MIKE PAYNE: Welcome to the Gearwire.Com Crosstalk podcast for Friday, September 1st. I'm your host, Mike Payne, and I'm joined by Drew Krag...,

DREW KRAG: Howdy.

MIKE PAYNE: ...Mr. Britton Wetherald.

DAN AGOSTO: This sucks.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: I’m just kidding. This is the lovely Dan Agosto sitting next to me. Actually, so far Britton has not been available today and hopefully will come join us in a little bit, but we’re going to move on right along without him, so it’ll be a cheery podcast until that happens. First up, we’ve got some industry news this week for a change. Universal Music Group is starting a free music service, ad supported, called Spiral Frog, and we’re going to discuss that in a little bit. Also we’ve got some news on Microsoft’s so-called “iPod killer” the Zune, some details on that and images were leaked earlier this week so we’ll be taking a close look at those. Last, just now, MySpace announced today that they’ll be selling music for the nearly three million bands that are registered on their social network. The Gearwire.Com Crosstalk Crew will be taking a look at all these and as always, we invite you to participate. Go to the forums at forums.gearwire.com. Send us a message or an email at crosstalk@gearwire.com and we’ll chat with you about that.

Moving on, Gearwire received some excellent viewer mail a few weeks back we wanted to discuss and some of the issues that were brought up. First of all, one of our viewers has a comparison of classic synths and software synths at his site, and we’ll be taking a quick look at that. Also, we have some Gearwire viewers point out some C64 emulators. Britton, a couple of weeks ago, asked for if anybody knew about any Commodore 64 emulators, and sure enough, we got some viewers right away in a heartbeat send us some of those, so we’ll be taking a look at those.

DREW KRAG: Thanks guys.

DAN AGOSTO: Thank you.

MIKE PAYNE: Last, we’ve got an in-studio review of the Gibson Les Pauls this week. People should be pretty excited about that.

DAN AGOSTO: They’re nice.

MIKE PAYNE: Our review last week of the classic Minimoog versus the new Minimoog Voyager had been really popular so we decided to do something special for the guitarists this week. So, we’ve got the Gibson Les Paul Studio, the Gibson Les Paul GT, and the Gibson Les Paul Historic Collection 1957 Custom Black Beauty.

DAN AGOSTO: [WHISTLING]

MIKE PAYNE: Are you guys excited?

DREW KRAG: Oh yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: All right. So a few reminders before we get started. I did crosstalk@gearwire.com and we might even discuss it on the air as we will today. Also, Gearwire.Com forums are growing fast. Again, visit us at forums@gearwire.com and if you want to discuss the podcast, go to the Crosstalk section and you can talk to us live on there. A follow-up from last week, we got a new site featured at Gearwire.Com, the Gear Insider. Gearwire goes in depth with developers and product specialists, and we check out the Gear Insider at Gearwire.Com.

First up, the industry news we want to discuss this week. Universal Music Group is to start an ad-supported free music site called Spiral Frog. The service will not allow CD burning. All songs will be in WMA format, which is not compatible with an iPod. A strange twist to that, the first major label band that agreed to be featured on iTunes was U2, who is a Universal Music Group artist, and that’ll be kind of interesting to see how that all plays out. This competition could be very good for fans and musicians alike so it’ll be interesting to take a look at that.

Also, in industry news, details and images from Microsoft’s so-called “iPod Killer” were leaked earlier this week. Apparently, the Zune is manufactured by Toshiba and it features a 30-GB hard drive, an FM radio receiver, a 3” LCD screen and USB and wireless connectivity, a little step up from the iPod. We’ve got some negative and positive things to say about that. We have an image of that we can share on the air as well. We’ll pull that up in a second once we’re ready to discuss that. Last, the news about MySpace. They announced earlier today that they will be selling music on behalf of the three million musicians that are registered and have profiles on MySpace’s social network. In exchange for a small distribution fee which has not yet been set, musicians can seel their music on MySpace. MySpace will eventually be selling copy-protected songs from major labels but so far that hasn’t happened quite yet. They’re still working up the details on that. This is pretty big news, even more so that the Spiral Frog news and, you know, even Zune just the fact that --

DAN AGOSTO: Just coming out too.

MIKE PAYNE: Right, and that there’s a big competitor finally for iTunes, you know. MySpace already has the pull behind it, the community behind it so it could be pretty interesting to see how it all plays out. My concern on this is the -- you guys get a lot of band spam on there, a million band friend invites and comments.

DAN AGOSTO: It’s probably going to get worse.

MIKE PAYNE: Imagine how bad that’s going to be.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Most of them suck too so stop asking.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Seriously.

MIKE PAYNE: So let’s discuss this. First of all, the Spiral Frog by Universal Music Group.

DREW KRAG: I wonder where they got the name on that one, just throwing that out there but --

DAN AGOSTO: It’s a dumb name.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: But I think it’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure exactly how profitable it will be.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: I certainly don’t like the format.

DAN AGOSTO: The WMA?

DREW KRAG: Yeah. I’m just not feeling that.

MIKE PAYNE: No.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Definitely.

DREW KRAG: You know, if there’s somewhere where they can just Apple and Microsoft in a ring and just have them duke it out...

MIKE PAYNE: That would be great.

DREW KRAG: That would be just -- That would solve it all.

DAN AGOSTO: Sure.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Let the games begin.

MIKE PAYNE: Great.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Ting!

MIKE PAYNE: Have you guys -- Is Spiral Frog live yet? Have you guys --

DAN AGOSTO: I don’t believe so. I believe it’s just been announced.

MIKE PAYNE: Announced. Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: I haven’t seen. I mean the information on it I think just came out I think earlier this week so I think we’re waiting on it. It just been announced as a program, and a lot of the like the details have not yet been released yet basically, but I mean the big thing is it’s going to be wMA format. I mean not CD burnable, that’s something but we’re probably going to see the phasing out of the CD in a few years or so, five or six years maybe.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: So, that’s not a huge deal. Yeah, definitely the fact -- I think, you know, this and the Zune are related in I mean obvious ways...

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: Just because if people are on this free music site, they’re going to have to get an MP3 player besides the iPod or a music player besides the iPod and, you know, what better than to go with the one that comes out from like the same company.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. Do we have a picture of the Zune we can take a look at since we brought that up?

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Let’s take a look at it. This is the Zune. So basically, you can see that the screen is a bit bigger. I mean it’s really not as cool looking as the iPod I would say.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. It is nice that the screen size. I did read that the jog wheel is actually not a jog wheel. It’s actually just buttons. It’s not touch sensitive like the iPod.

DREW KRAG: Oh, I like that.

MIKE PAYNE: I know. Everybody does. It’s a cool little gimmick, but I mean I love it on my iPod. The major differences between this and the iPod are the wireless connectivity, which is pretty cool.

DREW KRAG: That is cool.

DAN AGOSTO: The radio stuff.

MIKE PAYNE: And the FM receiver.

DREW KRAG: And the USB -- you know just --

DAN AGOSTO: And the features definitely has the iPod beat.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: But I mean as far as market, you know, are you going to be able to like bring your iTunes library? All these people have huge iTunes libraries. Are you going to be able to bring your playlist into Zune if you’ve already, you know, gotten into the brand of Apple?

MIKE PAYNE: I would hope that they had worked that out, worked out some way of exporting into some other proprietary software.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Maybe not. That’s yet to be seen but just seeing as Apple already has such a huge market share of people, of customers...

DREW KRAG: A very good point. You know what I mean?

DAN AGOSTO: ...it could be hard seeing this thing go anywhere, and I think it can possibly flop all the way like the Betamax.

MIKE PAYNE: So do I. Aside from the Zune, there are a lot of other competitors to the iPod that don’t have much market share; they’re just smaller pieces like the Creative ZEN...

DREW KRAG: Like iriver.

MIKE PAYNE: Iriver.

DREW KRAG: Yeah, there’s a lot of them but I mean all those have standard formats, MP3s, stuff like that.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: I mean having just one format and saying that it’s exclusive to this device, that’s kind of --

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Well that’s -- The Zune I think will play MP3s and other formats or I’m not sure if it will play like OCs or whatever --

MIKE PAYNE: OGG.

DAN AGOSTO: OGG. Yeah. I don't know.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: I don’t own an iPod. I’m probably like the only one who doesn’t own one yet, but -- Oh gosh, where was I going.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Well it is, you know -- There isn’t going to be a lot of competition between this and the iPod because it’s competing with these other things too and it has to differentiate itself those other products like the iriver or the Digital River and things like -- the iriver...

DREW KRAG: Iriver.

MIKE PAYNE: ...and things like that, but I don't know. I think that iPod is so synonymous with mobile music that, you know, anything else is just going to be less.

DAN AGOSTO: They’re definitely going to need to match Microsoft in marketing...

MIKE PAYNE: Mmm hmm.

DAN AGOSTO: ...because...

MIKE PAYNE: Match Apple.

DAN AGOSTO: Match Apple. Microsoft needs to match Apple in marketing.

DREW KRAG: They’ve done a great job.

DAN AGOSTO: And that’s -- Then Apple’s marketing right now is just killing I think everyone.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: Like with the Mac-PC commercials, those spots have been really good.

MIKE PAYNE: God, I hate those commercials.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: I do too but they’re really popular...,

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: ...getting a lot of attention, and I just think Apple has Microsoft beat as far as marketing and possibly as far as image, being cool.

MIKE PAYNE: “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC. I can play video games.” [ACTING AS IF DUMBFOUNDED]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Not that any of us musicians have time for that...

DREW KRAG: Yeah. You know.

MIKE PAYNE: But, so the biggest news about this whole issue this week is MySpace, you know, allowing their musicians to sell their own music through MySpace.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. This is going to change everything I think.

MIKE PAYNE: Mmm hmm.

DAN AGOSTO: It’s real because just MySpace has so many members, everyone’s on it like...

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: ...I can go on there and just find basically anyone I’ve ever known.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. Exactly.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. It’s freaky. It is freaky.

DAN AGOSTO: [INDISCERNIBLE]

MIKE PAYNE: I -- It’s a little too early for me to think and speculate on what this is going to do to the music industry but obviously it just cuts out all these all -- It’s almost like labels will need to become promotion entities to prevent some of these artists to falling into obscurity or falling into “total saturation” because there’s going to be so many choices on there. How are these artists going to be able to differentiate themselves on that network to these musicians or to the fans?

DREW KRAG: We’ve talked about this before really.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: And you really just got to play, you know. That’s the best way to promote yourself, and then having the MySpace there is really just makes it easy to find you once people know about you. Promoting yourself on MySpace, I mean what people are doing now, they have the automatic “be my friend” machines that go around into every single person’s page and say, “Hey, be my friend,” and has these canned responses like, “You know, you might like my music,” or “So, you like music?” you know.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Come on, you know. It’s like you didn’t write that, you know. You wrote it once and then it went to everybody0

DAN AGOSTO: Even just the people like a lot of them aren’t even using bots. I get a lot of just weird message like, “Please be my friend, please, please, please...”

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: “...and check out the band,” and it’s just annoying as hell.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. I can’t stand it, and then I can only see it getting worse. Unless they have some technology in place for preventing these bands for spamming you with messages and autobots like you mentioned and otherwise. I mean I’m already bombarded by so many bands. I don’t even give them a chance to listen, although I did find this French rapper the other day.

DREW KRAG: Sweet.

MIKE PAYNE: This girl, she’s like 19, 20 named Agony, and she has this song, I forgot what it’s called, blew me away like really like soft and amazing.

DREW KRAG: I always give them a listen. I always give them the benefit of a doubt and check them out and, you know, like I said earlier, most of them suck, so yeah.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Another interesting thing I think that’s going on in this story is it brings Newscorp to the table...

MIKE PAYNE: Right. Right.

DAN AGOSTO: ...in the ring with Universal and that’s another thing, another like section of media that Rupert Murdoch has his hands deep into.

MIKE PAYNE: This is a spookfest.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Scary.

DREW KRAG: Woo! Ha ha ha!

MIKE PAYNE: Well?

DAN AGOSTO: So let’s talk about something else.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah, let’s move on.

DREW KRAG: That sounds good.

MIKE PAYNE: All right. So we got some really good viewer mail a couple of weeks ago on two issues. First of all, the Commodore 64 emulators which actually Britton had asked about, and we had a few listeners write in and mentioned those and showed us some really cool plugins, so we will discuss those pretty deeply. But also, we want to take a look at one of our Crosstalk viewers’ web sites. One of our viewers runs a fantastic web site for software synth heads with a love for all things vintage and reproduced. Crosstalk viewer Roland, kind of a perfect name for a synth lover, Roland runs a site called studio-compyfox.de. That’s studio-hyphen-C-O-M-P-Y-F-O-X-dot-D-E, and we’ll show that on the screen right here. Perfect. This like catalogs classic synths from early ARPs to classic Yamahas and compares them to software emulations of these classics. If you have an old synth you’re dying to play or hear, check out studio-compyfox.de. Roland’s site will help you connect the classic with a new emulated synth. We’ll check that out. We have that up right here.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. All right, so if we take a look in this site, I’ll just -- It’s pretty large. I’ll just scroll down to a random section, and here at the top we see the EMS Synthi AKS.

MIKE PAYNE: Lovely.

DAN AGOSTO: We all like that one.

MIKE PAYNE: Uh huh.

DAN AGOSTO: Right here, we see software rebuild so that there’s a couple of things he recommends. One is the le Synthe V3. He just has tons of synths up here and it’s really a great way I think to sort of visually interact with what’s like free synths pages. There’s tons of free synth pages out there, and this one just kind of has a new way of approaching a like -- I think it’s pretty cool.

MIKE PAYNE: Was that Synthe freeware?

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. It was free.

DREW KRAG: [IN A HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] It’s cool. [LAUGHING].

DAN AGOSTO: A lot of them are free, so if you guys got to --

DREW KRAG: You got to go.

MIKE PAYNE: Thanks guys

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Alright. Then there were two.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, so how’s it going?

DREW KRAG: Is there any other free stuff on there? Yeah, let’s do it.

DAN AGOSTO: You doing anything this weekend?

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: I couldn’t leave.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Thanks for coming back, man.

MIKE PAYNE: You’re welcome. Absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: So, if we take a look at the bottom of the page there, we just scroll down to a random page, we see the Hammond B3 Organ. So here we see software rebuilds again. These are all things that were just made to be to be like the original synth. Down here, we see a DSP solution. These are ones tha are -- that do other things, but you can get the sound out of it, and this also has a hardware interface, so the DSP solutions are a little different than the rebuilds, just pretty cool, a lot of the Creamware stuff, and we love the Creamware stuff here. And then down at the bottom, we see alternatives, and these are usually like ROMplers. Right here we see Soundfonts Organized Trio. So these are almost always just free ones that, while they’re not necessarily rebuilds, and you will be able to get like as close as like the Native Instruments B3. These do a good job of getting sounds pretty close so that’s...

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: ...the Compyfox page. Definitely check it out if you’re interested in [INDISCERNIBLE]

MIKE PAYNE: We’ll put a link to that up on the Crosstalk page for this specific podcast. If you guys want to check that out, we’ll put a link up there.

DAN AGOSTO: And thanks again.

MIKE PAYNE: Thanks again to Roland.

DREW KRAG: Yeah, definitely badass. That’s really badass.

MIKE PAYNE: Moving on, we had a few viewers write in and mentioned that they found some Commodore 64 plugins, some emulators that we had discussed. A few weeks ago, Britton on air had mentioned that he wanted to see a couple of those, and right away, in a heart beat, some of our Gearwire Crosstalk viewers sent in a few of those, including Roland himself from compyfox.de. Let’s tak a look really quick. First, we got the Quantum 64, which is a free pseudo-emulator inspired by the Commodore 64. You can check that out on KVRaudio.com/get/311.html. Also, there’s the quadraSID, and that is four SID chips are emulated within that softsynth. The full version runs $59.99 and that is available at reFX.net. If you go to reFX.net and search for quadraSID, one word, you can see that and we’ll put some pictures up on this Crosstalk podcast review.

DAN AGOSTO: That one, the quadraSID is supposed to be a lot more like an emulator whereas the Quantum 64 is something like it kind of would be like an alternative.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: I believe actually those two are up on Roland’s page, on the Compyfox page.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow. Sweet. Thanks again, Roland. All right. Last but certainly not least, we have guitar extreme. We’ve got three Gibson Les Pauls here that we’re going to a quick comparison of. We’ve got our own, very own guitar god, Drew Krag, who’s going to...

DREW KRAG: [SOUNDS LIKE] Pshaw!

MIKE PAYNE: Who’s going to audition these pieces for us. We’ve got the Gibson Les Paul Studio, the Les Paul GT, and the Les Paul -- What’s that?

DAN AGOSTO: The Historic.

MIKE PAYNE: The Historic?

DAN AGOSTO: Black Beauty, 1957.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: This is the -- Is this ebony or is this like a Burgundy Red?

MIKE PAYNE: They probably call it deep wine or something like that.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, something like that.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: [INAUDIBLE]

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: And so --

DREW KRAG: It’s the neck pickup right here.

DAN AGOSTO: Aren’t -- you want to turn off the chorus.

DREW KRAG: Thank you. [LAUGHS]

DAN AGOSTO: So this is just a clean patch.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: Isn’t the difference between like the Studio and the classic ones like they have a different top or something like that?

MIKE PAYNE: You’re asking the wrong guy.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: We’ll have to check that out.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: This is -- I mean this is a great guitar. I think I’ve played this one before, haven’t I?

DAN AGOSTO: I believe you played most of these before.

DREW KRAG: Most of these before at some point. This one feels a lot better.

DAN AGOSTO: I think there’s actually a video of Drew sort of walking through this guitar. We’ll put the link up on our page of course.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. I’ll give you a little bridge pickup.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: I’m going to put you through a different heavier patch. Why don’t you do some rock& roll.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. That’s [OVERLAPPING].

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: So, of course this is going through a POD.

MIKE PAYNE: Don’t tell Britton.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: So we do have some tube emulation going on.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: This is a Brit J800. There’s a little bit of, I believe, just a little bit of reverb on it.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DREW KRAG: I’ve been listening to punk all weekend.

DAN AGOSTO: So it rocks.

DREW KRAG: Yeah, this guitar definitely rocks.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, let me take a look at some of the specs of this guy.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

MIKE PAYNE: Lovely.

DREW KRAG: And the sustain.

DAN AGOSTO: If you were playing, you’d hear it.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow.

DREW KRAG: It’s still sustaining.

DAN AGOSTO: Oh let’s see. Just looking at -- I wanted to figure out the pickups on these. So these are 490R in the neck and a 498T AlNiCo. They’re both AlNiCo magnet humbuckers. They’re pretty standard Les Paul sort of thing for the ones that are coming out these days. Let’s try another patch, so slightly cleaner.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: This is also British J800 emulation.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: Do you want to move on? Let me turn down your volume.

DREW KRAG: All right.

MIKE PAYNE: Let’s check out the GT.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. This is an interesting one. As we can see, it’s got the flame decal.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. It’s hot.

DREW KRAG: This let’s you play a lot faster

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Let’s see what I’m talking about in a minute.

DAN AGOSTO: All right, so we’re on the same sort of --

DREW KRAG: Are we still there?

DAN AGOSTO: The same thing we left off on, the Brit J800.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: We’ll go to the clean sound so let’s see if we can hear some more difference there. All right, this is the same clean sound we started off.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

MIKE PAYNE: Woo! Wow.

DAN AGOSTO: It sounds like there’s a little more twang, even in that neck pickup.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s take a look at the specs. I’m just on the Gibson page. They have great spec sheets.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: Okay, 490R Chrome, and it adds a little more treble to that, and a 498T Smoky Coil, and these are -- they both have wire -- coil tapping it seems. If we can pull out some of the -- so that’s like in single mode. That’s weird because I didn’t know that you could coil tap covered pickups.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. I didn’t know that either.

DAN AGOSTO: It might be a tone thing. It doesn’t really -- let’s see.

DREW KRAG: That’s actually a --

DAN AGOSTO: Yup. It’s coil tapped.

DREW KRAG: That’s actually a really sweet feature, man, for a Gibson.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: To be able to get your James Brown on.

DAN AGOSTO: Definitely.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DREW KRAG: You know, that’s really actually really cool.

MIKE PAYNE: You guys know that if Britton was here, he would be singing along right now.

DAN AGOSTO: [SINGING] Ooh, baby. Get my James Brown on.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Now that’s a lot more twang for sure.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: I want to hear that bridge pickup.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL STUDIO]

DAN AGOSTO: I have a problem a lot of times in the band I’m in. I play a Strat and the other guitarist he plays like a Les Paul, like a fake Les Paul.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: One of the problems is sometimes when we’re dong like sort of funkier songs, he can’t get that tone or he just has to really have to change the style he’s playing and something like this would be awesome.

DREW KRAG: You really need a single coil to get that.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: It’s really good.

DAN AGOSTO: Definitely.

DREW KRAG: Truly good.

MIKE PAYNE: So, what’s the price on this one?

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah. This one, it’s $2,549.

MIKE PAYNE: Retail.

DAN AGOSTO: Chump Change. Yeah.

[DAN AGOSTO AND MIKE PAYNE LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: I’ll buy five.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: One in each color. I believe this is a -- Candy Orange is the name of the finish.

DREW KRAG: Hoowee!

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: And let’s see how it distorts.

DREW KRAG: Let’s do that.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: Are you using the middle position humbucker?

MIKE PAYNE: There we go.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DAN AGOSTO: How does this one feel compared to the studio?

DREW KRAG: Actually, it feels better, believe it or not. It feels great. The action’s great. I always love Gibson necks, you know what I mean? They just -- It’s a huge hunk of wood and it sounds pretty sweet.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DREW KRAG: Crazy sustain too

MIKE PAYNE: Yup. Yeah.

DREW KRAG: Here’s the test I gave the other guitar, half a barre chord here.

MIKE PAYNE: We’re going to be here for a while.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. It just goes.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DREW KRAG: There’s no feedback there because it’s sent right into a POD. It’s just singing.

DAN AGOSTO: Mahogany body.

DREW KRAG: This thing is heavy as hell.

DAN AGOSTO: Maple top.

DREW KRAG: It’s still going

DAN AGOSTO: Mahogany neck.

MIKE PAYNE: Let’s see how long we can keep it.

DAN AGOSTO: Ebony fingerboard.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: That’s basically it.

MIKE PAYNE: That’s wow.

DREW KRAG: It’s a good like 20 seconds or so.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DREW KRAG: Just good.

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL GT]

DREW KRAG: [SNICKERING] This thing is a lot of fun.

MIKE PAYNE: You make me want to grow out my hair out too.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: So, what do you guys think? Should we check out the Black Beauty?

DREW KRAG: Definitely. Sweet. Look at this, it’s another nice feature.

MIKE PAYNE: What’s that/

DREW KRAG: It’s got these little push pins here. Your jack will never come out.

MIKE PAYNE: So if you step on your cord, you’re all right.

DREW KRAG: Yup.

DAN AGOSTO: You might trip though. Here, I’m going to see if we can find the spec page on this.

DREW KRAG: This thing is a beast.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: Whew!

MIKE PAYNE: It looks classic.

DREW KRAG: It’s a workout just picking this guitar up.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: I believe that one is a [OVERLAPPING]

DREW KRAG: [OVERLAPPING] a weak, weak guy but come on. This thing is a chunk of wood.

DAN AGOSTO: Let me see if I can find the weight. Let’s put it on a clean one.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

MIKE PAYNE: Butter.

DAN AGOSTO: I already hear a bit more smoothness.

MIKE PAYNE: Butter.

DAN AGOSTO: Just right off the bat, the GT has definitely more treble and more brittle. This one is more smooth all the way through.

DREW KRAG: It plays very smooth too.

MIKE PAYNE: How much does that smoothness go for financially speaking?

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Wait. Smoothness doesn’t come cheap, $4,299 street.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: The thing that they don’t have on the Gibson page is the weight. I can’t see it. That might just be.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

MIKE PAYNE: Hmm.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

MIKE PAYNE: That’s the center position.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: This is the bridge.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: This guitar gets a great jazz tone.

MIKE PAYNE: It sure does.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY WITH MIKE PAYNE SCAT SINGING AND SNAPPING HIS FINGERS]

MIKE PAYNE: The Crosstalk ensemble.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: All right. That’s enough of that. I can’t take that any longer.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s --

MIKE PAYNE: I can do that all day just listening.

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s turn up the gain a little bit to our --

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: That’s awesome.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: The response on it is really nice even though you’re going through a tube emulator.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Classic.

MIKE PAYNE: Lovely.

DREW KRAG: Badass.

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s go to the heavy distortion.

MIKE PAYNE: Uh oh.

DREW KRAG: Whoa.

DAN AGOSTO: Here we go.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: A little bit of tuning.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: That’s just badass.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow.

DAN AGOSTO: That’s big, that’s fat. Which pickup are you doing? The neck? I mean the bridge?

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DREW KRAG: It screams.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

1

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Attitude. [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Flawless.

DAN AGOSTO: Very nice.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. It just screams. When you do the artificial harmonics with these guitars, it just kind of takes over.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: What do you guys think in general of like the aging process and like do you think that makes this guitar worth more like the whole like [OVERLAPPING]?

MIKE PAYNE: I don't know much about that. Can you explain a little?

DAN AGOSTO: Well, if you look at it like the headstock [OVERLAPPING].

DREW KRAG: You can see there’s like [OVERLAPPING] pretty carefully to really see it.

DAN AGOSTO: There are some scratches. It’s just been aged.

DREW KRAG: It almost looks like it was like sandblasted or something.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Kind of like what -- I mean I know Fender does that where they have -- pick guys who just play it and age guitars like this is how it came. We didn’t -- We haven’t mistreated it at all of course because I mean then we would be out [OVERLAPPING].

DREW KRAG: I remember when I first played this one. I was amazed that I was a brand new guitar. I couldn’t believe it like -- I even.

DAN AGOSTO: It’s like so -- It’s so much heavier. I can’t find the specs on it but --

DREW KRAG: It fooled me completely, but you know, if you look at it very closely, if you get an opportunity to look at this finish very closely, you’ll see exactly what we’re talking about.

MIKE PAYNE: It’s almost like the original trim was white but they put it in a room and they smoked a bunch of cigarettes around it for like two years.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. That’s kind of what it’s like. I mean I’m sure there’s no tobacco on it or whatever but it certainly has that look like it’s been aged.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: But not really.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: Do you think that makes it worth more.

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING] You know, hey.

DREW KRAG: I personally like it.

MIKE PAYNE: It’s like blue jeans, you know.

DREW KRAG: I’d like to build up my own character on my guitars. [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: You put a hole on it, you know.

DAN AGOSTO: A hundred fifty bucks to it.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. Exactly.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. There’s actually another three-pickup model in the Historic line called the Three-Pickup Original Spec Custom Les Paul, and the only difference I could find in the two is the tuning pegs. This has the kidney bean tuning pegs whereas the other one has like the floret or whatever tuning pegs that you’d see on like the studio that we just played.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: That’s the only difference but yeah this guitar screams rock & roll to me.

DREW KRAG: [INDISCERNIBLE]

DAN AGOSTO: I can’t see being on stage with it more than five minutes though. This thing is heavy as heck.

DREW KRAG: [OVERLAPPING]

DAN AGOSTO: It’s like twice as heavy as the other two.

DREW KRAG: It’s really it’s a lot of guitar. I mean I have some small back problems, you know, probably from playing an over-the-strap instrument or over-the-shoulder instrument. I mean I love Gibsons but you only see me playing them in studio because this is exactly how I play them: sitting on my leg.

MIKE PAYNE: Well, if you can afford one of those, you can afford to pay somebody to hold it for you while you’re playing.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: But you have stands though.

DREW KRAG: They do.

MIKE PAYNE: That’s true.

DAN AGOSTO: But usually [OVERLAPPING]

MIKE PAYNE: But that’s not rock & roll. That’s like the opposite.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: What is the opposite of rock & roll? Easy listening? Smooth Jazz?

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: I mean not that we hate smooth jazz, you know.

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: You probably do.

MIKE PAYNE: All right. Well thank you so much guys. That concludes the Crosstalk podcast for Friday, September 1st. Again, I’m your host Mike Payne, and we got the guitar god, Drew Krag, and the wonderful Dan Agosto. Thanks everybody for listening. Tune in next week for more gear news, how tos, reviews, and what not. Woody banter too. Thanks everybody.

[DREW KRAG STRUMS ON THE GIBSON LES PAUL HISTORIC BLACK BEAUTY]

DAN AGOSTO: Shoobeedoowah!

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Cool.