Irony Thursday: I no longer want a Les Paul

Ever since I waxed nostalgic about the Les Pauls I've owned and sold, I thought that some day I'd have another one, whether it be an official Gibson/Epiphone or a good quality copy like the ones made by Agile. The more I play, though, the more I'm learning what guitars fit me and which ones don't. Which made me come to a realization:

Les Pauls don't fit me.

Why? It all has to do with the body shape and, more specifically, the location of the lower body arch. I don't know the exact name of it, but it's the curve on the bottom of a guitar where you rest it on your right leg (or left leg if you're a lefty) when you play sitting down. There are two ways to sit with a guitar. One is the way I explained above; the other is similar to a classical guitarist, where you put the guitar between your legs with the lower curve on your left leg.

The designers of the Les Paul apparently had the latter position in mind when designing the guitar. The bottom curve is offset closer to the neck so that when the guitar is held in the classical seated position, the bridge is closer to the right leg, putting the playing area just about dead-center. The downside of this is that when the guitar is held in the right-leg position, the playing area is shifted even more to the right, which for me is very uncomfortable.

Contrast this with Fender guitars. On Strats and Teles, the bottom arch is more centrally located between the neck and the bridge, which makes the playing area perfectly placed for right-leg playing. This also holds true for Strat-based guitars like my Ibanez.

So what does that mean for me? Well, I'm a right-leg player. I try to play holding the guitar in the classical style but it just feels wrong to me. So when I play a guitar sitting down (which is most of the time) I set it on my right leg. Which is fine when I play my Strat or my Ibanez or my Durango. However, when I play my Les Paul Junior, it feels uncomfortable - it hurts my shoulder after a while because I have to hold my arm back further. So I end up switching between the right-leg position and the classical position, but since I don't like the classical position, I end up going back and forth until I just say, "Screw it" and use another guitar.

After coming to this epiphany, I naturally came to the conclusion that a Les Paul would not suit my needs. There are a few other guitars I'd like to have, and I would like to get one more guitar someday to round out my collection, but a Les Paul will not be one of them. The irony is that the whole Short List started with my desire to replace the Les Pauls that got away. I'm glad I went through the process of picking the right guitar instead of caving to my nostalgia or I would've ended up with another guitar that wasn't the right fit, like what happened with my Telecaster.

I also have a tough decision to make about my Les Paul Junior. It's a beautiful guitar and it does hold some sentimental value, but it spends most of its time in the closet because it's not comfortable for me to play. Like my old Telecaster, the Junior has real world value that could be used to acquire the gear I want if I choose to go that route. Sentimental value has a strong pull, though, so this won't be as easy as it was for the Telecaster. I only owned that for about eight months before selling it and getting my Ibanez. I've had the Junior since I bought it new in either 1998 or 1999.

I hate tough decisions.

Weekly update - what's on the way

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I haven't written anything of true substance for a while. I think I just put so much time and effort into the review of Shorty (DGW Contender) that I needed a breather. I also really enjoyed making the demo video. I plan on doing a lot more of them in the future.

Which brings me to the meat of this post - what's coming up. Well, like I said above, there are plenty of videos on the horizon, including an in-depth demo of Triumph, my Ibanez RG4EXQM1 that I purchased recently. I'm also going to do similar demos of all my guitars, with the hopes of getting on the press demo list for some manufacturers. I'm also going to do some play-along videos where I play along to some of the songs I'm learning. I'm doing this both for myself, as I can use the videos to critique my playing and see where I need improvement, and also for the public as I'll be using all my guitars and gear so I can have more tone samples. YouTube was indispensable to me when I was shopping for a guitar, and the more demos I can do for people the more information they'll have when they go to buy a guitar.

I was also contacted by a new progressive metal band who wanted me to review their new EP. I've downloaded it and I will be writing that review shortly. Also, I'm going to introduce a new series of posts that I'm going to call Retro Reviews. I, like most people, have discovered a lot of my favorite music long after it was released. My plan is to write reviews of older albums, but from a modern perspective. Anyone can Google an album and get a review from when it was released, but my reviews will be from the perspective of someone discovering something old. I think this will give a different take on these older albums, as I've already heard the music that was influenced by them, plus I will see if they stood the test of time, as it were. These reviews are going to be more informal than my regular album reviews. For those, I try to follow the rules of journalism and make them as impersonal as possible. But for the Retro Reviews, I'm going to use the first person and try to inject more humor and anecdotes into them.

There's a lot to look forward to, so check back often!

John's weekly update - what I've been doing since the review

Hey everyone, just thought I'd check in at the ol' blog. I haven't done much here since the big Contender review, so what have I done for the past week?

Well for one thing, I've been playing. Another big plus in the Contender's favor is that, even after I pulled all my guitars out of the closet (save for the Hondo) and cleaned them up, I still grab the Contender first. I think I've officially been won over by its short scale goodness. In fact, when I played my Strat for the first time after using the Contender for so long, it felt absolutely huge! I got used to it and remembered just how nice of a guitar it is, but I found myself missing the shorter scale. I had planned on putting the Contender away for a while so I could rotate my guitars, but I couldn't leave it in there. I had to take it out again because I missed playing it so much.

I also decided that I want to make playing fun again. My biggest shortcoming on the guitar is (still) my lack of song knowledge, so to compensate for that I went out and bought the Humongous Guitar Songbook. Sixty-four songs, and I actually like most of them. Sure, there are some duds, but for the money it can't be beat. I plan on loading up on these types of songbooks and learning as many songs as I can. I'm still going to do some of my exercises and maybe go over some of my theory and scales, but I think learning these songs will make me a better player. It did once before, back in my Amethyst days, so I'm sure it'll work again.

I fight the urge to look at/want to buy new guitars every day. With the addition of Triumph and Shorty, I should be focusing more on playing and less on gear, but I love guitars so much and there are still more that I'd want. I think back to the unlucky loser, the Sterling JP50 that nearly won the Short List, and I wonder what it would've been like if I bought that one instead. I also still would love to get another Les Paul style guitar, not to mention a hardtail Ibanez, or even the Schecter Omen 6 I liked so much. Then there's the ever-present pull of the Chapman Guitars ML1, which is getting closer to sold out every day, and that's a limited run, so after they're gone, they're gone for good. In fact, if I had the money lying around, that would be the first guitar I'd buy, just to make sure I got one while I still could.

Anyway, I digress. I have a great set of guitars that should last me a while. Many people only have one or two guitars, but I'm lucky enough to have four good ones and one chock full of sentimental value (if nothing else). I want to work on my playing for a little while now and possibly look to upgrade the rest of my rig - i.e. amp and pedals - at some later date.

Isn't playing guitar just all kinds of awesome?

Gear Review: Durango Guitar Works Contender (with video)

The Contender, now named "Shorty"

When I first got the Contender in the mail, I didn't know what to make of it. Was it a kid's guitar? A travel guitar? A beginner guitar? So I played it for a few weeks as my main guitar to find out.

DGW specializes in short scale guitars. The Contender has a 24 inch scale, compared to traditional Fender (25.5 inch) and Gibson (24.75 inch) scales. This scale puts the frets closer together, so it's easier to make some of the stretches necessary to play scales or more complex chords. It also decreases tension in the strings to the point where light gauge strings (9s) feel extremely loose. Less tension makes it easier to bend strings and it also makes heavier gauge strings feel lighter. The Contender I got feels like it has 10s on it but it's as easy to play as any of my other guitars strung with 9s.

After unpacking it, I immediately noticed the quality of the guitar. It is extremely well made. I couldn't find a single blemish in the finish, which in this case is a nicely done two-tone sunburst. The neck was even more impressive. Usually affordable guitars made in China have poorly finished necks, but the Contender is obviously made in one of the better Chinese factories because the finish and fretwork are exemplary. The fret ends were finished so well that I was able to slide my fingers up and down the sides with some force behind them and still not feel any sharp edges. The finish itself is a nice satin finish, which according to their Web site is gunstock oil, and it has 22 medium frets.

The hardware is also very solid. It has a Strat-style hardtail bridge (which I love as I'm not the biggest fan of tremolos) with a string-through design, a volume and tone control with metal knobs and a three-way blade switch. The pickups are Wilkinson AlNiCo humbuckers which are a surprise at this price range. They aren't the most powerful pickups - they can do metal, but they aren't happy about it - but they have a nice vintage tone that's perfect for classic rock or even country. I don't know if it's the pickups or the construction - it has a three-piece alder body and a bolt-on maple cap neck (maple fingerboard on maple neck) - but some of the tones are almost Strat-like, especially in the middle and neck positions.

Shorty is much smaller than Triumph

The body isn't contoured like a traditional Strat but instead it has a slightly carved top and a back contour that runs around the entire body. This makes it pretty comfortable while resting against your body, but not quite as nice as a Strat. Still, with the body being quite small - about 2/3 the size of a traditional Strat style guitar, as you can see in the picture on the left - it's comfortable for sitting and standing and it's extremely light. The only drawback to this lightness is that it's slightly neck-heavy. Not as bad as a Gibson, but there is some neck dive when standing.

Speaking of Gibson, the neck reminds me a lot of a Gibson neck. It has a pretty wide profile, wider than my Strat. It's definitely a wide C-shaped neck and with a 12-inch radius feels a lot like a Les Paul from the 50s. Despite this, it's still very easy to play, largely because of the shorter scale.

I was enjoying my time with the Contender but I still didn't completely understand it. I spoke with Jimmy Carabbia, founder of DGW, and he put the guitar into perspective. The Contender was designed not to be a student guitar but to be another option for those wanting to play guitar. Carabbia comes from the world of BMX bike racing, and he compared the Contender to a custom race bike. You buy a race bike to fit you, and if traditional guitars don't fit, you need another option. His goal is to educate people about scale length and give them another option. There aren't many 24-inch scale guitars available, and the micro guitars from Squier and Ibanez have a 22.5" scale which causes tuning and intonation problems. He attended a NAMM show and realized there was nothing like the Contender available anywhere, so DGW was born.

The best example he gave me, though, was Brian May from Queen. He's a big guy - about 6'2" tall, although he's probably 6'6" with his hair - but his famous homemade Red Special guitar has a 24-inch scale. So although the Contender would make a good guitar for younger players with small hands, it's obviously a guitar for anyone who just might prefer a smaller scale guitar.

The Contender is the end result of one man's quest to build a guitar that fits him. Because of his racing past, his hands have been damaged and the shorter scale better suits his limitations. The Contender is just the first step. In the future, Carabbia plans to add a Tele-style guitar to his lineup as he has received many requests for one.

As for the current Contender, the more I played it the more I liked it. The neck took a little time to get familiar with, both the scale and the thickness. I had been playing Triumph, my new Ibanez RG, and I was used to the thin Wizard profile and the standard 25.5 inch scale. But after a while, I really started to like the Contender. It has a different sound and feel and quickly became the guitar I picked up most often, and not just because I had to write this review. I decided that I couldn't send it back, so I bought it. The fact that it had a sunburst finish, the one I think looks the best, had a little to do with it, too. That's probably the best outcome to expect from a review - I liked it so much that I made it my own.

It may not be for everybody, but the Contender is a guitar that anyone buying a new guitar should consider. It fits the mold for a beginner/child's guitar very well, but it is also a viable alternative for anyone who may want a guitar but doesn't like traditional scale lengths. The Contender is available directly from Durango's Web site, so if you're interested check it out.

For additional info and some tone samples, please watch the supplemental video below.