Farewell Les Paul, Hello McCarty

My first electric guitar was an Epiphone Les Paul. It weighed 9.1 lbs and sounded - once I finally sorted out the effects+amp chain - pretty darn awesome. Double humbuckers will do that. I liked the feel of the neck. I bought it in late 2022 before my neck vertebrae decided to play up. 9.1 lbs was just too heavy to sling on my shoulder for more than half-an-hour, and if it wasn’t positioned just right, like all LP’s, it would slide off my right thigh like a (insert analogy here).

Facing the prospect of my second lesson, and needing to play for practice sessions for longer than I would find comfortable, I finally faced up to the fact that the weight and balance of the LP was a distraction.

My Marshall-owning friend advised me to get the guitar I needed / wanted, rather than could live with, as trading guitars can be an expensive way of renting them. Which is a good point.

What I wanted was a Les Paul that weighed 7lbs at the most and didn’t fall off my lap like (analogy supplied above). One candidate is an SG. It weighs around 6 lbs, has a shorter body from neck pick-up to the end and hence superior upper fret access, but it has neck-dive. Acoustics have neck-dive (falling forward in the direction of the headstock) but nothing like an SG. Straps are compulsory, and it does not balance on one’s knee. Sounds wicked though.

Fender don’t really do double-humbuckers, and don’t have the LP control and wiring. Also, Strats and Teles are heavy - not hefty like some LPs can be, but still heavy.

Within my budget, this leaves the PRS SE range. You don’t have to be a lawyer to buy one of those. It’s in the Mexican Fender price range, and the unoccupied land between Epiphone and Gibson prices. After much trying of this and that , I asked one of the GuitarGuitar staff if they could weigh the two candidates. I felt one was slightly but crucially lighter than the other. It was. 7lbs dead on.

7 lbs 

Double humbuckers with separate tone + volume controls in parallel, joined at the switch (e.g. Les Paul wiring). 

Sounds fine - in fact, I preferred the slightly cleaner sound of the PRS pickups 

Looks good 

Balances nicely on my right thigh 

Doesn’t feel like a weight on my shoulder 

7 lbs

This is what I wanted. 

So I went back to the car, fetched the Epiphone, and traded it in.