can you make the switch......

Hootsmon

from Les Paul to Strat  with no problems?

wish I could

ICBM

No. That's why I play PRSs, Rickenbackers and Arias.

Les Pauls and Strats aren't the only guitars .

One of the things I've learnt over the years is that the physical aspects of the guitar are more important than the sound - in particular where it hangs across you, and also the neck angle relative to the body - especially if you want to switch from one to another quickly. I've found that I prefer guitars where the front strap button is parallel to the 12th-14th frets, no further up, and the neck should be almost parallel to the body… a PRS has about the most back-angle I can get on with.

richardhomer

Definitely not. The ergonomics of Les Pauls just do not work for me. The switch is in the wrong place, the volumes are hard to get to (or even see due to the heavily arched top and position of bridge/stop tail), top end access is awful and as @ICBM says, the amount of back angle is an issue. The small yet chunky feel just feels 'wrong'. I kind of feel 'shut out' by it.

I regularly play a Strat, a 22 fret PRS and a 335 and find I can easily swap between them. Oddly, although the volumes on the 335 are further away from the bridge than on a Les Paul, they fall under the hand far more easily.

I'd love to get on with Les Pauls but having owned four over the years, I recognise I never will. My PRS McCarty fulfills LP duties and is the best compromise between feel and sound for me.

mike_l

@ICBM has summed it up. I can't get on with LPs as the don't fit my body right. everything feels like it's in the wrong place. SGs are the same.

A Strat based guitar works perfectly for me.

LastMantra

Yes, but I don't use them for the same things.

I've got a Strat, a The Paul and an acoustic. For me the Gibson is somewhere in the middle of the Strat and the acoustic.

Sambostar

Yeah, I can now.  But couldn't for about the previous twenty years.

I think it is a bit psychosomatic afterall and it was all about the massive difference in bridge height and neck angle.  Once I started playing Charvels with non recessed trems, which meant the bridge was the same height as the LP TOM bridge AND the neck pocket was angled, the switch to V trem strats with non angled neck pockets didn't seem so daunting as they were the same shape eh.

Of course I really brushed up my playing and technique, got a little looser and tighter on the rhythms and found some decent guitars and pups to motivate me to pickup a strat along the way which helped.

Now I will switch between a hardtail Mockingbird, which basically is setup as a LP to a vintage Strat to doing unison bends on a floating trem charvel all in one night.  No effort.  It's all in the mind.

Get some 57/62 or SSL1 pups and listen to Jimi, RHCP or SRV and with that tone and influence, it should motivate you enough to get your hands around it.

Too tightly wrapped and not a generally good player IMO if you can't switch, as the guitars are probably just exasserbating flaws in your technique. Unless of course you can't play one or the other for medical reasons as mentioned.

Comfort for me is the last thing on my mind, it's all about the tone of the thing.  You should try a Mahogany Charvel Star without a belly cut.  Pain is irrelevant as I experience it everyday in my job.

octatonic

I don't like LP ergonomics.

Sambostar

I have very long arms, almost orangotun like in fact, but still I found a Les Paul more naturally comfortably.  It took me a long while to get used to a lack of neck angle, it almost felt like I was playing with my left arm at full stretch whilst holding plates.

monquixote

As others have said I don't seem to be able to play a Les Paul at all. 

I can change between a PRS and a Strat fairly easily though I'll occasionally under or over bend because of the difference in tension (perhaps I need 11s on the PRS).

The Gretsch takes a little more adjustment mostly due to the big body and skinny frets, but it's fine after a few minutes.

Sambostar

Gretsch's or ES's even are like water boarding.

ICBM

I *can* play all types of guitars and most basses - although Thunderbirds are pushing it on a strap, I'm only 5'6" and the first position is getting awkwardly far away - but I just find the ones I get on with best much more comfortable, and I don't see the point in making things unnecessarily difficult… not when you can pretty much get any of the sounds of the awkward guitars out of ones that are much easier to play - or at least close enough, as @richardhomer said.

The oddest thing about my guitars is that three - the two PRSs and the Aria - are very similar size-wise and it's not surprising I can switch between them easily - but the Rickenbacker is *completely* different in every way except for the rough position of the front strap button, just looking at it you'd think it was an ungainly thing… and yet it's as comfortable and instinctively natural for me as any of the others. No idea why.

Guitar_Slinger

Sambostar;216503" said:

Yeah, I can now.  But couldn't for about the previous twenty years.

This. My problem was that they weighed and sounded so different when plugged into the same amp.

I got over the problem by having a strap for each guitar so each felt right when putting them on, then getting a humbucker in the strat's bridge so they sounded (almost) the same when plugged into my amp. And lots of practice

chillidoggy

I can't play a Strat, no proper bridge. And I've had Les Pauls, but sold them. Something is not quite right for me with them.

richardhomer

Thinking about this, I can think of very few famous players who regularly use both. Mark Knopfler springs to mind....

Page has occasionally been seen with a Strat, Beck used to play a Les Paul then became a Strat player (as did Clapton).

I can only think of Knopfler who spends roughly equal time with both... Unless anyone can think of any others?

Roland

richardhomer;216459" said:

PRS McCarty fulfills LP duties and is the best compromise between feel and sound for me.

This

johnnyurq

Never ever been an issue for me because I don't even think about it really, LP's and similar do feel more like home to me though.

sweepy

Horses for courses really, i thinned down my stable and all my guitars do different things now, with no real overlap, tbh it was getting silly

mudslide73

I mainly play my lp with one band and my strat with the other. The big thing for me was getting a tone control for the Strat's bridge pup. My first proper guitar was a Jackson Fusion which is a bit of both.. so maybe I've found it easier because of that.

underdog

I find the switch from LP to SG takes more adjustment, the neck on the SG feels 3 frets longer and so the first few minutes are spent watching exactly where my left hand goes.

stickyfiddle

richardhomer said:

Thinking about this, I can think of very few famous players who regularly use both. Mark Knopfler springs to mind....

Page has occasionally been seen with a Strat, Beck used to play a Les Paul then became a Strat player (as did Clapton).

I can only think of Knopfler who spends roughly equal time with both... Unless anyone can think of any others?

The Edge - uses a strat for about 40% of the time and an LP for another 40% at a guess. Though he's gone a bit towards Gretches and Casinos in recent years.

richardhomer

stickyfiddle;216708" said:

The Edge - uses a strat for about 40% of the time and an LP for another 40% at a guess. Though he's gone a bit towards Gretches and Casinos in recent years.

Good call.