comparison between two guitars

The paper I have written and know alot about is a contrast
on two really well knownand popular guitars. One which is the Gibson Les
Paul, and the other which is the Ibanez 453RVC. Both guitars may look
alike to some, and to some they may sound alike as well, but arethey
really alike? Starting with the bodys, the Gibson Custom Les Paul is
made of solid mahogeny wood,which gives the guitar a more Classical
look and feel and also a much better and clearer sound.The Gibson is a
more luxiourous guitar for which it is better for classical rock and light
heavymetal as opposed to the Ibanez which is excellent for hard rock and
heavy metal. Going further up the guitar, you have what are called the
pickups. A pickup is a reallysensative box that is attached to the body in
between the bottom of the neck and the bottom ofthe bridge. The
purpose of a pickup is to "pick up" the sounds of the notes or chords that
arebeing strummed. There are many different types of pickups; for
instance, the Gibson Les Paulhas pickups that are called Humbuckers,
which are much higher and of a better quality than thepickups on an
Ibanez. The Ibanez comes with regular music store pickups that are not
bad butdo not have the quality of the Humbuckers. So having better
quality means that the pickups aremore sensative; being more sensative
means that the guitar can put out clearer and higher qualitysound.Moving
to the lower part of the guitar, both guitars have knobs. The purpose of
these knobs are tocontrol the different types of sounds that you want to
produce. The Gibson has four controls, butthe Ibanez only has two;
having only two knobs instead of four means that the Ibanenz has less
ofa selection or variety on the sound that you want opposed to the Gibson
having more control overthe sound that you like and the sound that you
need. The Gibson having volume and tone foreach pickup allows you to
adjust the sound to the way you like it, while the Ibanez has volume
andtone for only the one pickup, which controls the sound. The next
piece that is connected to every guitar is the neck. Many guitars have
manydifferent types of necks varying from length, width, thickness, and

different types of wood.The wood on the neck of the Ibanez is poplar
wood, which makes a rougher and more ruggedneck. The Gibson, on the
other hand, is made of mahogany wood which produces a smootherneck
and has a comfortable feel to it. Having a better feel allows the guitar
player to increase hisor her speed when just practicing or maybe even
accidentally when performing live. The radius ofthe neck on a Gibson is
much smaller than the neck of the Ibanez: having a smaller neck also
letsthe musician have more control of what they are playing. The fret
board is located on the neck of the guitar. The fret board on an Ibanez is
madeof rosewood as opposed to the ebony fret board on the Gibson.
Having an ebony fret board, thefrets are a lot stronger, more precise
(tighter), and better quality. The Ibanez, having rosewood,is not as
strong, and from too much playing of the guitar wears the frets down and
are dead in acouple of years. So, when the frets are so worn out, you
can't just buy a new fret board, youhave to buy a whole new guitar.
Then we have the head of the guitar which is located at the very
top of the guitar. On thetop of the guitar, we have what are called tuning
pegs, used, obviously to tune our guitars. Thetuning pegs on the Gibson
are much stronger and they won't go out of tune as easy as the
Ibanezwould. The reason the Ibanez goes out of tune is because the
pegs are a different type of metal,and the metal that the Ibanez has is
much weaker than the Gibsons.So having the Gibson makes it much
easier on the musician from constantly having to tune theguitar. Then
we have the bridge which is at the bottom of the guitar to hold the strings
in place.You connect the string from the tuning peg down along the fret
board till you fit them into thebridge. The bridge on the Gibson has better
intanation, which means that the strings will lastlonger, as the Ibanez has
the Floyd Rose tremel bridge which won't stay in tune as long as
theGibson would. The strings have a tendancy to wear out a lot quicker
from constantly having totune them. The reason the strings wear out is

because, everytime you tune a guitar the stringsstretch. From too much
stretching, the strings end up either popping or not being able to tune
tothe key you want them in. Some well known musicians that use
the guitars are: Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin, andSlash from
Guns-n-Roses, both prefer the Legendary Gibson Les Paul over any
other guitar.And then we have Joe Santriani, and well Known Steve Via
who prefer the Ibanez. The prices between these two guitars vary in a
big price range. The Iast time Ichecked up on the GibsonLes Pual was
listed for $3199. which drastically overtowers the Ibanez453 RVC listed at
$599.