put wear on a treasure when the new instrument can come close enough to dial it in with the right sound gear.
The 57 sounds MAJESTIC! Absolutely no hype about some of these old originals. That is one of the "great ones" There were some old originals that we well not as great as this one. Definitely a stand out one. The R7 is no slouch either and considering it is made to Mimic one of the great old ones i think anyone that cannot afford a old original would be more than set with that R7. I know i would be! 😆
Excellent comparison playing, as expected. The tonal qualities of the guitars come through well. The PAFs do have a fat single-coil vibe to them, like a good Tele with a touch of mid boost. What you say about them not being complete humbuckers is true based on my experience too. The coils tend to be a bit mismatched, so they do hum a little.
I've yet to find a humbucker that I prefer over any permutation of a single coil. I only have two guitars with humbuckers, and one of them has P-Rails that I put in to replace the stock pups. The other is a Heritage with "Seth Lover" "PAF-style" humbuckers, and, much to my chagrin, its tonally the most "dead" of any of my other guitars. I'm an adept guitar tech with a decade of experience. Every other guitar I own plays like butter, and sounds exactly how I want it to. No matter what I do, I can't bring that Heritage to life. It's a bummer. It makes me think that the only option is to swap out the humbuckers for something more lively. Or maybe just come to accept that guitar for what it is. But I love single coils. They always sound "alive" to me. Complex, in a way that humbuckers usually don't.
You play from the soul my friend! Been playing the old six string since 1996. 22 years later and I’m still fascinated by the instrument. Took me a good 15 years to start playing from within rather than my fingers. I’m sure you understand. ✌🏻🕶🎶
Mate, I really enjoyed listening to this comparison and your playing, so much so I did it several times. The 57 to my ear sounded smoother but it's like buying a new TV. When they are all next to each other I can tell the difference but once I get it home I'm happy with what I've got! ;) Again, great video thanks for the opportunity to listen to both.
The '57 definately has it in terms of 'warmth' and clarity. Money difference is impossible to judge. Everyone's personal wealth and financial circumstances is different. To a billionaire it would be well worth it to have the best sound you can get. If you are struggling for meals, less so !
I like em' both, but the 57 definitely sounds more musical on the treble side, to my 68 yo ears anyway. Maybe a different cap in the R7 would yield closer fidelity?
Well....they're astoundingly similar! Good job Gibson for nailing it! Minute sound differences aside, that '57 is MOUTHWATERING simply for being what it is!
An analogy. Ride a 1967 Triumph Bonneville versus the modern version. The new one looks like the vintage bike, and even sounds like the vintage bike (with a bit of tweaking, and cash), but the feel and the joy of blasting down a few back roads is different.The new one is solid, dependable, firm and responsive to rider input and starts first press of the electric start. The vintage bike is lighter, flickable, has poorer brakes and has to be kick started. In other words, it has to be ridden. It smells right, sounds right and the patina of decades cannot be faked. It might leak a bit of oil, and need a lot more pampering and take a few kicks to start. It’s visceral, raw and inspiring and to the initiated brings a lump to the throat. Which would I rather have? ‘Nuff said. See you next Friday at The Cluny mate.
bakters all very true, but my account was an analogy not a review. Old versus new of ostensibly the same thing. Yes, I know they’re not and Britain lost its motorcycle industry because the Japanese built them better, cheaper and more reliable. But that’s straying from the topic somewhat. For what it’s worth I ride a brand new Honda.
Yeah, I get what you were trying to say. I just thought it was the perfect analogy to current vintage guitar craze. With bikes you can measure things, so it's blindingly obvious that newer stuff is so much better than the old tech. With that said, would I mind a side-valve BMW, even if I'm sure it "objectively" sucks? Would I ever? Oh, that would be awful! It would rust a lot, with all that drool on a gas tank. ;-)
I saw a video where world-class violinists compared old violins to newer ones. They preferred to sound of the newer ones. They didn’t talk about the vibe of the instruments. “Soul” goes a long way when you’re talking about art vs. the drag strip. My old R7 was very much like the model Chris is playing here, but I bet its vibe could not compete with the real thing. And THAT is why I refuse to play a vintage instrument... I don’t need to feel n love with something I can’t afford. 😂
Given Gibson's long experience and success with the P-90, it makes sense that they would wind their new Humbucker to sound as close to it as possible. The idea behind the Humbucker was just to eliminate the 60-cycle hum of the P-90 single-coil pickup, not to deliberately and radically change the sound. Accordingly, the early PAF tone emphasized the upper mids more than later Humbuckers. Clapton's "Beano Burst", as recorded and processed on the "Beano" album is quite bright, far brighter than many remember it to be. A new listen will reveal much. Now, this may be a matter of studio micing, EQ, mastering, etc., but it also may be the essential sound of his particular guitar. He has said that he admired Freddie King's LP Goldtop P-90 sound (Stepping Out, etc.) and has also said that he wanted to sound as close to that as he could. As LPs were quite rare in GB in the mid-'60s, he bought what could find. If there had been an LP with P-90s available, I'm pretty sure he would have gone for it. Nevertheless, I think that he succeeded in getting the sound that he wanted. The PAFs in his Burst did not fail him in this endeavour.
Don't care much one way or the other about the slight sound difference between the guitars but your playing is great as always. Thanks for all the time and effort you put into your videos. Very well done.
First off, I’m having those licks thank you very much 😉 Second, the R7 pickups are much more compressed to my ear. The 57 is much more open and articulate. I think there’s a common misconception that Les Pauls should have high output, beefy sounding pickups. To my ear, the best sounding vintage pickups are low output allowing that clarity and openness to ring through. This 57 is a perfect example of that 👍🏻
Chris- you are an absolutely beautiful player, thank you for sharing with all of us. The real 57 definitely has a “spanky crispness” that the R7 lacks. Greg Koch once said old 57-60 Les Pauls are like Telecasters on steroids. I’d say that’s a very suitable analogy! Cheers!
Justed wanted to thank you for playing actual music this old recipe was created for. Killer touch and feel. And thanks for not pluggin in preamp-heavy thing with modulated delays in the loop. Both lesters are great.
It is the neck pickup !!! The R7 sounds very muddy in comparison !! The 57 has that sustain thing as well... I know which I prefer , but I am biased !! Just a note the ABR-1 and stop tailpiece came in earlier around 1955-6. 57 was the first year of the PAF's and these examples were non- stickered..
This shows why the most common thing I get asked to do to Historic series Gibsons ( apart from glue the headstock back on lol) is swap out the pickups, a really good readily available not too expensive and pretty authentic pickup is the Duncan antiquity . This swap gets you very much closer and sometimes the real thing is not as nice as the one you play here. Nice fair demo and good dynamic playing really illustrates the point.
The prices on vintage instruments is not always based on better sound, it is mostly based in the collectibility value. The fact that you can no longer acquire an original 57 Les Paul "new" and the limited production is the real reason for the high value.
I'm pretty sure the '57 sounded just like the R7 when it was brand new. When pickups age, the coils get a bit loose and thus don't sound like they used to when they were new. Not the mention the many cycles of wood expanding and contracting, the lacquer hardening, etc. Bottom line: If you want that sound, there's no substitute for the original '57. If you want the sound of an old recording of a then new '57, buy the reissue.
The question "Is there a $500,000 (or equivalent British Pounds) difference between a "50s Les Paul and the modern version" is completely irrelevant. Sound and playability have nothing to do with value. The value lies in the fact there were less than 2000 of these instruments made between approx. 1957 and 1961, and only around 1700 survive. The value to collectors lies in the rarity, the original date of manufacture, and the historical importance. That goes for all guitars, unlike violins etc. where a Stradivarius or Guarneri etc. are the gold standards of sound.
i have a little problem with this,,sorry.....the best guitar is the 59`gibson les paul.....and if the guitar has a name he is not payable for normal user. like the guitar from waren hames....a 59`given from gary moore.....and he got it from peter greene....so its a guitar that you never can buy^^
In addition to the Joe Palooka answer, guitars are instruments made of wood. Cool, so what? The sound you listen is directly related to the material used to build it. That's why prices of older guitars are so high. How come, you say? Well, Gibson´s manufacture process changed through the years. Guitars were made with high-quality wood at first then changed progressively to cost-effective combinations.
While the effect of wood is controversial (I myself don't doubt it) I don't see why Gibson or somebody wouldn't bring out a guitar using the original specs to capture the original sound. The cost range for a Les Paul Standard is pretty high and I don't see why they couldn't use the best wood and wind the pickups as they did in 59. Peter Green's guitar had an incorrectly wound pickup which some say contributed to his sound; if so, you could duplicate that.
Your explanation begs the question a bit. You are saying they are valuable because they are scarce but then not explaining this absolute correlation you made. Many guitars are about as scarce but not nearly as valuable. Rarity by itself isn't value. The good to excellent PAF Les Pauls besides being rare offer particular qualities of tone and even beauty, which you don't mention. So the rarity in this case is significant partly from the demand based on certain qualities, something I think you left out. Now if some PAF Les Pauls are poor examples and only very valuable to collectors by association to good examples, that is only a truism. Some PAF LPs are dogs yet exception doesn't change the rule. You can also have a mint 61 custom color Strat that is worth 30k yet it's a terrible musical instrument. This collector-only valuation doesn't really explain the general phenomenon of either model of instrument in terms of sound and what they mean in intrinsic terms - values reflected in market price.
DucksDeLucks - ahh, to the wood debate - some of the illegal replicas by Max, Derrig and Guitar Clinic are supposed to be very close, whether they use similar old-growth woods of the same correct 1950s source I could not say in every case but I believe that is often the idea. Some had PAFs. The ones I've seen seem to differ noticeably from newer Gibsons.
Yep, the 1957 is clearer, amazing tone, piercing highs. The R7 is also fine. Is the tonal difference worth it? Not even close unless you are Slash, Jimmy Page, or Peter Frampton and you will make up the difference on record sales
Hey Chris, see you’re doing it again! It all starts off great with chord comparisons and then it all goes wrong when you start that playing magic and I lose all sense of which is which and get lost in the playing. Hope you are well. Have a great tour. 👍🤘🏻🎸👍🤘🏻🎸👍🎸😁😁😁
First - EXTREMELY awesome playing! You definitely have a nice touch! So first thing I noticed is the R7 is darker. There is definitely more 'snap' in the 57. I like the neck pups on both. Nice. I actually preferred the middle pos on the R7. The 57 bridge is down right AWESOME! Holy smokes, that is THE tone and is what your paying for! But for $100k plus, no. I would rather buy the R7 and shop for pickups that deliver the tone. BTW: While you're in Newcastle, please keep your eyes out for a 79 Les Paul Standard Burgundy, and a 78 Stratocaster natural ash body w/rosewood board that was stolen from me about 35 years ago...... I would not mind getting those two back someday. LOL!
Wow I’m early. My Friday ritual. Coffee, That Pedal Show, then Friday Fretworks. Never disappoints! Wow expensive wood 🤯😱. I thought vintage strats were expensive and ridiculous. ‘57 is a little brighter/clearer. Treble bump on the EQ if it mattered at all.
The 57 is definitely brighter! I did some work with Mick Taylor from the Stones a few years ago, and he plays a 50's burst... Noticeably brighter than modern Les Pauls! Perhaps that was part of the magic, the clean sparkle! Noticed this on a 53' goldtop I played a few years back, the P90's were different sounding, too!
Fun fact, if you want this bright sound on a modern humbucker put a treble bleed inductor on the volume control. Then as you turn the volume down the tone will get brighter. You can get a really nice variation of sounds on any guitar this way.
Slow and clean, you got the right formula for comparisons. Distortions and hundreds of notes per beat serves only to give us a major headache. Well done.
The '57 sounds more bitey-and spikey, with a brighter tone. The R7 sounds warmer and has a bit more bloom across the spectrum. They're both wonderful. Visually, the '57 looks nicer with that aged finish. But sound wise, I actually preferred the R7. All this stuff is subjective. I can see why plenty of other people would prefer the crisper tone of the '57.
I did this test blind just so I couldn’t be biased and I really liked the R7 better. The tone was smoother and I thought it sustained just as well as the ‘57. There is a sweetness about that R7 that I loved. Which is good news, I guess - because I can save up for an R7...
The first impression is two fold. The R7 pickups have a thicker tone and more output over the '57's mellowed by age character. While it is difficult to hear, the '57's tone definitely has benefited from 60 years of the wood maturing. The R7's tone presents as being ever so slightly stiffer. While both are wonderful guitars, the R7 would be the practical choice. For the sonic difference, the '57 is a collector's guitar, not worth the risk of gigging with such a expensive, irreplaceable guitar. Even iconic guitarists,who can afford it, utilize reproductions of their vintage Les Pauls.
With the exception of Joe Bonamassa who always takes several of his vintage guitars when he tours. Gibson Fenders doesn’t matter he takes em and uses them.
I heard the difference blind comparing the neck and middle positions for sure. You would almost need scatter hand wound pickups with uneven turn counts on the Reissue to even compare the two guitars, but there's also sixty year old hide glue and lacquer, much older first-growth wood and Centralab pots to account for...
the 57 sounds like it's EQ'd, scooped it's pretty amazing how quiet and dynamic it is,, after hearing it the R7 sounds like pure dark mids. being mostly a fender player and a p90 player I don't know if the R7 would inspire me but I would not be able to put the 57 down especially that neck pickup sounds almost as clear as a bridge pickup or the middle pickup on a strat
I’ve played one 59 and a 60/1 which were both great to say I played and they’ve were different but not better than the custom shop reissues. I played an early 50’s conversion that was chefs kiss. The perfect guitar
I hear the difference, but I don't know which I prefer. My Dad had a late 50's Gold Top with the matching alligator look amp. I enjoyed playing it - incredible action! He either sold it to purchase or traded it on a 1966 Martin D-28 when the Martin was new. I only imagine the value difference today! Good postings. Thanks!
I thought the 57 sounded better clean but the R7 sounded better with overdrive. I have an R7 and those necks are thick, baseball bat time. It' still a great guitar though, very loud, great playing as usual Chris
I can definitely hear that tele tone to the 57 bridge pickup. The 57 has a woody tone that is not in the R7 which has a little more mid. hey are both very nice but WOW, the 57 has soul. Great show and playing by the way.
Great vid. Much better to demonstrate in that touch-based way than showboat the pants off them. Compressed youtube but the differences still seemed clear - much snappier sparkle and grunt from the '57. Makes you wonder why Gibson couldn't get the R7 closer if that was the intention. Either way, top playing and keep it up!
I completely agree at the pickups on the 57 sounded much clearer and articulate. That seems to be a theme with all of the vintage 50s les Paul's versus new Les Paul videos circulating. I believe Greg Koch said the sound of a vintage Les Paul PAFs are similar to sounds from a set of low output Telecaster pickups in a UA-cam video and I would have to agree that there are similarities.
R7 sounds higher output and muddier. But not necessarily worse just different. The 57 to me just sounds like a good quality telecaster. The 3rd riff you play sounds just like mr honore playing his purple tele to me.
Josh Smith is of the same opinion. He was so obsessed with the clarity of a vintage Gibson he was lent to play and that he couldn't find in modern Les Pauls, that had a luthier make a copy of the vintage.
Fantastic playing! Loved the demo, it is nice to hear someone that knows what good guitars can do in a talented players hands. I appreciate the fact that you weren’t running through an OD pedal. There is quite a bit of variability in reissue Les Pauls. The custombuckers (2013 on) have much of the same characteristics I am hearing in the 57. Throbak also makes a great PAF copy with their 101 pickups.
You did both guitars justice, very tastefully played. The 57 wins it for me, what an awesome piece of musical history. Crisp, well defined and totally balanced. And sustain for days :-) Just out of curiosity, which one did you prefer to play?
Jan Groosmuller Honestly hard to say. The R7 was fantastic to play and felt very new. The 57 has loads of mojo and was very inspiring to play but had one or two idiosyncrasies that you would expect of something that’s 61 years old. On balance, probably the 57 for it’s cool factor 🙂
I didn’t really watch, more just had it on in the background and couldn’t notice a lot of difference between the two. At least not a dramatic difference as some are noting. Wonderful playing btw.
The 57 sounds nice here. My opinion, as long as any guitar sustains well it doesnt matter what it is. Collectors have pushed the prices up so in short no there is not 100k difference. Just put some appropriate pick ups in a modern production guitar and go for it! Nice nice playing mate, subscribed!
At least 80% and probably more of guitar tone is the amp and player. A great guitar can make that special difference but what you mainly hear in great recordings is a really great player who would still sound like a legend with a $500 guitar.
Do you have a good exercise for those grace note slides that you do? It's a really cool technique that I'd like to incorporate into my playing. It reminds me a lot of Derek Trucks.
R7 neck is def a little tighter sounding. Same for middle position. Treble is brighter on the 57. Which one did you enjoy the most? I have a studio and the sound is great. I play it through a blackstar solid state since my tubes don't seem to bring out its true sound.
These pups are very different in that the early original 57 Paf's were not wax potted... the new Gibson 57's are wax potted and thats where the loss of clarity comes from on the R7... The Seymour Duncan Seth Lover models are not wax potted... i would be curious to compare that original 57 to another Gibson loaded with Duncan Seth Lovers and see how they sound side by side... that would be an apples to apples there lol... Blessings, Mark
While the potting is certainly a factor there are so many other factors that make the PAF special. Most of which are not really understood even today. Potting will make a difference yes but so too will the composition of the alnico magnets (which were officially recorded as one grade e.g. A5 but would have been whatever they could get cheapest from the suppliers and could have been anything!), the gauss (charge) of the magnets (they were tossed in a tray and charged by hand resulting in radically different/chaotic charges per magnet), the dimensions of the magnets (completely different to today), the coil winding patterns where some would be super tight adding extra capacitance and some super sloppy or wildly offset (the Leesona machines they used were worn out so the gears skipped all over the place during the wind and the Gibson workers didn't use turn counters), the mettallurgy of 1950's copper wire (less pure than today), the film density and the chemical composition of the wire insulation, the mettalurgy of the pickup covers ('German silver') etc. That is all just in the construction of the pickups. There's a ton of the vintage tone in the wiring and potentiometers used then: all of which were nowhere near as tight tolerance as they are today. Finally the tone capacitors used were paper in oil and will have effectively become resistors over the decades, further shifting the resonant peak etc. The guitars themselves were made of old growth mahogany - some likely centuries old when the rain forests were 'open season'. It was incredibly resonant etc. If it was just as simple as wax potting we wouldn't have to pay £400+ for replica PAFs hehe. There's a ton of hoodoo/voodoo involved and very few people left alive know how to reproduce the tone. I know of only one who really can do it with modern components and he's 70 years old .. !
Dave Stephens of SDPickups. Last of the real 'artists' when it comes to as close a replica of the real deal as you can get with modern materials. In his own words: "There's much more I don't talk about and never will, since I make my only living making these pickups, there's 16 years of true industrial reverse-engineering that I did, that no one else ever did or ever will again. Its not "gentrification" nor is it "booteek." It was a single nut case OCD obsessive guy (ME) who got stuck on this idea that there were real reasons those pickups sounded better than anything since then (my opinion) and that it should be possible to reproduce much of what they do. Well I proved that, but there can never be 100% true replicas made without getting that old wire made again, so I hit about 95-98% close, which was more than I hoped for. I have alot of videos comparing genuine vintage PAF's, including a super rare 1959 double white set, worth about $12,000, all in the same guitar, no pedals, no tricks. So you can judge for yourself. And no these are not handwound, never. Gibson never hand wound any pickups they made and we not only reverse-engineered PAF's, we did Charlie Christian, P13's, P90's, PAF's, early Patents, PAF mini-humbuckers, and early and late TTops. I had to look at everything they made to see the full picture, and it was all about materials and evolving materials improvements that were more high tech, but not good for pickup tones."
Jimmy Page once said that with a little bit of distortion, a Les Paul could sound just like a telecaster. That sure holds true to the old les paul sound
Always noted that about his LP sound, especially live. Pretty thin for a LP, with the amp settings and strings. It's like when he moved over from the Tele, he wanted to keep some of that sound. I've always considered his LP tone to be "fenderish" compared to guys like Joe Perry or Ace Frehley.
Crashoverall - it's funny I think my more recent Tele can be made to sound like a Les Paul, the instrument I used to play more. The Tele bridge and middle position are closest to my heart as guitar tones and Les Pauls are close to those sounds. Harder to love Strats because they can easily be so "brittle tin foil' sounding, they need way more tone help to sound good.
Surprisingly I really like the neck pickup on the R7, but there's something magical happening in the pickups in the '57, especially that bridge pickup.
amazing video the 57 def more bell like however the r7 sustain was incredible I would take the r7 and look for some true paf reproductions or even a vintage set still save over 100 grand thank you sir
There wasn't a lot of winding consistency among the early PAF's according to the experts. The PAF's weren't potted. I remember an article in Guitar Player years ago when interviewing Seth Lover, who responded to the question of "which is the better pup, your original design or the recent patent pups"? Lover said he thought the current pups were better. It seems it's always about the created mystique. The old guitars are remembered/revered because of the great players who played the great foundation songs. It's the player who makes the guitar. No one should believe that just because you have a specific guitar, whether it's 60 years old or straight out of a Custom Shop that it will quickly make you a better player. That takes years of dedication and hours upon hours of practice.
The R7 doesn't have that top end "sparkle" that the 57 has. You said "brittle" and I know what you're getting at. There's this clarity in the top end that sounds like someone took a blanket off of the amp compared to the R7. A big difference is the the pots and capacitors as well - not just the pickups.
Very true. It would have been nice to hear the sounds of the volumes at different levels since this is where the capacitors work (they don't affect the wide open tone, pots do a bit) For one thing, the R7 might have 300k pots which will darken things to start with.
That was an excellent comparison. Keeping it very short and switching back and forth works the best. What would be really interesting is to swap the pickups and see if there is as much of a difference between the two guitars. I doubt your friend would ever let you do that but it would put to rest some theories about whether the guitar itself is any better.
thanks for this honest, beautiful comparing. I would prefer the ´57 sound - more open, sweet sounding - and we can hear in your great playing how you also love it. It seem to inspire you very well!
I'd like you to try a good hand made one against the vintage ones, the old ones are very different to modern ones imo and you're right they're clear as a bell and bright sounding or the ones I've tried
Well Mr Chris, there is a difference ,just not alot, im sure it would b diff in front of ur amp, altho iv taken the 12"spkers from my home stereo n replaced with 12"celestion v30.And sounds more like a guitar amp but still. Its not nite n day. A wise man once said guitars are a wonderful thing but their just wire n wood its the man or woman thats behind them which makes them a thing of beauty. Sound familiar. Good day mate.
Thanks Glenn. And though Gary Moore had a special connection with Greeny, and Eric did with the Beano burst, those were fleeting examples of the right guitar matching up with the right player - and in either case the same guitar might have not been nearly as magical for Beck or Gibbons. And as we know Clapton never found an equal to that heartbreaking guitar, also you can assume he would easily afford another real burst. There are SOME guitars that we EACH would personally bond with more than others, and a lot of that would be happenstance -- it could equally be a 1950s or a 1990s guitar. So maybe the lesson is don't be too closed off about any guitar, and also practice a lot so you can one day meet with & recognize your musical equal.
Can't thank you enough for making this video! I thought I was crazy hearing the difference between a burst and reissue but now I know the difference is real. I was always comparing different players using different rigs so I was thinking the difference was not as big but it is.
The R7 probably has burstbuckers ( Have a set in my R8 sunburst ) really like them, they use A2 magnets, The 57 probably has A5's when they were new. I've noticed some old mags lose very little while others get really weak. That mag difference would make the difference you hear in the pickups. I've done a lot of magnet swapping in pickups over the years and it makes quite a difference.
After carefully listening to both guitars I can confirm that Chris Buck sounds amazing.
The R7 is pretty damn good. Although you can hear the extra chime in the original ‘57 and a bit more clarity, they aren’t miles apart. I wonder what the R7 would be like in a few more years?
Breath of fresh air, a demo that allows you to hear the instrument and not smothered by drive and technique.
Jeffrey Adams Thank you so much Jeffrey! Very kind of you ☺️
I couldn't agree more
hear hear!
how is technique smothering?
@@MM-vs2et Playing notes smaller than an 8th note is a huge tone suck, don't you know?
I tried my best to be impartial, but my love for anything old just took over. I should have just listened with my eyes closed. I kept seeing the rusted screw heads and the cracked lacquer and my braim went to mush!😂 The '57 sounded so sweet!👍😎🎸🎶
The '57 sounds brighter and the notes are more defined. The R7 sounds a tad muted. That's the best description I can give, Chris. As always, love your playing.
I hear the same i belive its in the pickups more than anything and maybe the fact that wood had time to dry out
Couldn't agree more and the '57 "sings" more. Not a Les Paul fan myself by any stretch of the imagination, but with the sound of the '57 I'd be quite happy!
Fran K
I’d say it’s the pots. 550k pots would open that sound up. It’s a $40 and 20 minutes Mod that saves you £100,000.
@@ThemFuzzyMonsters Pot resistance only matters if you turn them down. Wide open, they're just bypassed.
Flavum
In theory, yes. In practice there is always a bit of resistance left in the circuit.
I have the hardest time getting that across to people that these typical "PAF" sounds from pick up manufacturers are too bassy and dark sounding. All the classic gibson humbucking sounds are very bright.
Fun fact: Jimmy Page is quoted as saying that the reason he went from playing Telecasters to Les Pauls live was because they sounded "pretty much like a Telecaster, without the hum". Of course, back then a 59 Les Paul was pretty much like a 59 Jazzmaster in the 80s: an "old fashioned" guitar found on pawn shops for cheap.
Still, I think you should check out the Eric Johnson pickups by Dimarzio... You'll be pleasantly surprised!
Look up Wizz and Rewind pickups. Spendy but right on the ball as far as classic PAF tones go.
Yes it's lots of marketing bs largely isn't it. I suppose these modern 'PAF' pickups have to cater for everyone and to sound reasonable through all sorts of amps. To wake up these pickups I find setting the screws according to the neck radius really helps and set the slots in this formation /\/\/\ (that last bit I'm not sure if it's crap or not) I would say set the B and A poles flush, the two E strings screw in, and D and G will be highest. Also modern Gibsons have as low as 280k pots so switch those to 500k and put a 470pf treble bleed cap on there and you might find you win back that twang!! I have just done all this in my latest video! :)
I Agree - Classic PAF are much brighter than most people think. They are very clear and sound great with overdrive because you don't lose that clarity.
Aaron W. Yep that will be it. Decades of searching but some guys have found the right way but its won't be cheap. Why it isn't cheap..... well they probably have build a pyramid around the pickups, scattered some vintage bs around it and so you have...... an expensive story.
The 1957 sounds a bit better to me, but it's probably because it contains more asbestos.
Lol...crack me up !
🤣🤣🤣
Haha, its probably radioactive as well
😂😂😂
definately more sparkle on the vintage
if the 57 was the one that sounded darker like the r7, and we were told the thinner sounding one was the r7, would we all be saying "wow tthe 57 is so thick and warm, and the r7 is thin and clanky"? lol its a matter of perspective..
fawbak. Exactly
I've noticed same thing. When the old ones sound brighter they're clear and defined and the new one muddy, if the old one is darker it's warm and smooth and the new one is bright and thin. Or that seems to be how people describe them.
Or a matter of what your ear hears!!
@@bradt.3555 The new one is bright, clear but fat in the midrange , the old one is dark, muddy but thin in the midrange.
@@SAGABIJO2 Not sure what you mean, I was actually being a bit sarcastic about how people tend to describe a new one and an old one.When new is bright it's thin and harsh, the vintage one when bright is described as clear and articulate, same with darker. when new is darker its muddy but if vintage is darker it's warm. Personally I think they both sound good, just a matter of taste. I've heard new ones I like better than vintage ones and vice-versa.
man there is not a 100k diference between them xD both sound the same to me, the r7 sound just a little bit brighter, but you can compensate with eq if you want the 57 sound...
Holy shit, you have the touch and heart of a player with 60 years of experience. Thank you. Touched me.
That 57 is the best sounding Les Paul I've ever heard. Just tonal bliss. Great demo, we're really hearing the guitar speak to us. Thank you for this, and great playing 😊
Assuming that a player's skill is much more important than an instrument's tone, here are the two observations that actually address the monetary difference. All else is in good fun.
- To the collector, the vintage instrument is an investment that gambles on the enduring popularity of vintage music and personalities.
- To the player, it makes no sense to put wear on a treasure when the new instrument can come close enough to dial it in with the right sound gear.
I kept rewinding back to 9:00 just to hear you play. Beautiful...almost haunting. Some of my favorite sounds! Thank you.
The 57 sounds MAJESTIC! Absolutely no hype about some of these old originals. That is one of the "great ones"
There were some old originals that we well not as great as this one. Definitely a stand out one.
The R7 is no slouch either and considering it is made to Mimic one of the great old ones i think anyone
that cannot afford a old original would be more than set with that R7. I know i would be! 😆
Excellent comparison playing, as expected. The tonal qualities of the guitars come through well. The PAFs do have a fat single-coil vibe to them, like a good Tele with a touch of mid boost. What you say about them not being complete humbuckers is true based on my experience too. The coils tend to be a bit mismatched, so they do hum a little.
I've yet to find a humbucker that I prefer over any permutation of a single coil. I only have two guitars with humbuckers, and one of them has P-Rails that I put in to replace the stock pups. The other is a Heritage with "Seth Lover" "PAF-style" humbuckers, and, much to my chagrin, its tonally the most "dead" of any of my other guitars.
I'm an adept guitar tech with a decade of experience. Every other guitar I own plays like butter, and sounds exactly how I want it to. No matter what I do, I can't bring that Heritage to life. It's a bummer. It makes me think that the only option is to swap out the humbuckers for something more lively. Or maybe just come to accept that guitar for what it is. But I love single coils. They always sound "alive" to me. Complex, in a way that humbuckers usually don't.
You play from the soul my friend! Been playing the old six string since 1996. 22 years later and I’m still fascinated by the instrument. Took me a good 15 years to start playing from within rather than my fingers. I’m sure you understand. ✌🏻🕶🎶
They both sound absolutely beautiful and I’d feel honoured and blessed to own either...
Mate, I really enjoyed listening to this comparison and your playing, so much so I did it several times.
The 57 to my ear sounded smoother but it's like buying a new TV. When they are all next to each other I can tell the difference but once I get it home I'm happy with what I've got! ;)
Again, great video thanks for the opportunity to listen to both.
The '57 definately has it in terms of 'warmth' and clarity. Money difference is impossible to judge. Everyone's personal wealth and financial circumstances is different. To a billionaire it would be well worth it to have the best sound you can get. If you are struggling for meals, less so !
I like em' both, but the 57 definitely sounds more musical on the treble side, to my 68 yo ears anyway. Maybe a different cap in the R7 would yield closer fidelity?
Real question: will the reissue sound like the vintage in 60 years?
probably, pickups do age.
Well the materials used make the aging different, a lot of the woods were already 100 years old
No. Modern Gibson PAF's don’t sound like single coils.
YOOOOO
No
Well....they're astoundingly similar! Good job Gibson for nailing it! Minute sound differences aside, that '57 is MOUTHWATERING simply for being what it is!
An analogy.
Ride a 1967 Triumph Bonneville versus the modern version. The new one looks like the vintage bike, and even sounds like the vintage bike (with a bit of tweaking, and cash), but the feel and the joy of blasting down a few back roads is different.The new one is solid, dependable, firm and responsive to rider input and starts first press of the electric start. The vintage bike is lighter, flickable, has poorer brakes and has to be kick started. In other words, it has to be ridden. It smells right, sounds right and the patina of decades cannot be faked. It might leak a bit of oil, and need a lot more pampering and take a few kicks to start. It’s visceral, raw and inspiring and to the initiated brings a lump to the throat. Which would I rather have?
‘Nuff said. See you next Friday at The Cluny mate.
bakters all very true, but my account was an analogy not a review. Old versus new of ostensibly the same thing. Yes, I know they’re not and Britain lost its motorcycle industry because the Japanese built them better, cheaper and more reliable. But that’s straying from the topic somewhat. For what it’s worth I ride a brand new Honda.
Yeah, I get what you were trying to say. I just thought it was the perfect analogy to current vintage guitar craze. With bikes you can measure things, so it's blindingly obvious that newer stuff is so much better than the old tech.
With that said, would I mind a side-valve BMW, even if I'm sure it "objectively" sucks? Would I ever? Oh, that would be awful! It would rust a lot, with all that drool on a gas tank. ;-)
bakters ha ha! It’s not just me then. So many bikes, so many guitars!
I saw a video where world-class violinists compared old violins to newer ones. They preferred to sound of the newer ones. They didn’t talk about the vibe of the instruments. “Soul” goes a long way when you’re talking about art vs. the drag strip. My old R7 was very much like the model Chris is playing here, but I bet its vibe could not compete with the real thing. And THAT is why I refuse to play a vintage instrument... I don’t need to feel n love with something I can’t afford. 😂
To be fair, he just said it was an analogy - not a valid/good one ... ...
Given Gibson's long experience and success with the P-90, it makes sense that they would wind their new Humbucker to sound as close to it as possible. The idea behind the Humbucker was just to eliminate the 60-cycle hum of the P-90 single-coil pickup, not to deliberately and radically change the sound.
Accordingly, the early PAF tone emphasized the upper mids more than later Humbuckers.
Clapton's "Beano Burst", as recorded and processed on the "Beano" album is quite bright, far brighter than many remember it to be. A new listen will reveal much.
Now, this may be a matter of studio micing, EQ, mastering, etc., but it also may be the essential sound of his particular guitar. He has said that he admired Freddie King's LP Goldtop P-90 sound (Stepping Out, etc.) and has also said that he wanted to sound as close to that as he could.
As LPs were quite rare in GB in the mid-'60s, he bought what could find. If there had been an LP with P-90s available, I'm pretty sure he would have gone for it.
Nevertheless, I think that he succeeded in getting the sound that he wanted. The PAFs in his Burst did not fail him in this endeavour.
Don't care much one way or the other about the slight sound difference between the guitars but your playing is great as always. Thanks for all the time and effort you put into your videos. Very well done.
First off, I’m having those licks thank you very much 😉 Second, the R7 pickups are much more compressed to my ear. The 57 is much more open and articulate. I think there’s a common misconception that Les Pauls should have high output, beefy sounding pickups. To my ear, the best sounding vintage pickups are low output allowing that clarity and openness to ring through. This 57 is a perfect example of that 👍🏻
Chris- you are an absolutely beautiful player, thank you for sharing with all of us.
The real 57 definitely has a “spanky crispness” that the R7 lacks. Greg Koch once said old 57-60 Les Pauls are like Telecasters on steroids. I’d say that’s a very suitable analogy!
Cheers!
The R7 lacks nothing. They both sound phenomenal.
Justed wanted to thank you for playing actual music this old recipe was created for. Killer touch and feel. And thanks for not pluggin in preamp-heavy thing with modulated delays in the loop. Both lesters are great.
It is the neck pickup !!! The R7 sounds very muddy in comparison !! The 57 has that sustain thing as well... I know which I prefer , but I am biased !! Just a note the ABR-1 and stop tailpiece came in earlier around 1955-6. 57 was the first year of the PAF's and these examples were non- stickered..
cliverkay Ah, cool! Cheers for the info Clive 🙂 And thanks again! 😉
This shows why the most common thing I get asked to do to Historic series Gibsons ( apart from glue the headstock back on lol) is swap out the pickups, a really good readily available not too expensive and pretty authentic pickup is the Duncan antiquity . This swap gets you very much closer and sometimes the real thing is not as nice as the one you play here. Nice fair demo and good dynamic playing really illustrates the point.
The prices on vintage instruments is not always based on better sound, it is mostly based in the collectibility value. The fact that you can no longer acquire an original 57 Les Paul "new" and the limited production is the real reason for the high value.
I'm pretty sure the '57 sounded just like the R7 when it was brand new. When pickups age, the coils get a bit loose and thus don't sound like they used to when they were new. Not the mention the many cycles of wood expanding and contracting, the lacquer hardening, etc. Bottom line: If you want that sound, there's no substitute for the original '57. If you want the sound of an old recording of a then new '57, buy the reissue.
The question "Is there a $500,000 (or equivalent British Pounds) difference between a "50s Les Paul and the modern version" is completely irrelevant. Sound and playability have nothing to do with value. The value lies in the fact there were less than 2000 of these instruments made between approx. 1957 and 1961, and only around 1700 survive. The value to collectors lies in the rarity, the original date of manufacture, and the historical importance. That goes for all guitars, unlike violins etc. where a Stradivarius or Guarneri etc. are the gold standards of sound.
i have a little problem with this,,sorry.....the best guitar is the 59`gibson les paul.....and if the guitar has a name he is not payable for normal user.
like the guitar from waren hames....a 59`given from gary moore.....and he got it from peter greene....so its a guitar that you never can buy^^
In addition to the Joe Palooka answer, guitars are instruments made of wood. Cool, so what? The sound you listen is directly related to the material used to build it. That's why prices of older guitars are so high. How come, you say? Well, Gibson´s manufacture process changed through the years. Guitars were made with high-quality wood at first then changed progressively to cost-effective combinations.
While the effect of wood is controversial (I myself don't doubt it) I don't see why Gibson or somebody wouldn't bring out a guitar using the original specs to capture the original sound. The cost range for a Les Paul Standard is pretty high and I don't see why they couldn't use the best wood and wind the pickups as they did in 59. Peter Green's guitar had an incorrectly wound pickup which some say contributed to his sound; if so, you could duplicate that.
Your explanation begs the question a bit. You are saying they are valuable because they are scarce but then not explaining this absolute correlation you made. Many guitars are about as scarce but not nearly as valuable. Rarity by itself isn't value. The good to excellent PAF Les Pauls besides being rare offer particular qualities of tone and even beauty, which you don't mention. So the rarity in this case is significant partly from the demand based on certain qualities, something I think you left out.
Now if some PAF Les Pauls are poor examples and only very valuable to collectors by association to good examples, that is only a truism. Some PAF LPs are dogs yet exception doesn't change the rule. You can also have a mint 61 custom color Strat that is worth 30k yet it's a terrible musical instrument. This collector-only valuation doesn't really explain the general phenomenon of either model of instrument in terms of sound and what they mean in intrinsic terms - values reflected in market price.
DucksDeLucks - ahh, to the wood debate - some of the illegal replicas by Max, Derrig and Guitar Clinic are supposed to be very close, whether they use similar old-growth woods of the same correct 1950s source I could not say in every case but I believe that is often the idea. Some had PAFs. The ones I've seen seem to differ noticeably from newer Gibsons.
God, that 57 sounds incredible !
the 1957 is gorgeous. But that R7 would keep me happy. Nice demo.
Old 57 is warmer and has a more interesting tone
Yep, the 1957 is clearer, amazing tone, piercing highs.
The R7 is also fine.
Is the tonal difference worth it? Not even close unless you are Slash, Jimmy Page, or Peter Frampton and you will make up the difference on record sales
HAH record sales, remember those?
I listened without seeing which one you were playing and to my ear the 57 was the winner. Great video! Thank you.
Hey Chris, see you’re doing it again! It all starts off great with chord comparisons and then it all goes wrong when you start that playing magic and I lose all sense of which is which and get lost in the playing. Hope you are well. Have a great tour. 👍🤘🏻🎸👍🤘🏻🎸👍🎸😁😁😁
Simon Williams Haha. Thank you mate! ☺️
First - EXTREMELY awesome playing! You definitely have a nice touch!
So first thing I noticed is the R7 is darker. There is definitely more 'snap' in the 57.
I like the neck pups on both. Nice.
I actually preferred the middle pos on the R7.
The 57 bridge is down right AWESOME! Holy smokes, that is THE tone and is what your paying for!
But for $100k plus, no. I would rather buy the R7 and shop for pickups that deliver the tone.
BTW: While you're in Newcastle, please keep your eyes out for a 79 Les Paul Standard Burgundy, and a 78 Stratocaster natural ash body w/rosewood board that was stolen from me about 35 years ago...... I would not mind getting those two back someday.
LOL!
It is actually 100,000 £ more....
as its been said, An R. series lp will get you 90% there...
I agree. That middle position R7 was sweet. Neck 57 pick up is as good as it gets.
Wow I’m early. My Friday ritual. Coffee, That Pedal Show, then Friday Fretworks. Never disappoints! Wow expensive wood 🤯😱. I thought vintage strats were expensive and ridiculous. ‘57 is a little brighter/clearer. Treble bump on the EQ if it mattered at all.
David D Haha. Cheers David. And absolutely; vintage Les Pauls are another level altogether 🤯
The `57 sounds absolutely stunnig....incredible clarity of tone on every PU position
The 57 is definitely brighter! I did some work with Mick Taylor from the Stones a few years ago, and he plays a 50's burst... Noticeably brighter than modern Les Pauls! Perhaps that was part of the magic, the clean sparkle! Noticed this on a 53' goldtop I played a few years back, the P90's were different sounding, too!
Mick taylor is one of my earliest influences. When i saw the movie "Gimme shelter" in the theater back in 74 i was Hooked!
Fun fact, if you want this bright sound on a modern humbucker put a treble bleed inductor on the volume control. Then as you turn the volume down the tone will get brighter. You can get a really nice variation of sounds on any guitar this way.
basically indistinguishable to my ears on the laptop, but I'd like to say this is BEAUTIFULLY LIT!!! looks super natural. Great job!
thanks for playing just you and the amp. not like most guys who oversaturate the sound with their pedals
i liked the 57 for cleans, R7 for the dirtier riffs. Both beautiful guitars though - and some seriously mean chops!!
Slow and clean, you got the right formula for comparisons. Distortions and hundreds of notes per beat serves only to give us a major headache. Well done.
The '57 sounds more bitey-and spikey, with a brighter tone. The R7 sounds warmer and has a bit more bloom across the spectrum.
They're both wonderful. Visually, the '57 looks nicer with that aged finish. But sound wise, I actually preferred the R7. All this stuff is subjective. I can see why plenty of other people would prefer the crisper tone of the '57.
I did this test blind just so I couldn’t be biased and I really liked the R7 better. The tone was smoother and I thought it sustained just as well as the ‘57. There is a sweetness about that R7 that I loved. Which is good news, I guess - because I can save up for an R7...
Both sound unique but the 57 has nicer harmonics possibly due to older wood.. great playing!
The first impression is two fold. The R7 pickups have a thicker tone and more output over the '57's mellowed by age character. While it is difficult to hear, the '57's tone definitely has benefited from 60 years of the wood maturing. The R7's tone presents as being ever so slightly stiffer. While both are wonderful guitars, the R7 would be the practical choice. For the sonic difference, the '57 is a collector's guitar, not worth the risk of gigging with such a expensive, irreplaceable guitar. Even iconic guitarists,who can afford it, utilize reproductions of their vintage Les Pauls.
With the exception of Joe Bonamassa who always takes several of his vintage guitars when he tours. Gibson Fenders doesn’t matter he takes em and uses them.
Great video! Great playing! In my opinion the 57 got that "mojo" of harmonics and transients that are priceless!
your playing distracted me from the main point of the video you took me to another world with your lovely melodies
Thank you so much Nefzi :)
Honestly, as always, guitars are all about perception and expectations. All I care about is a great player, and you are the one.
Sure it's not a 100k difference, but difference is definitely noticeable...
I heard the difference blind comparing the neck and middle positions for sure.
You would almost need scatter hand wound pickups with uneven turn counts on the Reissue to even compare the two guitars, but there's also sixty year old hide glue and lacquer, much older first-growth wood and Centralab pots to account for...
the 57 sounds like it's EQ'd, scooped
it's pretty amazing how quiet and dynamic it is,, after hearing it the R7 sounds like pure dark mids.
being mostly a fender player and a p90 player I don't know if the R7 would inspire me but I would not be able to put the 57 down
especially that neck pickup sounds almost as clear as a bridge pickup or the middle pickup on a strat
Honestly didn't think the sound difference would be that dramatic!
What'd you hear?
The 57 had a little more high end and wasn’t as dark and full sounding. Like he said, brittle, but it sounded more complex.
As much as I’m loathe to admit it, I definitely prefer the way the ‘57 sounds. For the money though I’d take the R7! Absolutely brilliant sound.
Both great guitars but WoW the 57 is well balanced and has a real sweet harmonic ..just got that something very special ...great tones
Superb video and playing. Thanks for making these and capturing the history… 👍😎
Guess its a matter of preference, I actually prefer the R7. I own/ play a 78 deluxe and I never heard or played a guitar i'd trade it for.
Len T I have a 74 and feel the same...
Finally. I wonder in a blind comparison what people would like the best.
The original 57 has a crystalline bell resonance to each note. The reissue still sounds quite lovely.
I agree and hear it the same way. That 57 sounded majestic and very tele like which is what a
great Les paul sound sound like.
57s seemed so clear. Bliss. Thanks.
I’ve played one 59 and a 60/1 which were both great to say I played and they’ve were different but not better than the custom shop reissues. I played an early 50’s conversion that was chefs kiss. The perfect guitar
Just stopped by to tell I love your channel and your awesome playing.
And BTW, I prefer the '57 pups.
Less darker sounds, more 'singing' tones.
I hear the difference, but I don't know which I prefer. My Dad had a late 50's Gold Top with the matching alligator look amp. I enjoyed playing it - incredible action! He either sold it to purchase or traded it on a 1966 Martin D-28 when the Martin was new. I only imagine the value difference today! Good postings. Thanks!
I thought the 57 sounded better clean but the R7 sounded better with overdrive. I have an R7 and those necks are thick, baseball bat time. It' still a great guitar though, very loud, great playing as usual Chris
I love my R7 bc of the (cut in half) baseball bat neck
I can definitely hear that tele tone to the 57 bridge pickup. The 57 has a woody tone that is not in the R7 which has a little more mid. hey are both very nice but WOW, the 57 has soul. Great show and playing by the way.
Great vid. Much better to demonstrate in that touch-based way than showboat the pants off them. Compressed youtube but the differences still seemed clear - much snappier sparkle and grunt from the '57. Makes you wonder why Gibson couldn't get the R7 closer if that was the intention. Either way, top playing and keep it up!
I completely agree at the pickups on the 57 sounded much clearer and articulate. That seems to be a theme with all of the vintage 50s les Paul's versus new Les Paul videos circulating. I believe Greg Koch said the sound of a vintage Les Paul PAFs are similar to sounds from a set of low output Telecaster pickups in a UA-cam video and I would have to agree that there are similarities.
R7 sounds higher output and muddier. But not necessarily worse just different. The 57 to me just sounds like a good quality telecaster. The 3rd riff you play sounds just like mr honore playing his purple tele to me.
xWILZTAx Nail on the head for me. There’s definitely a lot of Telecaster in these old LPs. Somehow!
Josh Smith is of the same opinion. He was so obsessed with the clarity of a vintage Gibson he was lent to play and that he couldn't find in modern Les Pauls, that had a luthier make a copy of the vintage.
@@ChrisBuckGuitar my 2014 LPJ sounds exactly like Tele on bridge and clean amp
Fantastic playing! Loved the demo, it is nice to hear someone that knows what good guitars can do in a talented players hands. I appreciate the fact that you weren’t running through an OD pedal. There is quite a bit of variability in reissue Les Pauls. The custombuckers (2013 on) have much of the same characteristics I am hearing in the 57. Throbak also makes a great PAF copy with their 101 pickups.
You did both guitars justice, very tastefully played.
The 57 wins it for me, what an awesome piece of musical history.
Crisp, well defined and totally balanced. And sustain for days :-)
Just out of curiosity, which one did you prefer to play?
Jan Groosmuller Honestly hard to say. The R7 was fantastic to play and felt very new. The 57 has loads of mojo and was very inspiring to play but had one or two idiosyncrasies that you would expect of something that’s 61 years old. On balance, probably the 57 for it’s cool factor 🙂
@@ChrisBuckGuitar VERY DIPLOMATIC ANSWER, THE TRUTH IS THERE BETWEEN THE WORDS...
'They are just 2 lumps of wood bolted together' 😂😂😂 Great description
Craig Miller Glued would be the right expression… 😉 but what about the magic ?
I didn’t really watch, more just had it on in the background and couldn’t notice a lot of difference between the two. At least not a dramatic difference as some are noting. Wonderful playing btw.
The 57 sounds cleaner than the R7 on all settings. I'd be willing to pay $1000 USD for the difference.
The 57 sounds nice here. My opinion, as long as any guitar sustains well it doesnt matter what it is. Collectors have pushed the prices up so in short no there is not 100k difference. Just put some appropriate pick ups in a modern production guitar and go for it! Nice nice playing mate, subscribed!
At least 80% and probably more of guitar tone is the amp and player. A great guitar can make that special difference but what you mainly hear in great recordings is a really great player who would still sound like a legend with a $500 guitar.
Do you have a good exercise for those grace note slides that you do? It's a really cool technique that I'd like to incorporate into my playing. It reminds me a lot of Derek Trucks.
With soulful playing like that - who cares about the guitars really? But I happen to like gold paint.
R7 neck is def a little tighter sounding. Same for middle position. Treble is brighter on the 57. Which one did you enjoy the most? I have a studio and the sound is great. I play it through a blackstar solid state since my tubes don't seem to bring out its true sound.
These pups are very different in that the early original 57 Paf's were not wax potted... the new Gibson 57's are wax potted and thats where the loss of clarity comes from on the R7... The Seymour Duncan Seth Lover models are not wax potted... i would be curious to compare that original 57 to another Gibson loaded with Duncan Seth Lovers and see how they sound side by side... that would be an apples to apples there lol... Blessings, Mark
you might be right, the pickups in my R8 are unpotted and have similar liveliness to the 57 here, and some of the untamed character as well.
While the potting is certainly a factor there are so many other factors that make the PAF special. Most of which are not really understood even today.
Potting will make a difference yes but so too will the composition of the alnico magnets (which were officially recorded as one grade e.g. A5 but would have been whatever they could get cheapest from the suppliers and could have been anything!), the gauss (charge) of the magnets (they were tossed in a tray and charged by hand resulting in radically different/chaotic charges per magnet), the dimensions of the magnets (completely different to today), the coil winding patterns where some would be super tight adding extra capacitance and some super sloppy or wildly offset (the Leesona machines they used were worn out so the gears skipped all over the place during the wind and the Gibson workers didn't use turn counters), the mettallurgy of 1950's copper wire (less pure than today), the film density and the chemical composition of the wire insulation, the mettalurgy of the pickup covers ('German silver') etc. That is all just in the construction of the pickups. There's a ton of the vintage tone in the wiring and potentiometers used then: all of which were nowhere near as tight tolerance as they are today. Finally the tone capacitors used were paper in oil and will have effectively become resistors over the decades, further shifting the resonant peak etc. The guitars themselves were made of old growth mahogany - some likely centuries old when the rain forests were 'open season'. It was incredibly resonant etc.
If it was just as simple as wax potting we wouldn't have to pay £400+ for replica PAFs hehe. There's a ton of hoodoo/voodoo involved and very few people left alive know how to reproduce the tone. I know of only one who really can do it with modern components and he's 70 years old .. !
wozzlepop And what is his name?
Dave Stephens of SDPickups. Last of the real 'artists' when it comes to as close a replica of the real deal as you can get with modern materials.
In his own words:
"There's much more I don't talk about and never will, since I make my only living making these pickups, there's 16 years of true industrial reverse-engineering that I did, that no one else ever did or ever will again. Its not "gentrification" nor is it "booteek." It was a single nut case OCD obsessive guy (ME) who got stuck on this idea that there were real reasons those pickups sounded better than anything since then (my opinion) and that it should be possible to reproduce much of what they do. Well I proved that, but there can never be 100% true replicas made without getting that old wire made again, so I hit about 95-98% close, which was more than I hoped for. I have alot of videos comparing genuine vintage PAF's, including a super rare 1959 double white set, worth about $12,000, all in the same guitar, no pedals, no tricks. So you can judge for yourself. And no these are not handwound, never. Gibson never hand wound any pickups they made and we not only reverse-engineered PAF's, we did Charlie Christian, P13's, P90's, PAF's, early Patents, PAF mini-humbuckers, and early and late TTops. I had to look at everything they made to see the full picture, and it was all about materials and evolving materials improvements that were more high tech, but not good for pickup tones."
wozzlepop Well said. It's all fascinating and intriguing.
Some VERY tasty licks here! The 57 sounded amazing to my hear, clear and deep sound.
Jimmy Page once said that with a little bit of distortion, a Les Paul could sound just like a telecaster.
That sure holds true to the old les paul sound
Always noted that about his LP sound, especially live. Pretty thin for a LP, with the amp settings and strings. It's like when he moved over from the Tele, he wanted to keep some of that sound. I've always considered his LP tone to be "fenderish" compared to guys like Joe Perry or Ace Frehley.
Crashoverall - it's funny I think my more recent Tele can be made to sound like a Les Paul, the instrument I used to play more. The Tele bridge and middle position are closest to my heart as guitar tones and Les Pauls are close to those sounds.
Harder to love Strats because they can easily be so "brittle tin foil' sounding, they need way more tone help to sound good.
Surprisingly I really like the neck pickup on the R7, but there's something magical happening in the pickups in the '57, especially that bridge pickup.
amazing video the 57 def more bell like however the r7 sustain was incredible I would take the r7 and look for some true paf reproductions or even a vintage set still save over 100 grand thank you sir
YOU CAN TRY IT WIL NEVER SOUND EVEN CLOSE.
The '56 with P90's also had the same tailpiece which was introduced earlier than 1957
There wasn't a lot of winding consistency among the early PAF's according to the experts. The PAF's weren't potted. I remember an article in Guitar Player years ago when interviewing Seth Lover, who responded to the question of "which is the better pup, your original design or the recent patent pups"? Lover said he thought the current pups were better. It seems it's always about the created mystique. The old guitars are remembered/revered because of the great players who played the great foundation songs. It's the player who makes the guitar. No one should believe that just because you have a specific guitar, whether it's 60 years old or straight out of a Custom Shop that it will quickly make you a better player. That takes years of dedication and hours upon hours of practice.
I now appreciate my 57 VOS even more. Thanks for the video comparo.
The R7 doesn't have that top end "sparkle" that the 57 has. You said "brittle" and I know what you're getting at. There's this clarity in the top end that sounds like someone took a blanket off of the amp compared to the R7. A big difference is the the pots and capacitors as well - not just the pickups.
glassy springs to mind.
Very true. It would have been nice to hear the sounds of the volumes at different levels since this is where the capacitors work (they don't affect the wide open tone, pots do a bit) For one thing, the R7 might have 300k pots which will darken things to start with.
What a load of pretentious cobblers🤨
That was an excellent comparison. Keeping it very short and switching back and forth works the best. What would be really interesting is to swap the pickups and see if there is as much of a difference between the two guitars. I doubt your friend would ever let you do that but it would put to rest some theories about whether the guitar itself is any better.
well that was rather joyous.
I prefer the 57 tones. I'd be fine with buying the R7 and trying to source vintage PUPs. The other $140k would stay in the bank. :)
I'll have one of each please!
thanks for this honest, beautiful comparing. I would prefer the ´57 sound - more open, sweet sounding - and we can hear in your great playing how you also love it. It seem to inspire you very well!
I'd like you to try a good hand made one against the vintage ones, the old ones are very different to modern ones imo and you're right they're clear as a bell and bright sounding or the ones I've tried
Well Mr Chris, there is a difference ,just not alot, im sure it would b diff in front of ur amp, altho iv taken the 12"spkers from my home stereo n replaced with 12"celestion v30.And sounds more like a guitar amp but still. Its not nite n day. A wise man once said guitars are a wonderful thing but their just wire n wood its the man or woman thats behind them which makes them a thing of beauty. Sound familiar. Good day mate.
Glenn Winburn Very true. Gear is important but having skills and knowing how to use- what you have- to it’s fullest potential is what is key.
Thanks Glenn. And though Gary Moore had a special connection with Greeny, and Eric did with the Beano burst, those were fleeting examples of the right guitar matching up with the right player - and in either case the same guitar might have not been nearly as magical for Beck or Gibbons. And as we know Clapton never found an equal to that heartbreaking guitar, also you can assume he would easily afford another real burst.
There are SOME guitars that we EACH would personally bond with more than others, and a lot of that would be happenstance -- it could equally be a 1950s or a 1990s guitar. So maybe the lesson is don't be too closed off about any guitar, and also practice a lot so you can one day meet with & recognize your musical equal.
Can't thank you enough for making this video! I thought I was crazy hearing the difference between a burst and reissue but now I know the difference is real. I was always comparing different players using different rigs so I was thinking the difference was not as big but it is.
neither guitar will write a great a song on its own or make you famous.
Very true, an Epiphone can sound beautiful in the right player's hands, nice to have, but not critical.
But you feel much more important with a 100 000 $ guitar. :D
Dumb.
Finding a guitar that speaks to you musically though...
The appeal of vintage is partly this,
The R7 probably has burstbuckers ( Have a set in my R8 sunburst ) really like them, they use A2 magnets, The 57 probably has A5's when they were new. I've noticed some old mags lose very little while others get really weak. That mag difference would make the difference you hear in the pickups. I've done a lot of magnet swapping in pickups over the years and it makes quite a difference.
silly money, whats the point when you can buy a gibson les paul killer '' yamaha sg2000'' for less.
Yeah, well dumbfucks are going to be dumbfucks and you're exhibit A. Congrats.
Or ''prs mccarty single cut 594''.