Originally Posted by: caponi14Second thought: A Les Paul is a great guitar. Really great guitar. People say it's not versatile like a stratocaster, but boy, oh boy that aint true.
If you can learn to master the tone and volume knobs on the Les Paul. Then your in for a really rocking and VERSATILE guitar.

This is a good point which I experienced myself recently. I was going through the breakdown of "Life in the Fast Lane" with my les paul. Anders teaches it with his Strat. As I got it down, I thought "I'll have to break out my strat to get the required tone". Then I decided to tweak the tone controls on my amp. I boosted the mid control and shocked myself...there was the tone I needed!!

There are still tonal qualities of a strat that make it a strat, but as caponi14 points out, the les paul is VERY versatile and get get really darn close!!

I find I'm perferring my les paul for playing comfort. Mine has a 50's style neck; my strat has the standard modern C neck with jumbo frets. Compared to my les paul, I feel like I'm playing bass on my strat. If I could only have one guitar, at this point I'd have to say it would be my les paul, despite the fact that I had lusted after a strat for years as a teenager.

Honestly, I couldn't have made this determination in the store. It was only after owning and playing both guitars for months before I was able to make these conclusions. If you have the means, get multiple guitars. Quality instruments hold their value, so you can always sell one later on if you need to. Or you could borrow one from a fellow player. Do stores rent guitars any more? That could be an option too.