John C
Friend of Leo's
I ended up returning the Tribute within the evaluation return window and opted for a Les Paul Standard 50's instead. The main reason, the neck on the Tribute was just too thin for my liking. My Tele's and strat all have very chunky necks, which is my preference. The LP standard I chose has a very chunky neck, more so than some previous LP standard 50's I've picked up. Very close in thickness to an R8 I picked up in the store, which was more "baseball bat" sized. This LP is now more in line with my Fenders and it doesn't feel drastically different going from guitar to guitar.
Some of the other benefits, the pickups are much clearer, brighter. Of course the guitar is far prettier than any of my Journeyman relic Fenders, which didn't really impact my decision that much. But I have to say the binding does look more right to me.
Even though the Tribute is highly weight relieved the LP 50's is not the weights are close to the same. The Tribute weighed in at 9.2 the Standard 50's weighs 9.4. Acceptable for me. I spent considerable time last night (about 2 hours) playing it standing up and my back was starting to feel it slightly. I could have gone another hour before real fatigue set in.
Congrats; that's a beautiful one! Sounds like the right choice for you, and the LP Standards (both 50s and 60s versions) are really killer guitars!
I'll probably stick with the Tribute for the moment because that's the "goldilocks" neck for me - not too thin like most of the LP Standard 60s models and not as thick as the LP Standard 50s models. For comparison my Fender sweet spot is actually the Modern C neck, so the LP Tribute is not too much thicker than those.
