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Metal Warrior guitars at Kosmic!
Clapton, page and Gibson les pauls.
There are many great guitars, in many shapes and sizes, what is the difference and what are they?! The early days of metal: Eric Clapton and his gibson.
The guitar was a Gibson Les Paul Standard. Many blues players had used distortion but Clapton took it further, inspired by Albert King and many others. The guitar he chose was the Gibson LP. The Gibson uses a mahogany body, with a carved maple top, and a glued in mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard. The frets would have been a tad larger than the frets in Fenders, and with the shorter 24 3/4 scale, made it very nice to play. String bending was a dream on the 12" radius finger board, and the guitar had a classic look made for many a great axe hero! The Les Paul had humbucking pick ups, which also were more powerful than standard single coil pick ups. Add this to the fatness of mahogany, the long tenon set neck, the 'inertia block' factor of the maple top, a thickish mahogany neck, and you have a recipe for very thick, raunchy tone with eons of sustain. Add also to that a very early Marshall, which was a new amp loosely modeled on the Fender Bassman, and you had the raw prototype of heavy metal tone. Clappo used many variations over the years, including SG's, 335's, Firebirds,,Explorers, and today Fender Stratocasters. Many guitarists acknowledge the Bluesbreakers era as influential, including Eddie Van Halen, Brian May and countless more. Summary: Main factors of tone and playability...
Check Electric
Magic, www.led-zeppelin.com THE RISE OF THE ZEPPELIN - JIMMY PAGE AND HIS LES PAUL.
Ironically, Jimmy used a Fender Telecaster, first during the Yardbirds, and then on the first Zep album. His Tele tones were awesome, witness 'I cant quit you babe' and 'Communication Breakdown', but the piece de resistance was on Led Zep 2, when he plugged a 58' LP into a Marshall stack and grunged out he opening to 'Whole Lotta Love'. The solos in Heartbreaker, Livin' Lovin' maid and The Lemon Song are perfect examples of the great Page Les Paul tone, as is the whole album really! You can see JP in all his glory with the Les Paul on the movie 'The song remains the same'. The best tones for me are on 'Since I've been lovin' you' and 'No quarter'. Many bands used this basic LP/Marshall template to great success in the '70's, including Rush, Boston, Aerosmith, Free... the list goes on. For more info on Page's gear go to http://www.zeppinhood.net/lzequip Today the Les Paul Marshall package endures, with great players using hot rodded Marshalls and souped up Les Pauls to massive effect. Check out Zakk Wylde for one. THE BOTTOM LINE: If raw, unadulterated power, crunch, sustain and great feel are what you want, and don't need a trem, and are happy to stick with a few basic but brilliant tones, the Les Paul is for you. You may choose an SG, for light weight, a little less bottom end grunt with more pronounced mids, and those classic 'devil's horn' cut aways, or the cool look of the Explore or v, which tonally, seem to sit in between an SG and a Les Paul. Note that the SG, V and Exp do not have maple tops, but are all mahogany, with a thinner lighter body, hence the slight lack of sheer grunt! The next factor to look at is the Fender Stratocaster players, which, though carry many similarities, have a some notable differences, and lead to some interesting developments!
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Rock
Axe Heroes 1960's to present. Eric Clapton What is the best rock and metal axe? Fender
Stratocaster Name
your fave Led Zeppelin
USA Gibson's start at under
$2000!!!!!! |
For
the definitive album that spurred a million distorted guitars go
back to Eric Clapton's Bluesbreaker album, with John Mayall.
Here you can here an early Marshall combo (JTM45?) being turned
up to distort. Apparently the studio engineers were less than
impressed, but Clappo stuck manfully to the task, plugged in his
late 50's Les Paul and literally turned the guitar world upside
down with howling, screaming blues licks. Even today, Clapton's
playing sounds awesome!
No
doubt JP was heavily influenced by Clapton, even producing some
early tracks like 'I'm your witchdoctor' and 'On top of the
world' which has amazing Clapton feedback technique.
