My Les Pauls are in moth balls

[alerich]

If someone had told me I would own a guitar that would cause me to all but disown my Les Pauls I would have called them crazy. Had they told me it would be a super strat style guitar with an unfinished maple bolt on neck I'd have wondered if they were on drugs. If they had told me it would have a Floyd Rose full floating tremolo system I would have suggested they are a candidate for the NFL concussion protocol.

Then I bought "The Beast". It's a Charvel So Cal. Made in Mexico. Quartersawn one piece maple neck with a compound 12"-16" radius. Duncan JB Trembucker bridge and Distortion neck pickups. Original Floyd Rose (Korea OEM) tremolo. I bought this two months ago and I cannot put it down. I play it every day. I have barely touched any of my rather nice Epiphone Les Pauls. I am in shock.

The neck is incredible. Best neck profile I have ever played. The compound radius is very nice but the rear profile is what does it for me. I'm not real good with the C or D descriptions of neck profiles but this one it on the slightly wider side. Not to deep in the center and nicely rounded at the edges. It had a Duncan Distortion in the bridge but I swapped that out for a JB (my all time favorite pickup).

I have never owned a guitar with a Floyd Rose trem before. I Have a Japan Strat with a System One and I owned a couple Japan Charvel Model 5 guitars back in the late eighties with Kahler trems. The guitars were sweet but the trems hella sucked. Anytime I have ever played a guitar with a Floyd it was in a guitar shop and I guess they were just never set up right because they never played in tune. This was an essentially new guitar that one of the guys in the shop (Nashville Used Music) restrung and set up properly albeit with .011's. I play .010's. The thing just would not go out of tune no matter how much I dive bombed it. It played great, it sounded great and it stayed in tune. I took it home.

I have since restrung it with .010's and set the trem up for that gauge. Not too difficult if you follow the instructions on the Floyd Rose website. This thing is a monster. It's not the most versatile axe in the world but for hard rock and heavy metal this is the ticket. I still have my Fender Powerhouse Deluxe Strat for playing on my clean rig.

The rig in background is a beast, too. 1992 Soldano Hot Rod 50 single channel with a Soldano 4x12 loaded with Celestion G12H30 70th Anniversary speakers (Avatar Hellatone 30s). I've had it about a year and a half and rarely touch my Marshall 2204 clone or my modded MIG60.

This combination inspires me to play.

[Ritchie200]

Isn't it great when a plan comes together and the planets align!  I want to hear some sound clips of this beastly setup!  One thing I did notice is that you obviously do not have enough stomp boxes.....

Jim

[HotBluePlates]

Congrats on finding your ideal guitar!

I've done the opposite: after not owning a Les Paul for the past 16-17 years, I got one recently. And I'm looking to get another sometime soon to house a special pair of pickups I've got. 

[EL34]

That's about how I feel about my Satriani Ibanez guitars

Unbelievable precision, super light weight, vintage style humbuckers
Can do many types of sounds

But, those guitars don't do the surf type stuff as well as my Jazz-O-Caster, but they are not bad