Is it a Chubtone or a Les Paul?

[cvansickle]

The lead tracks echo what I said about the first tracks. The lead sound in Guitar 2 sounds more.... more. So I still say 1 is the Chub and 2 is the LP.

[Tatosh Guitar]

I heard both twice. I stay by my saying too, but I could be wrong. Both sound killer, I could live happily with the sounds produced by either of those, which ever they are.

Anyway, there is a part near the end of the lead side on guitar 1... I could be wrong, but I just hear super strat. The other one is giving me strong 12-fret Gary neck bucker vibes. I could be way off base here, but still...

So yeah, Chubbie is Guitar 1, Lester is Guitar 2. If i am wrong... well it proves how much I know LOL.

[Dinosaur David B]

I KNOW which is which and they STILL sound remarkably similar. 
 

I think part of that is because I’m using Dino tones. If I were using less gain—like just on the verge of break up, it might be more apparent. 

But I think that is part of the point. Glenn Frick makes that point constantly in his videos and I agree that it mostly doesn’t matter what you use in MODERN high gain metal. But apparently it doesn’t even matter that much at Dino — what I’d call medium gain levels. Especially when the two guitars use the same pickup through the same amp. 

Anyone else?
 

[MarshallLaw]

To my ears Gtr 1 sounds like the Paul & Gtr 2 sounds like the Spitfire.

[deanulve]

Leads
Guitar 1 is Chubby, longer scale length stiffness in that tone
Guitar 2 is Lester
 

[Dinosaur David B]

And the answer is . . .























Guitar 1 is the Les Paul
Guitar 2 is the Chubtone

And FWIW, I could have EASILY gotten this wrong myself. The only thing that I might have picked up on is in the Leads clip 1, around 17 seconds in, when I play above the 12th fret on the neck pup, to my ears, it has just a touch more of that classic, LP neck pup up high tone than the Chubtone. And it's still really close. 

But the thing with the Aldrich neck pup is that it's voiced to be not quite as fat and fuzzy up there as a normal PAF in a LP. It's voiced to cut through the band mix a bit more. And it does.  So maybe it's not as much as a giveaway as it might be with PAFs.

Anyway, I think it's pretty cool because I wanted the Chubtone to get as close as possible to my LP/Aldrich tone as possible, but I never expected it to be so close it would fool any of us. 
 
 
Conclusions
At mid gain/Dino gain levels -- on recordings:

• Guitar type/design doesn't matter much
• Tonewood doesn't matter
• Even a Floyd influence on tone may get masked if you're not using the bar.

 Play whatever lets you get your best performance.
 
 

[deanulve]

Boom there it is..
Good thing I don't bet!
 

[cvansickle]

I was totally wrong, both listens. Just goes to show I don't know jack. I still have fun though.

[Dinosaur David B]

 Just goes to show I don't know jack. 
 

I don't think that's the healthy takeaway, Chris. I KNEW which was which, and if you blind tested me without telling me this is 1, this is 2, I'd could easily get it wrong, too. 

A more positive takeaway is that it's a lot easier to be fooled than the dogma would have us believe.  And something that's been demonstrated over and over is that guitarists tend to listen with their eyes.  Take away the visual cues, and our tone-hearing superpowers become a lot less reliable. And finally, once you add a healthy amount of gain, the sonic differences become so small they're almost meaningless.

In this case, my Chubtone sounds closer to my 2014 LP than my old LP sounds to the 2014. That's counter-intuitive, and goes against everything we've been told and sold for years.  But it's useful information I move forward with.


 

[cvansickle]

 Just goes to show I don't know jack. 


 

A more positive takeaway is that it's a lot easier to be fooled than the dogma would have us believe.  And something that's been demonstrated over and over is that guitarists tend to listen with their eyes.  Take away the visual cues, and our tone-hearing superpowers become a lot less reliable. And finally, once you add a healthy amount of gain, the sonic differences become so small they're almost meaningless.

In this case, my Chubtone sounds closer to my 2014 LP than my old LP sounds to the 2014. That's counter-intuitive, and goes against everything we've been told and sold for years.  But it's useful information I move forward with.


 


 

I completely understand the listen with our eyes explanation, as I've been guilty of that many times myself. And healthy amounts of gain can muddy the mix too, no pun intended. It's just that track 2 had the characteristics, to my ears anyway, of what a good Les Paul should sound like. Major kudos to Curt and his team for delivering a guitar that can make players question the status quo.