Lewguitar
Old Know It All
Interesting. I don't hear LPs and PRS sounding radically different if they have similar pickups.My two main guitars are a McCarty 594 SC from 2018 and a Gibson Les Paul from 1991. There are some similarities, but not too many.
Both have ebony fingerboards, which obviously is not the norm. Both feel exquisite. Both also happen to have similar neck profiles. They are both also very heavy (about 10 pounds).
But that’s where the similarities end. Playing feel is certainly superior on the PRS, although the Gibson plays great too. I prefer the finish and the frets of the PRS. Sonically there is basically 0% overlap. They sound nothing like each other at all.
In fact, my other Gibsons (including LPs) and PRS guitars sound nothing like each other either. The Gibsons sound like Gibsons and the PRSi sound like PRS.
That’s also the reason why I have several guitars from both brands - they have almost nothing incommon except on a superficial level.
Bare in mind, however, that I mostly play low-gain and clean guitars - more Rolling Stones than Slayer. As such the differences between the guitars come through very differently to high-gain metal playing. I would assume that all that distortion would even out some of the differences.
If you want the Gibson sound, you need a Gibson (or a new Epiphone - they are closer to Gibsons than other alternatives IMO). But If you’re sound is mostly dictated by the amp and speakers (as is often the case in metal), I would assume that it is not as apparent.
Differest, yes. But radically different? No.
Humbuckers sound like humbuckers.
A lot of LP guys, like Dickie Betts and others who have passed through the Allman Brothers, play those same Allman Bros songs on a LP or PRS and the songs sound about the same.