Should You Top Wrap Your Les Paul

I have a lot of guitars. I top wrapped 2 of them. I never noticed a difference because I never imagined there would be a difference. Thought never occurred to me. It’s pretty cool that you went through the effort of analyzing that

As always, whenever i question myself about any gimmicky things such as top wrap or not, you give me the most accurate answer. So glad i subscribed to your channel years ago.

You need to wear a green cap when doing the test due to green and gravity both starting with the letter G, which is also what guitar starts with. That is science, pal, can't avoid it.

Thanks for finally answering my questions about top wrapping my Les Paul. I'm keeping it the original way. I like your shirt.

Any note is technically the same given tension when at rest, top-wrapped or not. Strings are more compliant with top-wrapping because slightly more overall string length. More give and stretch there so it translates to a little more in the main string area, thus it feels like less 'tension' as it bends a bit easier. But you also have to bend more distance to reach the increased tension to hit the next note...as tension for every note at rest remains the same. So it's a combination of things that translates into feel. It's more distance to bend, but less felt resistance. Kind of like a difference in shock absorption, like a soft ride with more bounce compared to a harder, stiffer ride.

Incredibly interesting! Thank you for putting this out!

Brilliant Video. Keep them coming.

As you rightly say: when bent (or picked or whatever), the whole string moves and tenses. Not just between saddle and nut, but end to end. So two things happen here: as you note, more friction, and also a greater overall length of string to stretch, ergo more pressure required. By wrapping the string around the stopbar, you basically add .75 to 1 inch of string or so. Give or take: as much as needed to essentially eliminate the benefit of the Les Paul's shorter scale length in terms of ease of bending compared to a Strat or Tele. And by the way, the exact same thing happens on the other end, which is why you should be careful how much string you wind onto the tuning machine. The fewer the turns, the shorter the string, the easier to stretch out, the better the tuning stability, and the easier the bends. So actually for the comparison to be accurate in your experiment, the string should be would to the same number of turns on the machine head, but as a seasoned pro you probably got that right anyway. As far as I'm concerned, I put locking tuners wherever I can, there's no better way to limit excessive string length headstock side. Now from the above, there's also a conclusion to be drawn as to what a very legit reason to top wrap a Les Paul could be: players who usually play 25.5 in scale length guitars and only pick up a 24.75 in for the occasional song or two may prefer having tenser strings on the Les Paul while using the same string gauge, so that it feels more like their usual Strat or Tele. Where that really matters is when you play a lot of pre-bent notes. Because then you bend to pitch not by ear but by muscle memory, so you need to know in advance how much pressure to apply. If you train on a Strat and then you apply the same pressure on a Les Paul, your pre-bend will go sharp. Top wrapping is one way to compensate for that. But frankly, that's still a lot of hair splitting in the land of guitar nerdom. I really don't know that Strat-bound monster benders like David Gilmour or Mark Knopfler ever top wrapped their Les Pauls. We should all just get out there and play the damn thing, wrapped whichever way we like. Rock on!

Yep, I’m goin there!

34 seconds in....I can tell you it's bullshit. I do love that you did this. I love your honesty as well.

Never heard about the bending. Minimizing the breakangle on either end puts less downward force at the nut or bridge. The less down force, the less friction and the less friction, the less it goes out of tune. Same reason people lube the ends. The other notable benefit is the E string is less likely to snap from the bridge cutting into it. I just unscrew the tail piece so it sticks up and get the same effect.

Fascinating. The reason I top wrapped was in an effort to increase tuning stability by keeping the string in more of a straight line. I want to try raising the tailpiece and see what happens.

I top-wrapped my Les Paul once. I couldn't go two days before I had to re-string it the regular way again. I really didn't like how it felt top-wrapped. I do like to raise the tailpiece a little bit, it's subtle, but I think it plays better that way than all the way down. Interesting experiment, thanks, Dylan!

very instructive test thank you very much mate, keep on rocking

Love the topic!

Great video and explanation!!

Thank you for clearing this up. I just unboxed my new Gibson Les Paul Gold top. I've been seeing tons of "fixes" for this guitar and really seem to know your shtuff!

That's awesome!! Thanks for sharing that info!! 🙏✨👏

Interesting video thanks for posting 👍I top wrap my guitars that don’t have anchor bushings so the bridge posts don’t loosen and bend from too much downward tension over time, this also allows me to clamp the stop tailpiece down closer on the body. Some people coming from longer scale length guitars like the added tension and it rings a little differently with the added string length.

Good enuf for me!! I saw it with my own eyes. Cause and effect is the why of it. I'll be sticking with the not rapping. Thank you for taking the time to do this!