Heavy Les Pauls Made The Best Music
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- Baxter and Jonathan discuss why some of the best rock and roll was made on heavy Gibson Les Paul and why your bass player never complains about the weight of his bass!
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“Good tone is heavy and hard to carry” - Tom Bukovac
I think he meant amps when he said that.
I always loved heavy guitars and basses, but now that I'm an old man I love my SG.
I am not so tall, so I love my SGJ 2013 (weight about 3kg)!
@@DragonSlayer-hw8wl Yes!
I had a 1970 LP Custom that weighed close to 11 pounds. That guitar is a tone monster, even with the not so high output pickups it has. Wish I hadn't sold it.
I wish you had sold it to me.
I got a wah-wah pedal yesterday. First time I’ve ever really got down with one. I played for 8 hours straight. Didn’t even smoke a cigarette, couldn’t be bothered to go outside(bong hits were taken though). My lower back hurts today. I was kinda standing on one foot the whole time.
Level up boss defeated
My 82 Les Paul weighs in at 13.5 lbs. An absolute beast to wield.
YES! Billy Sheehan is a stud bassist. His work with Mr. Big and DLR is spectacular as well.
I have a 1976 Les Paul Deluxe, and a 1980 Les Paul Custom...BOTH are "boat anchors" but a nice neoprene 3" wide strap takes care of that issue, quite nicely. And, they are both "tone monsters" Norlin era be damned. Love 'em!!
My 68 Les Paul weighs 10lbs 13 oz. It was a Mike Ladd custom build, at least the pickups (double screws on each pickup), also neck and bridge wired out of phase for “greenie tone”. Still in love with it.
My 76 Les Paul Custom weighs close to 13 lbs. And I believe it sounds even better than my 2015 Paul. Of course you got to consider your pickups , on my 76 they are DiMarzios creams . My newer Paul has 57 classics . 🎸
I have one LP with the 57s, but the Burstbuckers in my Traditional sound much better. Though I love the 57s on my 335.
My 78 Standard has DiMarzio Cremes and was heavy as hell, it must've been the shag carpet fumes...
With effects these day's....just in the mind.... dial in .... Any tone under the sun with any guitar...
I love my 11 lb Les Paul, however as a petite woman ii is honestly very fatiguing to play it for long stretches. At 5 lbs I can practice on my 59 melody maker all night without feeling it. My playing improved because I could practice for longer.
I’m got an 82 custom at 12.5 lbs and am 80 custom at 11. Love ‘em heavy 🎸🤙
My main guitar is a 2003 Gibson Les Paul Standard (50s) in Heritage Cherry Sunburst. It weighs in at 10.8 pounds!
My 2014 Les Paul Anniversary Traditional weighs almost 10 pounds and it’s my favourite Les Paul from years of playing them. I’ve sold all the other ones which were all weight relieved. Lightweight guitars for lightweight players. Haha
Tonepilot, you talking about Ingvai Malnsteen, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vie, ect. They all played lightweight guitars.
Name of great guitarist who played the Less Paul.
Page mainly recorded using a Tele.
Just another reason to hit the gym! To be able to lift my Les Paul.
yeah - because that's what music is all about.
Well, Petrucci did it 🤷🏻♂️
A strong core is key in life in general.
Thanks Derek, for noting the work ethic and non complaining of bass players!
I have three Les Pauls from 2019 to 2021, so no weight relief, and all of them are under 9 pounds. My heaviest guitar of late was a Tele Deluxe that was almost 10. Certainly not the average, but it does happen.
I picked them all up at a local store except one, and I didn’t care about the weights. I do3 to 4 hour gigs standing while playing and singing harmony and lead. I’m 59 (this May), and I e been at it for decades. Also not the norm.
All that said, just because one person or even a group has an experience does not mean you will. Do what’s right for you.
Hi,
I bought my 1st "real" guitar in '78. A 1976 Les Paul Custom in wine red with chrome hardware. My gigging guitar back in the day. Weighed it recently: 9lb 6oz. It's tone and feel is worth every oz.
So, my heaviest guitar is a 79 KM cherry SB Les Paul. It weighs around 10 lbs as I recall. Maybe 10.2. Contrast that with my 72 Deluxe Goldtop, which is a full 2 lbs lighter. It is a very noticeable difference when holding both. The 79 was part of the first run, because it had the Custom-Made plaque behind the stoptail. It absolutely delivers on the tone and sustain from the creme bobbin HBs.
My '81 Custom is 9.90lbs. Love it. Warm&fuzzy.
Yes. Bass player's use wide straps to mitigate the weight.
So true, Heavy is best!!
Yep-bass player here. My Fender Jazz Marcus Miller edition weighs 10.1lbs. No big deal.
The average weight of vintage Bursts is around 8.5 lbs. These are the most sought-after Les Pauls, and they inspired all that came after. You are correct, the "heavy is better" came from the 70s boat anchors (not just Gibsons either).
Fast forward to today, when most Gibsons - Custom Shop included - have gotten heavier overall. I noticed this over the past few years. I can only assume that promoting the "heavy is better" mantra will help find these new boat anchors a loving home... just not mine, lol.
Specifications have become more important due to internet purchases and it totally makes sense. I like to know what I'm getting, even when it's hands-on. That's part of the reason why Fender CS instruments are cool because you get the Floor Traveler.
Even with a damaged shoulder, I am not a weight snob - there are a few ways around the discomfort of a heavy instrument. My lightest Les Paul is a Studio that weighs 7.8 lbs. It's the most resonant electric in my collection - including my Custom Shop Reissue.
(My heaviest instrument is a MIM Fender Cabronita Precision Bass @ 9.3 lbs.)
I traded in a gorgeous '17 Traditional Plus that weighed 9.75 lbs for my '17 R8/CC29 that weighs 8.5 on the money. I couldn't handle the weight of that Traditional... if it was a pound lighter I would've kept it. The difference between a heavy bass and a heavy guitar of the same weight is due to the distribution/balance of weight. That's why I don't mind a heavier bass.
Bernie Marsden 's beast is 4.5...
Just in case anyone stumbles on this comment, don't spread this misinformation. The "average weight of vintage bursts" is not 8.5 lbs. If we're talking legitimate bursts, 1958-1960 Les Paul Standards (not conversions, not special/juniors, not customs, and especially not reissues/replicas/post '60 Les Pauls), less than half of them are under 9 lbs and very few are under 8.5 lbs. Most of them are between the high 8s and high 9s, and I'd bet a chunk of cash that if there were consolidated records of all their weights (there's not), the average weight would fall somewhere north of 9 lbs. The idea that 8.5 lbs is the "perfect burst weight" is some internet mythology that gets passed around by folks that haven't had their hands on a burst, let alone enough of them to make that assertion. Talk to some folks who have owned and played multiple bursts and see what their favorites have weighed. I'll bet if you average those numbers it'd come in over 9 lbs too.
My Gibson LP standard weighs 11.5 and it rings like a bell
I play live (standing) 2-3 hours/set, 2-4 times/month, with a Fender Jazz bass Marcus Miller edition (10.1 lbs) and never 12:07 even think about it. I’m 64 years old, and have done that for decades
I find that heavy lp's are more resistant to squealing at higher gain, but lighter lp's are easier to coax desirable feedback at lower gain.
I started out on resonator banjos, so whenever someone says a guitar is heavy, I have to laugh a little inside.
Cork sniffer quality content
The weight difference really shines through a 65 deluxe with matched rca tubes from the same production run, and don't forget your vintage herco picks
I play bass and the weight doesn't bug me. I had an instructor tell me to wear my strap at the end of my shoulder, on the bones of the joint, because bone takes the weight better than tissue. I've taken that advice, and have never had any neck or shoulder problems or pain.
I have a Les Paul copy by Dillion Guitars. It weighs around 11 pounds and sounds great.
I have a Les Paul Standard and Strat that weigh a metric ton but I could care less! They are gorgeous and easily make the best tones. 😊
Heavy as an AK47. 🤘✌☠
Well, Yes. Absolutely.
I got a 73 standard new in 74 & weighs in at just under 13lbs! Endless sustain-had now for 50 years
I absolutely love a heavy guitar. There's some mojo to how they make me feel when I play - like I can be extra careless and play with energy. I don't feel like I'm breaking it. Maybe that extra energy is what subconsciously translates to a better tone. I find myself 'babying' light guitars a lot more whereas I play a heavy guitar like I stole it.
My first real good guitar was a 78 LPC, i never weighed it, but it was heavy, wish i still had it. I currently own, and love, a 2003 epiphone elite, modded with pearly gates pickups, sounds glorious, and weighs just over 11 pounds. A lead ingot wrapped in mahogany.....
Hear we go again let's all do a full flip again ,heavy is best,tubes not solid state heavy strings not light,u watch,every UA-cam guru starting with rhett will push this whole line of thought after deep solesearching while channeling the gohsts of the great ones for five years and then once again flip,oh , don't forget bufferd vs no bufferd pedals,huge big decisions to be made their!!!!
It's all just an excuse not to practice and apply one's self to the task at hand. It's so completely lame, it's just a spoiled brat syndrome.
"I can't play unless I have my __________, and my_______ , and the _________ has to be adjusted to precisely ________ ." Perhaps those who make all of those lame excuses have no music in them to begin with. Frank Zappa got it right: "Shut up and play your guitar"
"He ain't heavy, he's my Les Paul."
Heavy is the tone
I once picked up a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe at a Guitar Center that weighed every bit of 12 pounds. Awful. BUT everything lighter than that is fine 😂😂
Heaviest guitar I've ever played was a Fender USA Strat. My Les Pauls don't weigh much at all and they're awesome. My 61 Jr weighs like 6 pounds and sounds killer. I opt for the lighter guitars if possible. Heaviest guitar I own is a Gibson Explorer and it's still comfortable and maybe a little heavier than my Les Paul Traditional.
I am 99% sure that all of the guitarists who had heavy guitars would have still made the same songs with a lighter guitar. It is 95% person and 5% guitar when it comes to the real genius players.
Like you said, each guitar is unique. The weight only really matters if it's TOO DAMN HEAVY!
I had a 10-11 pound Epiphone Les Paul that sounded great, sustained great, played great, but every time I played it I pulled a muscle in my back. Basically sitting down, keeping it balanced, and lifting my right leg to stomp on pedals is what did me in. It made me sad to own it because I couldn't even play it without pain. Sure I could workout more, but I know I wont :-). Now I have a Gibson LP Standard that is just under 9 pounds. It sounds great, sustains great, plays great, and no more pulled muscles. By my experience, weight had nothing to do with the tone, sustain, etc., but I did discover that I seem to prefer a pain free guitar playing experience. Conclusion, I seem to like lighter guitars.
My Les Paul is 11 pounds. This video cheered me up.
My ''74 Standard is 9.2lbs. Sounds great. Back in that (my) day, we added brass stuff. Tail pieces, nuts, even knobs. That was THE thing back then.
I agree, but it was also that they were played thru 50 to 100 watt amps screaming loud. There is an acoustic coupling that can occur, think old Ted Nugent's endless feedback. Riding to the point od feedback, there is a sustain and resonance that I just cant seem to hear from the models trying to reproduce them. Also, it is kind'a funny some want a light guitar, but very heavy strings!
TO Note: I had a 60 black lp that came free from the front strap. My hands were putting a record on to practice with. The guitar fell down and the back strap point hit right on my big toenail. cracked it in half, and the army doctors had to remove the whole toenail. ...... memories lol. I was halfway thru swing it to the wall, when i realized it was my "guitar" and slowed and saved it.
This was back in 1977, germany while I was in the army. Record was probably one more from the road, Lynyrd
I have one of the new Pro II Strats in ROASTED PINE. Lightest guitar I’ve ever owned and maybe it’s the new pickups but this sucker sings! I have a severely damaged neck and playing standing for me ended about 5 years back. I’ve learned to sit with everything and not have it effect how I play. I figured Skunk Baxter can do it, so can I. Guitar weight will never stop me from owning something. Hell, I have a PRS McCarty 594 10 top that’s HEAVY but it is what it is.
The best sounding Strat I ever had was a 70s, weighed nearly 11lb. It was so full of mids, with tight lows that it could eat a Les Paul for breakfast and still have room for an Explorer. My current 8lb Strat is amazing but a totally different guitar to that 11lber.
My favorite Les Paul was 9.3lb. the heaviest Les Paul that I've owned. My current Les Paul is 8.8lb. It's the most resonant and 'sweet' sounding Paul that I've owned but does not have the chug of the 9.3lber.
I bought a guitar made by a local Luther a red oak explorer....it's a bit heavy but it's awesome....also a pecan strat,,,a teak strat and a walnut strat.....all local by the same maker......there unique and sound like strats.
I think weight distribution is actually a big factor how heavy a guitar feels. My Jazzmaster is a pretty similar weight to my Les Paul, but the Jazzmaster doesn't nearly feel like a boat anchor hurting my back. Perhaps its to do with the Jazzmaster's wider body and contours whereas a Les Paul is a smaller body and a thicker slab of wood.
It’s not so much the weight for me but the balance. I have an SG that had severe neck dive. And a Les Paul so bottom heavy you cannot play it sitting down because it wants to flip up. I never have had that problem with Fenders. The balance makes it way more playable for me.
I absolutely love my gibsons, they sound amazing… nothing beats the contoured body of a strat. Leo was right in the money with that one. Plus when you look at it from the side, it looks like a super car or space ship or something. Those lines are so beautiful to me. Maybe I just have a heightened appreciation of design or something.
I don't have a balance issue with my Gibsons (I don't own an SG ,lol) but I have encountered neck-dive on Fender basses. The worst offender is the Tony Franklin Fretless Precision. The 70s tuners, Hipshot Xtender, and ebony fingerboard makes them horribly off-balance. The solution is to install vintage-style Gotoh Res-O-Lite tuners (GBR640). I have them on 3 of my Fender basses (sometimes the Custom Shop uses them). Problem solved!
I had a custom once that was almost 12 lb and it played great but it was a heavy
Guitar.Does anybody remember the Queen album Jazz with fat bottom girls. Mine came with a poster of a nude all girl bicycle race.
And Queen were in the stands! Oh yes those were good days along with heavy guitars.
I have a 2022 Les Paul Classic that weighs 9.8lbs. It's a hoss. I only play it sitting down these days, so it doesn't matter. It has infinite sustain enough to make Nigel Tufnel not want to touch it. Playing it at a gig for 3 hours is gona leave a mark on your back... but I've never done it with this guitar.
I asked to see a Tele with a Bigsby that was at the very top row in a Guitar Center years ago. A guy went up a ladder to get it and as he was coming down the ladder he handed it to me and I almost dropped it. The thing was heavy enough to anchor a cruise ship. I handed it right back and said that will never work. It may have been the one, but I don’t care😂
What's up Jonathan Love you guitar playing bro
I’ve gotta have a lite guitar because of a car accident. But, my heavy LP does sound the best! I play three to four hours a days so weight matters to me.
Yeah man , gonna get a concrete LP because you know , sustain man. (places gun to head)
lololol
I put a steel plate in my les paul tribute and back filled it with wood and it weighs 18 lbs...it will totally blow any modern Gibson made today including a R9 custom shop model! Weight is better for tone!
Ian Faith:
"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful."
My R8 is 8.3 Lbs and my bad back is damn grateful for the light weight. It happens to sound great too.
I have an all mahogany single pickup guitar, 2 inches thick, that weighs 12+lbs. It's the best sounding guitar I own.
My Solar GC1.6 T-FAB and GC1.6 FRC single cuts have a nice weight to them.
Been playing for nearly 50 years and these Solar guitars are the best I’ve played. I have 5 now and want more !!
Cheers from NZ 😎🎸🤘
Heavy feels like quality to me. I'll grab the heaviest LP off the wall if I have tge choice. It just feels right.
When I started playing in the late 70's/early 80's, adding weight was all the rage, brass nuts, even brass plates to install on the headstock, adding Grovers, etc. Everyone said "tone is heavy". But... I have a 60th anniversary '60 Sunburst custom shop, 8lbs, one piece mahogany, it is incredible. I've seen the list of weights of vintage bursts, they hover around 8.5lbs. None of my basses weight 10lbs and I have 3.
I never cared until this issue kept coming up on line. So I weighed the family. The 2001 Tele Am Std and 2019 LP Studio Tribute are both 7.8 lbs, the 2011 Tele 1952 reissue is 6.8. The basses? Gibson EB-0 is 6.6, the 2013 Epiphone EB-3 is 10.00 and the 2018 Fender Jazz is 8.4. I will stick with my usual mo when shopping...does it look cool, does it feel good, does it sound great?
I have some boat anchors that sound fantastic. Do like light ones as well. I really don’t care as long as it sounds good!
Gibson started doing weight relief in the '80's, pretty sure people were tuned into the weight issue long before 2008..... On the GC thought though, now that a lot of people buy online, there's no side-by-side in-person comparison they can make so they take internet lore as advice. Personally I'll take my 2020 9 lb standard over my '76 12 lb Norlin era standard for many reasons, weight being one of them.
I have 9.5 lb les paul standard and a 10 lb les paul classic, love them both, weight was never an issue when I got them
I have about 35 guitars, mostly Gibson Custom shop and USA. Before hating, I'm in my 60's. There came a point in life that to have another guitar, I no longer had to trade or sell the one I was playing. I accrued these guitars over decades. I think the type of music you're playing has a lot to do with how much tone difference you hear between one and another. I've always played heavy rock with lots of gain on the amp. How a guitar responds to your input is another thing, and there seems more variance in my guitars in that regard, and making one favored over another.. I have several single cut LP's, Standard and Custom, all heavy but some less so. I have a dozen SG's, three ES models, etc. I was a Pat Travers fan in the late 70's and duped his pair of buckers on a '65 Melody Maker and that guitar killed. If owning all of these guitars has demonstrated one thing to me of which I'm fairly certain, I believe fatter/heavier necks may have a great deal to do with sustain, if not tone as well. My Tony Iommi SG has a baseball bat for a neck (yes it neck-dives like mad), and is still sustaining from the last time I played it. Compared to all the other SG's, it has a thicker, fatter, more LP-like sound. (And a few others have his Gibson signature PUs, so it's not that.) I'm always happy with any of my Gibby's when I pick them up. I think we tend to obsess over things that may have a placebo effect.
Bassists don't complain.
We stand and hold the world on our shoulders. Like Atlas.
We weighted all those guitars on the wall Saturday, 489 lbs!
The bursts just levitated in front of you and played themselves.
I've heard that Marty Stuart's original Parsons/White B-Bender Telecaster weighs about 14 lbs. I recently got a brand new Epiphone Standard 60's Les Paul which weighs 9lbs 11oz and that feels pretty chunky to me. Hats off to Mr. Stuart (who is in his early 60's) for playing that thing constantly since 1980 and still going strong.
Weight definitely was an issue back in the '70s - to the point where people would say you weren't a "real" guitarist if you weren't happy playing a 12 or 13 lb Les Paul all night! The sheer weight was the all important "rite of passage". I never bought into the bs and jumped at the Gibson "The Paul" when it was released, because it offered far better build-quality than Strats of the period and was a sensible gigging weight.
Ahh the daily dose of Baxter.
My 1978 Les Paul Standard weighed a ton! It was a great sounding and playing guitar, but I still don't miss it...
My parts-built Telecaster weighs 7.25 lbs and does pretty much everything the Les Paul did... once I figured it out, I really didn't need Les Paul anymore.
Subconsciously, all guitar players are drawn to a guitar that is exactly the weight they were when they were born.
Damn my kids gotta get an 11 lbs guitar now?
I am one of the few people/musicians I know that like heavy guitars over light. Its a sound and the substantial feel for me. My heaviest guitar is a Travis Bean which is also my fav guitar and that weighs 13lbs. I have 4 Jerry Garcia Wolf copies and those are 10.5-11 lbs each. My Gibson LPs weight 9.5lbs roughly. My lightest guitar (electric wise) is my new Yamaha Rev Star i just got. But that guitar is so well balanced it makes that guitar a joy to play compared to some other lighter guitars. Even my G&Ls weight 8.5+ lbs each. I pickup a Fender and it doesnt have enough weight to it. I know it sounds crazy but i link heavy with quality and in 30+ years of playing this has been true to me. More sustain. Oomph. Just like a SG sounds different than an LP. The LP has oomph to it that a SG just doesnt have. But tone is subjective, so im sure there are people who claim heavy guitars sound like crap haha.
I have had shoulder surgery and lower back and neck surgeries. I still like heavy guitars haha. Ill play thru any pain to get that sound and feel that a heavier guitar offers. But if you stand properly with a heavy guitar and dont let your back lock up standing in a weird position, you can get away with playing a heavy guitar like i do.
Dusty and Sallys !!!! lol !!!! that cracked me up :-)
Also pop a P90 into the neck position on an LP to go with your humbucker in the bridge and the LP can be a jangle guitar. SD makes a pickup called the Phat Cat and i use these in my LPs. Having the P90 solved all issues i had with an LP. Also if you want the tone to the solo of say "Another Brick in the Wall (part 2). That is a P90 LP, not a Strat like many people think.
I gigged with a Heavy LP Gold Top for years. My solution was to find a wider strap with better padding. Simple!
I had a '76 Tele Deluxe that was so heavy, it could've been a boat anchor. I just had a Swamp Ash replacement body built for it, and it's lighter, and sounds better. Original was probably a heavy Northern Ash. Note: I didn't ditch the original body for the weight, but rather the giant neck route where the neck would regularly shift in the pocket and knock me out of tune. So new body: more comfortable, sounds great. Maybe I'm imagining it sounds better because I'm enjoying playing it again, but I don't think so.
I confirm, the first electric guitar I’ve played was a Les Paul custom from the 70s or maybe late 60s and it was the best. When I bought my first electric guitar I used the Les Paul as a template. The guitar was heavy and sounded wonderful
The first "Electric" guitar I played was a Fender P Bass. I sort of expected the weight. When I first tried my hand at an actual "Electric Guitar", it was a borrowed 57? Gold Top LP with a Bigsby, I did not expect it to be as heavy (heavier?) as the bass, but I accepted it as part of the deal and assumed all electric guitars were supposed to be heavy. Then I went to buy one and came across a 1968 Norma, 3 single pups, kind of a Strat styling. I could not believe how light it was compared to the LP, and it sounded significantly different. I've played S-styles since and LPs just weren't a thing to me, 50 years later they still aren't. However...
I was considering a 'BlackTop' Tele and was really surprised how heavy they were. Now I own a Vintage Modified Tele, with the psuedo-WideRange humbuckers. Even with a belly cut and arm relief it weighs in at almost 10 pounds! It doesn't sound like my Strat and it doesn't sound quite like an LP. Playing rhythm in a Blues-Rock band I could switch back and forth and get different tones as needed. Does the weight matter? I think to a degree it does, I know I play them differently. I strum the Strat and chop at the Tele.
Thank you for the Bass shout out
My heaviest guitar is a 2013 Les Paul '50s Tribute. It's 9.6 lbs with a Les Trem II, 9.2 lbs without. Everything else is below 8 lbs. When I pick up my SG Special, it feels too light, but so does my Steinberger Spirit.
I don't buy guitars by weight, but a chambered Studio just doesn't feel right. 7-8 lbs is the most comfortable, but I don't care what a guitar weighs if I like everything else. Except chambered or ultra weight relieved Studios 😄
I actually do prefer heavier guitars, my Les Paul is 9.7 lbs and I love it
I had a nut from Reverb open a case to return a nice guitar because his scales read it to be 10.88 ounces heavier than mine did.
TVL and a few select others have that “earn it” mindset, it’s not supposed to be everything is about comfort and making everything easy and coddling….love that mindset cuz it takes dedication commitment to their craft….fuck yes….
My fav bass, a ‘76 Fender Mustang, weighs the same as my fav Strat: 7lbs. 10oz. Yet the one is pretty light while the other is heavy-ish. ☺️
I prefer lighter guitars on average, and semi- or fully-hollow guitars in particular, but I’ve played some heavy solidbodies that’ve sounded great.
Ultimately I don’t think generalizations work. Comes down too much to the individual instruments.
That's what SGs are for. Lightness. LPs are going to be 9 lbs or more. SGs 7 - 7.5 lbs.
The original bursts were light. My Custom Shop VOS 1960 Les Paul weighs 8.2 lbs. Lighter guitars resonate more. Not as much mass and weight to move.
I've have heavy guitars and light guitars. The light guitar sounds as good or better than the heavier guitars. It's not the weight of the guitars, It's the species of wood used to get better resonance from the body and neck. I have a solid body guitar that's light and sounds louder unplugged than heavier solid body ones. When I plug it into my amp and compare it to all of my guitars it sounds just as good. It's really the output of the pickups and the amplifier pared with it and the speakers. I think the thickness of the finish does have something to do with how they respond when played. The lighter guitar is better balanced and much more comfortable to play for longer periods of time too. Not many people that've been playing or 40 plus years want to play heavy guitars anymore. They developed shoulder, neck or back problems because of them.
My 90 LP Studio weighs about 9.5 pounds and I don't even notice. It feels balanced and true. By far my favorite over my 02 Explorer which is 8 oz lighter. Even my 75 P bass is lighter than the Paul.
I've built a few guitars out of various materials. One of them is my heaviest at around 9 to 10 pounds. I used two Cherrywood cabinets doors stacked on top of each other, shaped it like a skull and it's almost as big as as an ES-335. It's very mid range sounding so not something I could use for every song at a gig. I think it sounds that way maybe because of the wood type but also the size, weight and denseness. P.S. it has a single bridge humbucker.
I recently had a 10lb Gibson Korina Explorer…that thing was a CHONK! Was super resonant though.
i have a 2022 gibson les paul standard it`s 10.2 lb it sounds great
I'm an old man still playing out constantly in a cover band having a ball. I have a very bad back. I've had fusion surgery, and I will always have a cage in my back. Although every gig I swear at myself when we are done but I just can't NOT play my LP Traditinal. I play rhythm, and the sound of that guitar is just better to my ear than any other guitar I own. 10 lbs is a lot for me to use, but I still do.
My Les Paul is right around 9 pounds. I haven't weighed it with a special scale, but I've weighed myself with and without the guitar on my bathroom scale, and there was a 9 pound difference. I find that it's less strain on my shoulder and back if I leave the strap very long and low with the neck at a steep angle. There's something about the guitar sitting low and resting against my hip instead of my mid-section that makes it more bearable. At any rate, I think weight is more of a nuanced issue than most people think it is. People want there to be just one answer but there's not.
bought my '84 LP Custom in 1988 ... never thought about weighing the dang thing when I got it. Never thought about weighing it for 20+ years. It's just awesome. Then the internet made me question my guitar choice because it's 11.3 lbs (I did end up weighing it on a postal scale a few years ago). Do I wish some days it was lighter? sometimes, but I wouldn't trade it for another LP.
I find buying a 10lb Les Paul that I liked to play is very difficult to find these days. This video is great guys sooo true!