sacrilege?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ez_willis
  • Start date Start date
that'll work for recording. not so much live.

I'll admit it's not as convenient, but unless you've got to have it during the same song, I still don't see the problem. Do you only take one guitar when you play live?
 
just got a '79 Les Paul special, double cutaway. it's got two P90's in it. They sound killer but i need a beefier tone on at least one of the PUPs. how wrong would it be to pull one of them? and what should i swap it with? and in which position? it needs to be a HB.

If it's going to make you enjoy playing it more, then fuck it, do it.

You already said you aren't going to be hacking it up. Just keep the old bits so you can put them back in later if you're that worried about it.
 
At the silly prices Norlin stuff is going for, you could sell it, replace it with a more recent Standard with buckers, swap em out for something from the premium boutique winders, and go out to dinner every night for a week. You could probably get a '58 RI or a plaintop R0 or a G0, if you're into that sort of thing.

Or, yeah, minibuckers.
 
i'm not describing the tone accurately. if i crank the top boost channel on the AC30 to 11 and the master volume to whatever, the tone is totally different than the other guitar that i described. i'll just post samples later. :laughings:

No, I understand completely. :cool:

A P-90 is never going to sound completely like a HB, mainly because the two coils in a standard-sized HB have a wider capture range and the resultant sound contains more intermodulation distortion.
 
i tracked guitars last night and was way more happy with what i got out of the guitar>amp. :D
 
At the silly prices Norlin stuff is going for, you could sell it, replace it with a more recent Standard with buckers, swap em out for something from the premium boutique winders, and go out to dinner every night for a week. You could probably get a '58 RI or a plaintop R0 or a G0, if you're into that sort of thing.
Gibson prices are fuckin' crazy ain't they? And they just aren't going down. I have two Norlin LPs that I got reasonable and I could get a fair piece more now. Glad I got them when I did. I'm thinking about a 60s/70s Junior but those ain't gettin' cheaper either.


lou
 
Gibson prices are fuckin' crazy ain't they? And they just aren't going down. I have two Norlin LPs that I got reasonable and I could get a fair piece more now. Glad I got them when I did. I'm thinking about a 60s/70s Junior but those ain't gettin' cheaper either.


lou

what's up with that? i read some stuff a long time ago where people were hatin' on the Norlin era guits. then at some point it reversed. :confused:
 
what's up with that? i read some stuff a long time ago where people were hatin' on the Norlin era guits. then at some point it reversed. :confused:
They're getting old, man. Old wood is good wood.

I think a lot of the hatin' was bullshit. Almost all the classic rock stuff from the seventies was played on Norlins. The pancake bodies and three-piece (or more!) tops were something to sneer at but they were damn fine guitars and when you look at some of the newest stuff - and definite slacking of QC - you realize those Norlins are a bargain. Alas, not so much anymore. People are starting to realize just how "not bad" they are.


lou
 
what's up with that? i read some stuff a long time ago where people were hatin' on the Norlin era guits. then at some point it reversed. :confused:

I guess it's because people finally realize that Norlin-era guitars don't necessarily suck. And, I guess, as fewer and fewer survive with time they just become more valuable.

I can tell ya, my '76 LP Special (singlecut) is stable as a rock, and still plays great. It needs a refret eventually but dear god, I have thousands of hours on that thing.
 
To be fair, the Norlin era was not a shining example of Gibson's work. Shallow carves, the aforementioned pancake body, abandoning the Standard, introduction of the Nashville bridge, 14lb behemoths, etc etc etc. That said, the fit and finish on the typical Norlin offering is heads and shoulders above its current counterpart, and people love those T-Top pickups these days.

I'd still lean towards picking through the chaff, and grabbing a nice newer sample with the configuration you want, and pocketing the cash, before you get attached to the damn thing. I could probably sell my '78 LPC for enough to get a used R0, maybe a new G0, but I've had the silly thing for 20 years now, and bought it for $400. Plus, ever since I did pots/caps and pickups on it, it sounds dreamy, and it's always been a primo player.
 
That said, the fit and finish on the typical Norlin offering is heads and shoulders above its current counterpart
Oh, I dunno.

It's popular to bang on Gibson's QC but by and large I think they're doing a good job.
 
Good word-of-mouth from RS, but I'm happy with the slope on run of the mill CTS pots. The caps in the Stew-Mac kit are pure meh, I've had good results fiddling with paper-in-oils of varying values, although a 0.15 Orange Drop won out in the neck position of my Traditional Pro. With P90's, I'd just grab a pair of Russian 0.033s and call it good. EDIT: You want 300k pots on those '90s. Or, you can go 500k, and just use more tone knob.

As for Gibson QC, proof's in the pudding. Badly masked finishes, tool marks on the fretboard, or even the frets, sloppy nibs, occasional bad soldering (except on the PCBLOLs), orange peel and/or swirl marks, and so on. I'm no hater, but for the premium sticker price, a dual humbucker set neck with a fixed bridge should be perfect every time. My 32 year old LPC, in its battle scarred condition, still carries evidence of attention to detail that does not exist on my new Lester.
 
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