Looking for an LP style guitar

Anyone heard of /familiar with these LP copies: ESP Navigator limited series?
No, but the ESP EC-256 absolutely smokes. Push-pull to split your pickups comes stock. Neck feels great.

Long story? My buddy has one and I was blown away by how it sounded in a live jam (guitar, bass, drums, keys). Then he let me play it, and I was blown away by how good it felt. Just vibes, articulate, toneful, soulful, thick but with cut through the mix and could thin up with the push-pull which comes in handy when trying to be dynamic in a group setting. Then while I was waiting for the color I wanted to be available at Sweetwater, I played another two ESP EC-256s and an ESP EC-1000 (same guitar basically, but with different pickups). Very consistent performance between all 4 guitars. But while Sweetwater was re-stocking Covid struck and I found a used Gibson SG that just sung and I ended up taking it home and stopped ESP shopping. I was this close to getting an ESP though, and can see no scenario in which I'd be displeased with the guitar.
 
For sometime I've been waiting for a PRS CE24 to come in but i'm rethinking my needs as I already have a few bolt on /super strat guitars. What I'm missing is a Hard tail LP style guitar for those thick beefy tones! Here are a few guitars I"ve been looking at lately:
1) The new Gibson LP Standard 50s/60's spec guitars. I lean towards the 60's spec. $3200 CAD
2) PRS S2 594 McCarty. $2400 CAD
3) PRS SE 245 $1000 - leaves $$ to upgrade whatever components/electronics I want.

Thoughts? suggestions? I'm leaning towards Single cut. I want this guitar mainly for Rhythm playing

Cheers
If you want a Les Paul, the current 50s/60s Standards from the "Original" series are great. I have a few custom shop reissues and honestly my 50s Std holds its own. They're very different of course, but the 50s Standard still puts a smile on my face when I pick it up. And unless mine is an aberration, Gibson has really improved their QC in the last year or so. It's a much nicer guitar than the LP Traditional and Classic I had 5+ years ago.

I've also had a core 594 and one of the original Singlecuts. They were amazing guitars, but they didn't exactly scratch the LP itch for me.
 
Update: went to two guitar shops today to mainly check out some PRS and Gibsons. I held a Core McCarty 594 along with a few Gibsons...impressed by the instruments of course but just not jivin' with the feel/necks. Then, the guy working there says I should check out the Epiphone Prophecy which I did and well ...I took it home. Preliminary observations: It felt great and the quality on these are surprising..dare i say as good as the Gibby LP Standard 60's. Granted it has a veneer cap ; but has some surprising features that make this great for your buck. Locking tuners, fishman fluence pickups and even a neck heel carve/tummy carve. I hope to bond with it over the week as this will be saving me $2000 from what i was prepared to spend. The bonus too for me, is satin neck. I can't stand gloss necks so it was a no brainer for me. This week will put through paces to decide if it stays for good.
 

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Update: went to two guitar shops today to mainly check out some PRS and Gibsons. I held a Core McCarty 594 along with a few Gibsons...impressed by the instruments of course but just not jivin' with the feel/necks. Then, the guy working there says I should check out the Epiphone Prophecy which I did and well ...I took it home. Preliminary observations: It felt great and the quality on these are surprising..dare i say as good as the Gibby LP Standard 60's. Granted it has a veneer cap ; but has some surprising features that make this great for your buck. Locking tuners, fishman fluence pickups and even a neck heel carve/tummy carve. I hope to bond with it over the week as this will be saving me $2000 from what i was prepared to spend. The bonus too for me, is satin neck. I can't stand gloss necks so it was a no brainer for me. This week will put through paces to decide if it stays for good.
Let us know what you think of the pickups please. Some people love em, some people think they sound somewhat artificial. I'm interested because noiseless and dual tones, if I like the sounds.
 
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Update: went to two guitar shops today to mainly check out some PRS and Gibsons. I held a Core McCarty 594 along with a few Gibsons...impressed by the instruments of course but just not jivin' with the feel/necks. Then, the guy working there says I should check out the Epiphone Prophecy which I did and well ...I took it home. Preliminary observations: It felt great and the quality on these are surprising..dare i say as good as the Gibby LP Standard 60's. Granted it has a veneer cap ; but has some surprising features that make this great for your buck. Locking tuners, fishman fluence pickups and even a neck heel carve/tummy carve. I hope to bond with it over the week as this will be saving me $2000 from what i was prepared to spend. The bonus too for me, is satin neck. I can't stand gloss necks so it was a no brainer for me. This week will put through paces to decide if it stays for good.
Great score! It's all about what you like.

There's a lot of snobbery when it comes to Epiphone which is frankly unwarranted. True, they may not be made from the same quality of woods and finishes but they are similar enough to yield very good playing and sounding guitars. I would most definitely consider Epiphone or Epiphone Elite guitars before any current Gibson offering.

It's been my experience that a lot of the tone comes from the Gibson pickups and there are a few Epiphone models that have Gibson USA pickups. Epi's are inexpensive enough that installing a new set of Gibson p/u's is still saving quite a chunk of change. Take it to a luthier to have a fret level and dress with a full setup and you'll easily have a guitar that will compete with a lot of Gibsons that are 10x more expensive.
 
Great score! It's all about what you like.

There's a lot of snobbery when it comes to Epiphone which is frankly unwarranted. True, they may not be made from the same quality of woods and finishes but they are similar enough to yield very good playing and sounding guitars. I would most definitely consider Epiphone or Epiphone Elite guitars before any current Gibson offering.
Speaking of snobbery, I totally held back in an exchange with a guy at the shop. I mentioned I use Fractal and he is a Kemper user. My first comment, was 'cool!, i haven't tried Kemper but I hear great things..." and in about the next 2 minutes he was going on about how If I tried Kemper it blows Axe Fx /Line 6 out of the water'. It was here I bit my tongue haha. I had asked if he'd had an opportunity to try Fractal but it was clear he hadn't really. To be fair, I've never tried Kemper et al so what could I really say anyhow. No need to poo poo anyone's gear just be happy we all have what makes us happy and enables us to make music. I chuckled to myself afterwards.
 
For sometime I've been waiting for a PRS CE24 to come in but i'm rethinking my needs as I already have a few bolt on /super strat guitars. What I'm missing is a Hard tail LP style guitar for those thick beefy tones! Here are a few guitars I"ve been looking at lately:
1) The new Gibson LP Standard 50s/60's spec guitars. I lean towards the 60's spec. $3200 CAD
2) PRS S2 594 McCarty. $2400 CAD
3) PRS SE 245 $1000 - leaves $$ to upgrade whatever components/electronics I want.

Thoughts? suggestions? I'm leaning towards Single cut. I want this guitar mainly for Rhythm playing

Cheers
The S2 594 is a great guitar. I will say the pickups are not my favorites but most seem to like them Guitar is fabulous.
Mine is the single cut.
 
Speaking of snobbery, I totally held back in an exchange with a guy at the shop. I mentioned I use Fractal and he is a Kemper user. My first comment, was 'cool!, i haven't tried Kemper but I hear great things..." and in about the next 2 minutes he was going on about how If I tried Kemper it blows Axe Fx /Line 6 out of the water'. It was here I bit my tongue haha. I had asked if he'd had an opportunity to try Fractal but it was clear he hadn't really. To be fair, I've never tried Kemper et al so what could I really say anyhow. No need to poo poo anyone's gear just be happy we all have what makes us happy and enables us to make music. I chuckled to myself afterwards.
IMO, Fractal and Kemper are both very good at what they do....they just don't do at all the same thing (you know, except for making guitar sounds). I tried a Kemper for a while and seriously considered it, but....it came down to not really knowing that I could find profiles of amps I wanted to play set how I'd end up wanting them set after hearing them in person, and that I'd be happy with. If I could somehow be guaranteed of that, I'm sure I'd be happy playing it. With all due respect to MBritt and others....that wasn't a gamble I was willing to take for that amount of money.

Fractal, OTOH, seemed like it would give enough flexibility in the deep editing that even if I wasn't totally happy with an amp, I could probably tweak it into something that I really liked. And that has been the case. And, at least so far, there's always been at least some small thing that I ended up tweaking that "improved" the amp to my ears so that a great Kemper profile (for me) would end up being not just of an amp I was interested in set the right way but one that was modified in a specific way that I wouldn't have known to look for until after I got to play with my Fractal.

It's really a difference in philosophy as much as technology. And I get why so many people like the Kemper way of doing things....it's just not my way.

I think I'm relatively confident in saying they both blow Line 6 out of the water....but almost all of my experience of it comes from Helix Native. So, I'm also willing to admit that there could be other factors at play. But both of them sounded much better, much faster than Native ever did to me.
 
@marsonic I have read that Helix Native relies heavily on having a quality interface as do all of the plugin based amp simulators. If your hardware based interface is of mediocre or poor quality the results will reflect that. The best case scenario for evaluating the L6 modeling is using their proprietary hardware (floor, stomp, LT, rack). I suspect that a part of what makes FAS products sound as good as they do are the high quality hardware that they use.
 
@marsonic I have read that Helix Native relies heavily on having a quality interface as do all of the plugin based amp simulators. If your hardware based interface is of mediocre or poor quality the results will reflect that. The best case scenario for evaluating the L6 modeling is using their proprietary hardware (floor, stomp, LT, rack). I suspect that a part of what makes FAS products sound as good as they do are the high quality hardware that they use.

Yeah....that's definitely possible. My interface is certainly not bad (most of that experience was with a Focusrite 18i20; I've also used Avid at other people's places). But, I don't think I'll ever know whether the instrument inputs are "good enough" for that. I'm also not going to spend thousands of dollars trying different interfaces just to see which one might work a little better with guitars. I never heard anything even remotely encouraging from it as opposed to just plugging into the Fractal....or the DSM Simplifier....or just about every amp even remotely close to something I knew I would like and a lot that I thought I wouldn't.
 
Love the Duncan P-rails. Put them on my PRS singlecut trem. Which is now a very versatile guitar. Went from thinking about selling or trading to my #1. The single rails are hot though. Also have one on my Strat as the H pickup on my HSS setup. I plug these whenever I get a chance. Godin is smart to offer these as stock pickups.
 
Sweet. Is that a Godin LG Signature model?

Still love that track so hard man. :)

Ever find a drummer???
Thank you. IIRC the model is a 2015 Godin Summit Classic CT in Creme Brulee burst with a SD Alnico II Pro in the neck and a '59 in the bridge.

Still no drummer...but I finally got art/video sorted and the first single comes out NYE, so that's something :)
 
Thank you. IIRC the model is a 2015 Godin Summit Classic CT in Creme Brulee burst with a SD Alnico II Pro in the neck and a '59 in the bridge.

Still no drummer...but I finally got art/video sorted and the first single comes out NYE, so that's something :)

Sounds great man! What’s the neck like on your Godin?
 
Sounds great man! What’s the neck like on your Godin?
Thanks mate! I think the Godin neck is closest to those 90's Gibson Les Paul Classics with the 60's slim neck(I used to gig with one). It has a nice "modern D" shape to it and the gloss finish Godin uses isn't as sticky as nitro or as slick as a Jackson - I think it's someplace in between.
 
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