Metropoulos Forum

Obviously with the new pictures, you can't judge how Peter had that Les Paul set up, since it has been forty years since then, and a lot of stuff about the axe has been repaired/tweaked while in Gary Moore's possesion.

Peter's Les Paul really does sound like no other. It has the clarity and spank of a Tele with the balls of a Gibson. What I've noticed in a lot of the old videos, despite being very low resolution, is that Peter seems to have his pickups exceptionally low in the pickup rings (even though the old rings were taller), and judging the clarity of the notes versus how hard he is picking, his action sounds like it was on the high side of normal.

Could part of Greens sound be the fact that his pickups were set further away from the strings? I tried this the other day and it definately let certain nuances through that I hadn't heard with the pickups closer.

Travis

Astute observation Travis, yes they are set fairly low, and Gary has played it with very high action, he often remarked how no one else could play it!!
I think the secret to Peter's dynamic playing is the combination of his fingers and pick, he had quite long fingernails at times and the force with which he struck the strings, allied with some sweet tube reverb and there you go!!
yngwie308

It a combo of many things, vibrato, feel, reverb, phase chancellation, etc etc

Dave, I didn't know that Gary played with the action high as well. I'm gonna drop the pickups a little on my Les Paul tonight and bring the action up to see if I can get a little more Green out of it. Obviously it won't be perfect, but it'd be cool to have a really tasty tone that few other use, since everyone is trying to squeeze output and girth out of Les Pauls it seems. (Everyone being the general masses, not the tweakers and forumites)

Roe, I agree 100%, no matter what tone you're chasing, it's always about the sum of parts. Be it Jimi, Clapton, Greeny, Eddie, or otherwise. Even without the reverb/phase cancellation though, Peter's Les Paul seems to have a very nuanced tone. Like in that live Oh Well that is on Youtube, he goes straight bridge pickup and it still sounds like "that" Les Paul. Obviously a big part of it is in his hands, and honestly, Peter's is one of the hardest styles to copy, because all his licks come off sounding so well controlled while still sounding unrestrained.

I really dig out of phase pickups, in Strat's and Les Pauls, they've got way more character IMO. Right now my Les Paul's are Out of Phase in the middle and I love it. I'm thinking of ordering another middle pickup from fralin so that positions 2 and 4 on my Strat will be out of phase as well.

Travis

So last night, I dropped the pickups down to approximately what I see in old pics and vids, and I brought the action up till it had loads of clarity acoustically. I still need to tweak and fine tune things, but overall the guitar took on a very interesting flavour.

Even through a little 10 watt practice amp, there was big open clarity. I'll keep trying different things till i'm satisfied, the sound definately seems to open up with things set this way.

Travis