Gibson Les Paul weight debate

[DEWD]

I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with the weight of LP's. I see so many people that think that the heavier the LP is the better. They think more weight = more tone. I've owned a bunch of Gibson LP's and that is not my experience at all. The lighter ones seem to sound chunkier/heavier/resonate better than the real heavy ones. Most of the heavy ones I've owned and played sounded dead to me. They lacked crunch and definition and didn't sound nearly as "huge" as the lighter ones. Granted there are good and bad examples of both but for the most part more weight doesn't equal more tone.

 

[EXPcustom]

I was always taught that the lighter the wood the better for tone.

 

[Ancient Alien]

Lighter wood is less dense, hence more resonant.
Plus it doesn't kill your shoulder

 

[nevusofota]

I always thought that the more dense the wood the more efficiently it transferred the sound waves. Similar to how sound waves travel in water vs. air. I'm not a physicist but thats how I looked at it.

 

[Les Zombie]

I had a couple les pauls that weighed at 8.5 lbs and they sounded ok but not great for what i do, i found that my fav lp are in the 9lb range, the lighter ones i owned was warm but missing the mid chunk i like, also the highs sounded better on the heavier ones. I once owned a goldtop that was 8lbs and was thin sounding and i also played some that was 12lbs and dead sounding.

 

[Ancient Alien]

I always thought that the more dense the wood the more efficiently it transferred the sound waves. Similar to how sound waves travel in water vs. air. I'm not a physicist but thats how I looked at it.

You are correct in that assessment.
Heavy, dense wood is more efficient, but has the exact opposite effect on tone.
Heavy wood has less open space in the wood cells.
Think of these cells as microscopic rooms.
The more space inside the wood cells gives you a natural resonance or reverberation.
So in a dense wood the sound travels fast through the wood and does not sustain as long as a piece of wood with space to echo inside.
Think of a chambered body verse a solid body and it's acoustic properties.

 

[Ancient Alien]

Also, it has a lot to do with the actual piece of wood and not so much the weight.
EVERY piece of wood sounds different.
Some heavy woods sound great to people, some don't and vise versa.

 

[locoed]

The problem I have with weight is,I have a Les Paul STD that's 8lbs,I have
EMG's in it and it feeds back,and I have a Les Paul custom shop that's almost
13 lbs and that one doesn't feed back,same pups,I have changed pups,changed
pots,set it up differently,had my guitar tech do all he could do and the standard
still feeds back with active pups. Both guitars are set up the same way.
Now I'm NOT sure it's a weight issue,but I always thought it was due to weight relief.
I thought because it was lighter it kind of acted like an acoustic,richer sound etc.
And because of that the EMGs didn't work well with a lighter body.
Now that Les Paul sits in a case behind my closet door.
If it's not weight,what is it?

 

[Greazygeo]

Mine weighs 14 lbs and sounds awesome. Sucks to be my shoulder.

 

[Ventura]

I think the other thing about people, their Lesters, and their weights, is that because there is so much variation to the weights of the guitars, it's just a common question to ask - almost like that 4th dimension in spec'ing a guitar, ya know? I mean, there are not too many (any??) other manufacturers and models out there where the weight of their product varies so drastically and so inconsistently. So when buying a Lester, it's not just the wood on the top face, back, etc., or the pups, or the headstock, or the color, or the reissue year, or the original year, or whatever, it's weight as well

Not to mention, there's an entire discussion about slab/solid, chambered, or weight relieved as well... Totally different kettle of fish.

V.

 

[thiswaythatway]

If a LP is under 8lbs these days it's usually got the swiss cheese holes in it, or it's chambered. I've played some of the chambered one's and they can sound really good.

 

[Ancient Alien]

Don't forget the fact that Gibson has gone down the tubes over the last few years and really doesn't give a crap about quality and consistancy.
You are simply buying a Gibson for the name now.

 

[Marshall Law]

I have a chambered LP and 2 that are not weight relieved, the chambered sounds good, but the non weight relieved, sound better

 

[TJSlice]

I think the whole weight thing is still carried over beliefs from the 60's and 70's that bigger is better. I do think weight might affect certain frequencies and how they come out, but certainly don't affect overall "chunk". Chip Todd had done a discussion about it on a forum (don't remember link). BTW, Chip Todd makes for really good tech reading if you can dig it up, he's one pretty smart and old-school dude ....

 

[Meathead]

You are correct in that assessment.
Heavy, dense wood is more efficient, but has the exact opposite effect on tone.
Heavy wood has less open space in the wood cells.
Think of these cells as microscopic rooms.
The more space inside the wood cells gives you a natural resonance or reverberation.
So in a dense wood the sound travels fast through the wood and does not sustain as long as a piece of wood with space to echo inside.
Think of a chambered body verse a solid body and it's acoustic properties.

Also, it has a lot to do with the actual piece of wood and not so much the weight.
EVERY piece of wood sounds different.
Some heavy woods sound great to people, some don't and vise versa.

Well said...I agree.

I prefer a lighter guitar (for my shoulder), but the few heavy guitars that I do have don't resonant out as loudly in the mids as the lighter ones, but there's a fullness in the lows, a nice deepness that the lighter ones just don't have.

 

[Les Zombie]

what do you guys consider light and whats heavy.

for me a les paul in the mid 8lb range and lower seems light to me, lesters in the 9 to 10.5 range seem normal and anything in the 11 ibs and higher i consider heavy.

my 2004 R9 was in the low 8lb range and was really resonate, i just didnt like the tone for what i do, it was very warm sounding and had alot of lows, the cleans sounded really nice but when i used it for rock and metal styles i hated it, i had alot of different pickups in it but never found my sound i wanted, it also wasnt swiss cheese or weight relieved.

like i mentioned before i like my R9's in the 9lb range and i get the sound i like, really it just depends on the guitar too because ive played alot that just sucked and did nothing for me. i had a lp standard i bought new in 95 and it was weight relieved but it sounded really nice, it also was around 9lb. i love lp customs and they tend to be heavier guitars but i love the sound of them and i like the ebony boards, i consider the les pauls to be my fav type of guitar. i love them.

 

[Ventura]

what do you guys consider light and whats heavy.

for me a les paul in the mid 8lb range and lower seems light to me, lesters in the 9 to 10.5 range seem normal and anything in the 11 ibs and higher i consider heavy.

my 2004 R9 was in the low 8lb range and was really resonate, i just didnt like the tone for what i do, it was very warm sounding and had alot of lows, the cleans sounded really nice but when i used it for rock and metal styles i hated it, i had alot of different pickups in it but never found my sound i wanted, it also wasnt swiss cheese or weight relieved.

like i mentioned before i like my R9's in the 9lb range and i get the sound i like, really it just depends on the guitar too because ive played alot that just sucked and did nothing for me. i had a lp standard i bought new in 95 and it was weight relieved but it sounded really nice, it also was around 9lb. i love lp customs and they tend to be heavier guitars but i love the sound of them and i like the ebony boards, i consider the les pauls to be my fav type of guitar. i love them.

For me, 8 pounds is light, although I've played some in the mid to high 7's. 13 to 14 pounds, obviously heavy. I have a '68 that's 13 pounds, beautiful guitar to play and behold, but only when sitting My other Lesters are high 8's, and one spot on 9 pounds.

I love 'em. Proper '57, '59 and '68 reissues should have NO weight relieving or chambering, they should be 100% solid slab.

V.

 

[DEWD]

Anything above 10 to 10.5 pounds is heavy in my book. I tend to like them in the 9 pound range. Anything 7's to low 8's is pretty light for a LP IME.

 

[diagrammatiks]

The weight is non-weight relieved, non chambered weight.

r8s are between 8 and 9 pounds
r9s are under 8.5

but that's solid wood. There are some chambered gibson usa and epi lps that weigh close to 8.
That's mostly rock. That same guitar would weigh 15 pounds of pure shit if it was made to reissue specs.

 

[nevusofota]

I always thought that the more dense the wood the more efficiently it transferred the sound waves. Similar to how sound waves travel in water vs. air. I'm not a physicist but thats how I looked at it.

You are correct in that assessment.
Heavy, dense wood is more efficient, but has the exact opposite effect on tone.
Heavy wood has less open space in the wood cells.
Think of these cells as microscopic rooms.
The more space inside the wood cells gives you a natural resonance or reverberation.
So in a dense wood the sound travels fast through the wood and does not sustain as long as a piece of wood with space to echo inside.
Think of a chambered body verse a solid body and it's acoustic properties.

so then why do luthiers, to increase sustain, use dense mahogony blocks to mount pickups to (as in my EBMM BFR JP6). with your theory wouldnt they use something less dense, like basswood?