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We all know how kick-ass Juniors sound when you're rocking out cranked and with gain. My question is how do they sound when playing clean? I'm thinking they may be a bit limited without the neck pup, which I typically rely upon in my SG to get fat bluesy clean tones. Can you roll the tone off the LP Jr. bridge pup and get something equivalent?

Jonny

And I going to take a guess that an LP Jr. should have a thicker tone than an SG Jr due to the body mass...correct?

Mine sounds beautiful played clean, especially through rounder sounding amps like JTM45s. Very well balanced, very articulate. Notes (especially on the wound strings) really have a piano-like fundamental quality. No, it will not really do the character of a neck pickup sound. You can get a nice warm sound with the tone control. I find that the further up the neck you pick, the sweeter the tone gets. It might be the lack of a neck pickup. this guitar is the more responsive to picking attack and position than any other guitar I've ever owned.

Very cool...when you roll that tone knob down do you get a real fat tone?
When I had my SG Classic I was a disappointed b/c playing with the tone knob didn't elicit many different sounds from the P90's.


Originally Posted by jonnymangiaVery cool...when you roll that tone knob down do you get a real fat tone?
When I had my SG Classic I was a disappointed b/c playing with the tone knob didn't elicit many different sounds from the P90's.Mine sounds great clean as well. I have the normal channel of my Pro Reverb modded a bit to give it a more 'tweedy' sound and it sounds magnificent through that as well.

When I roll the tone knob back, at a certain point it starts getting a nasty, greasy, fat tone...it almost sounds like I'm hitting some sort of boost pedal or something sometimes.

I agree with THB in that there's something amazing about how many different things you can get out of the guitar, kind of like an Esquire can be I guess.


Originally Posted by jonnymangiaWe all know how kick-ass Juniors sound when you're rocking out cranked and with gain. My question is how do they sound when playing clean? I'm thinking they may be a bit limited without the neck pup, which I typically rely upon in my SG to get fat bluesy clean tones. Can you roll the tone off the LP Jr. bridge pup and get something equivalent?

Jonny

You could always get a LP Jr with 2 p90s in it, so you can have p90 neck.


Originally Posted by greendy123You could always get a LP Jr with 2 p90s in it, so you can have p90 neck.I don't know...I'm getting pulled in 3 ways by the P90 GAS bug - an LP Jr. , a Gibby ES-175 or try the SG Classic again. Decisions, decisions.

Les Paul Jr's sound great clean. They're one of my favorite all around instruments.

get the lp jr i wish i could have one right now! but they go for like 2 grand or so from the custom shop?

Nothin wrong with the $600 Les Paul Jr.s from Musicians Friend. They are killer guitars as well.


Originally Posted by matt99cameroNothin wrong with the $600 Les Paul Jr.s from Musicians Friend. They are killer guitars as well.

They are $769 now.

Would you guys go with the LP Jr. or the SG Classic?

LP Jr. all the way!


Originally Posted by jonnymangiaThey are $769 now.

Would you guys go with the LP Jr. or the SG Classic?

Depends on if you really want a neck pickup.
Also, the Les Paul Junior has a wrap around bridge/tailpiece which I find to be superior to a separate bridge and tailpice for tone and playability.

My 2001 production Junior has a thick chunky tone (clean and dirty) that a 2 pickup guitar can't seem to match.


Originally Posted by DonDepends on if you really want a neck pickup.
Also, the Les Paul Junior has a wrap around bridge/tailpiece which I find to be superior to a separate bridge and tailpice for tone and playability.

My 2001 production Junior has a thick chunky tone (clean and dirty) that a 2 pickup guitar can't seem to match.

So you guys have no problems with the recent run of the LP Jr's (say within the last 3-4 years)? People on Harmony Central were complaining that the recent ones have ebony on the back of the neck and body seem to be an inferior wood. Go figure.

Juniors only have one pickup...
The more pickups a guitar has, the more magnetic pull there is on the strings. The pull stops the vibration and reduces sustain. It does add a bit of snap to the sound , This is part of why a strat sounds the way it does. Polepiece magnets (like strat and tele) pull harder than magnets that are under the coils (like P90s).

Esquires sound great too.

This is also the EVH theory.

Not saying one is betterr than two or three pickups, just that there's a reason for all of this.

GS

I'd go with the SG Classic. I think that a thin mahogany body with 2 P90's would make for a guitar that can cover a lot of tones.

This may be off-topic, but recently I've been wanting to hear Mark Knopfler do Sultans of Swing on a Les Paul. That tune that is classically stratt, I'm sure it would sound great also on an LP.

The first thing I noticed when I got mine was how resonate it was when played unpluged, my strat and tele don't even get close. It is a great guitar for playing with gain and it does decent cleans with some knob twisting. When I bought mine I already had a strat, tele, and double humbucker guitar before I bought it so I had alot of ground covered. If it was going to be my first guitar or I was looking for a main guitar I probably would have looked elsewhere. Sometimes I want that sweet sound of a strat neck pup and the LP Jr. is not going to do that. Musicians Friend has that 30 or 45 day return policy, you could always return it if it's not what your looking for, worth giving it a try, nothing to lose.

One of the main reasons I bought mine was the chiming, ringing tone it had when played clean. The closest thing the shop had to my Blue Angel or vibrolux was a peavey 2x10 delta blues, and it sounded outstanding with the jr on clean.

Granted, the lack of a neck pickup does mean you're missing out on some really nice options for clean, but for what it can do, the jr has a great clean tone.

Just get a Les Paul Special and you're all set. P90s just sound too sweet to be limited to the bridge, I get a lot of use out of the middle and neck positions and wouldn't have it any other way... no manipulation of the volume or tone controls can possibly nail those other two positions.