Pickguard, on or off?

What do you prefer?

  • Total voters
    22
gball said:
This all came up in a recent thread and I will paraphrase what I said there:

...at the time that Ted McCarty was designing the Les Paul Rock and Roll was still an amorphous art form that was just coming together and was as-yet unnamed, but I think McCarty was well aware of the blues, r&b and country elements that eventually melded into RnR and designed the guitar with those styles in mind as much as Jazz. What little input Les Paul the man had on the actual design of Les Paul the guitar was probably no more than the stupid trapeze tailpiece and what color they got painted but I think...he [Les Paul] viewed it as a jazz instrument.

McCarty was an incredibly savvy guy. He saw the writing on the wall and knew they needed a solidbody to compete against Fender in the pop markets, as well as Jazz. He stated many times that the only reason the Les Paul had a carved top was because Fender didn't have the technical capability/equipment to produce one and Gibson did, so it differentiated them in the marketplace. Les Paul was an obvious endorsee, but that was more due to his name recognition than them using him as a doorway into the Jazz market, and LP was pretty avante-garde for his time anyway and definitely more of a pop act than straight Jazz.

Nope, R&R didn't exist (at least in the named form we know it now) but the world was at the very cusp of it and all the elements were already starting to congeal. Ted McCarty surely knew all of this when he designed the Les Paul and took advantage of it. The fact that we still buy and use these things for all styles of music is testament to what a visionary McCarty was, and I think it's a bit shortsighted to say that the guitar was designed and intended for use within the fairly narrow confines of a "Jazz" instrument.



Perhaps the Jazz guys did. But the country, Blues, Jump, R&B players sure didn't. The Broadcaster/Tele was revelatory for them and it's popularity is exactly what fueled Gibson and McCarty to design and market the Les Paul, which kind of supports the fact that it wasn't expected to be strictly a Jazz guitar.
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Great answers, great post! I don't want to pretend that I know everything, and this adds a lot
to the thread.

Personally I would attribute a lot of what gBall says here to the design of the SG instead of the Les Paul.
Because I don't really think that anyone in 1950 had a clue where the music would go in the next fifty years.

But I can't argue with all this great knowledge. A fun thread indeed!
 
If your playing style is such that you would be apt to strike the body with your pick and scatch it, how is it possible that a pickguard suspended inches above the body of the guitar is not impeding your playing?
 
Col Mustard said:
Great answers, great post! I don't want to pretend that I know everything, and this adds a lot
to the thread.

Personally I would attribute a lot of what gBall says here to the design of the SG instead of the Les Paul.
Because I don't really think that anyone in 1950 had a clue where the music would go in the next fifty years.

But I can't argue with all this great knowledge. A fun thread indeed!
Click to expand...

The Les Paul was designed as and entree into the solidbody market and was a deliberate and well-reasoned response to the burgeoning market for this new style of guitar that was being driven by country and blues sounds. By the late '50's rock-and-roll was, obviously, an established musical force and the LP was losing market share to (primarily) Fender...Fast! The revised Les Paul/SG was designed out of desperation, and in relative haste, as a response to the market shifting and as a quite intentional attempt to lure players away from other double-cutaway designs (Stratocaster). They went for a simpler, easier to manufacture design and a more "youthful" appearance to test the new waters and as it turned out, once again, McCarty's instincts were spot on and the new design was a huge success. It had a look and sound that was perfect for the time and as we all know has stayed in production ever since. It took the blues explosion of the late '60's to re-popularize the original single-cut LP and get it back into production.
 
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gball said:
The Les Paul was designed as and entree into the solidbody market and was a deliberate and well-reasoned response to the burgeoning market for this new style of guitar that was being driven by country and blues sounds. By the late '50's rock-and-roll was, obviously, an established musical force and the LP was losing market share to (primarily) Fender...Fast! The revised Les Paul/SG was designed out of desperation, and in relative haste, as a response to the market shifting and as a quite intentional attempt to lure players away from other double-cutaway designs (Stratocaster). They went for a simpler, easier to manufacture design and a more "youthful" appearance to test the new waters and as it turned out, once again, McCarty's instincts were spot on and the new design was a huge success. It had a look and sound that was perfect for the time and as we all know has stayed in production ever since. It took the blues explosion of the late '60's to re-popularize the original single-cut LP and get it back into production.
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I never felt evil enough at a seance with a Les Paul.
 
Gahr said:
So you play at seances often?:D

What would you bring to a conjuring?
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Growing up in a farm town, we were frequently bored. Nothing much to do, so a friend's sister - I guess we were 17 - thought if our band jammed in their garage, she could summon recently deceased Randy Rhoads.

I wore a black trench coat. It was what all the conjuerer's were wearing at the time.

We really were a special group...
 
Tony M. said:
Yep.

Hmm, let's see.
Playing in a worship band?

Blood red guitar...check
Blood red guitar with devil horns...check
Screaming moaning blood red guitar with devil horns...check
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And I have played in worship bands too, believe it or not!
 
RVA said:
If your playing style is such that you would be apt to strike the body with your pick and scatch it, how is it possible that a pickguard suspended inches above the body of the guitar is not impeding your playing?
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Are we in "litigation" mode here, Mr RVA? For it is flawed. An LP's pickguard is not suspended "inches" above the body. Maybe 3/8" at the most, where the body's carve gets thinner. But the LP's pickguard rests directly on the body where the pickups are mounted. Therefore, the pickguard is only raised by the thickness of itself. At that point, it is only a simple adjustment to your technique which usually happens naturally. Unless the sight of a pickguard freaks you out... :ohno:

...... :wink:
 
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syscokid said:
Are we in "litigation" mode here, Mr RVA? For it is flawed. An LP's pickguard is not suspended "inches" above the body. Maybe 3/8" at the most, where the body's carve gets thinner. But the LP's pickguard rests directly on the body where the pickups are mounted. Therefore, the pickguard is only raised by the thickness of itself. At that point, it is only a simple adjustment to your technique which usually happens naturally. Unless the sight of a pickguard freaks you out... :ohno:

...... :wink:
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Disagree. Pic=1087 words (inflation)

lespaulstd_HOMEFEATURE.jpg
 
RVA said:
Disagree. Pic=1087 words (inflation)

View attachment 12358
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Your pic proves my point. Look at the pickguard at the southwest corner again, which has the biggest gap between pg and the body. On my LP, that gap measures 3/8". Not 1/2" ... definitely not "inches". The pickguard is also parallel to the body's plane in between the pickups, or the center of the body. The pickguard has now changed the extended plane of the pickguard as if the guitar's body was a flat-top. Except that extended plane is now about 1/8" higher. Much like an SG with an angel wing pickguard.
 
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