Hi Pebber, I follow your youtube lessons and I love them. Let me first introduce myself a little bit. I’m Theo, I’m Dutch, and I’m 50 years old, and started playing when I was 18 and do that a bid on and off. I suppose that I’m the type of guy of which you’d say ‘he sucks’. And I’m also the guy who once called you Pepper.

I’ve have a guitar question. Basically I do have two guitars, a Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson M3. And I believe these are good guitars, they play very well. But a while ago I was somewhere where I could play on a Gibson Les Paul Studio. And I was kind of shocked. I could make bends and vibratos I’d never play before. It was like I was given magic hands. My idea always was that there’s not so much difference between the more expensive instruments. If you buy an expensive Gibson Les Paul it‘s more the name your paying for. Well after my experience I started to wonder if that’s true. So I thought lets ask a real expert. Is there anything you can say about it?

Regards Theo

I'm not a "real expert."

The concept behind higher-grade instruments is that a player spends an incredible amount of time with it, constantly training precise muscle movements. This can make what seem to be relatively tiny differences feel huge. If you practiced on a M3 for the last 10 years, it is not surprising that your vibrato would feel/sound different on a Les Paul Studio.

I would caution that almost anything that makes you sound different, you may falsely perceive as sounding better. Think of the people who go overboard on wah, fuzz, delay, reverb, etc, when your ears are just begging for the clean channel.

As for the worth of expensive guitars, my personal and rather cynical feelings are:
If you can afford it, you probably can't play it.
If you can play it, you probably can't afford it.
If you can play it and afford it, well-done sir.
If you can't play it and can't afford it, nice to meet you and I hope we find ourselves in a different category in the future.

This is similar to my changing strings experience after using a set of string for a longer period of time...(half a year)...new string bends and vibrates like I have a totally different instrument and pinch harmonics rings out like I reincarnated into Eddie Van Halen...and dude, it's in tune above 12th fret also!

This also reminds me on times when I change my old abated pick(plectrum) with a new one and it's a new world. The frets on my guitar are pretty much eaten where dust+sweat made a notches in frets after a long period of scratching vibrato and every time I try some new guitar it's quite a relaxation to bend or do a vibrato. Man, I should finally force myself to take that damn instrument to some luthier to change the frets...

Dude, you don't have to thow bunch of money away, just change your strings and pick, and if you must, upgrade your frets on a fretboard.

This is actually me talking tuff to myself, heh heh.

(Off-topic)I'm definitely one of those people that goes overboard with wah when soloing. And I'm aware of it, but to me it's not going overboard. I love the wah-wah sound, so I use it when ever I can. I use a little delay pretty often too.

Thanx guys for your information. Indeed I should change my strings more often. Sometimes I play a half year on them. I’m very used to the 0.09 set of strings and I’m thinking about 0.10. That may also give a different experience. If it’s not direct than maybe when I go back to 0.09.

I should have said buyable guitar instead of expensive guitar. By buyable I mean somewhere in the range of 1000 to 1500 dollars. You also can easily buy a guitar of 3000 dollar or more but does such guitar really play so much better. Isn’t it the name you mostly pay for?