Is it the guitar, the pickups or the amp?

I have a cheapo Peavey Rage amp and I have a decent Epiphone Les Paul and a Squier Strat. The Squier Strat doesn't resonate for long and the Les Paul's resonation lasts a little while, not too long and not too short.

I was once playing the Epiphone double neck through a Marshall amp and while I was doing some bendy Gilmour-like riffs I realized it resonated a hell of a lot longer than both of those git-boxes put together!

I'm going to be getting one hopefully and I was wondering: What exacly made it resonate so long? Was it the amp, the different pickups or the fact that it has a bigger body and four pickups in all? Would it resonate the same way on my Peavey amp? When I was doing the Echoes solo from Live at Pompeii it sounded like those notes would never end if I had played them longer!

By resonate I assume that you actually are refering to "sustain"..

The ability of a guitar to sustain a note is essentially a function of the body construction, body/neck joint and pickup construction.

Heavier, more dense woods sustain better. Alder, Maple, Ash will sustain better than Pine, Basswood, or laminate (plywood).

A set neck (like on the Les Pauls) will sustain longer than a bolt on neck (like a Strat).

A high quality dense wound pickup will sustain longer than a low density one. Imagine two pickups, one with about a mile of hair thin wire (dense) versus a pickup with 200 feet of wire about the size of a small nail (not so dense).

There are also electronic sustainers, but with a trained ear you can hear the difference.

and most importantly, some good distortion will add loads of sustain to your tone. because you were playing through a decent marshall instead of a crappy peavey or whatever I assume the distortion tone was much better and so you got more sustain...

and those double necks rock don't they...?

Yep, it depends mainly on the quality of the guitar. Try the guitars without an amp, hit an open string and compare...

I recently got the guitar and I like it a lot, but I have some questions.

I use 10 gauge strings and the strings it came with are 9's. Is it okay to switch them to 10's? I did on my Les Paul a year ago and that didn't hurt anything at all. I can't stand 9's Is it only bolt on necks that suffer when you change the string gauge? Also, would that make the overall guitar sound different?

My next question is about the 12 string. Are the doubled strings supposed to be tuned exactly the same? I notice on songs played like like Stairway, and The Song Remains the Same that there's something different about the strings. Just listen to the arpeggio work on Stairway and the verse sections on TSRTS, the individual notes have a very different sound to them on both songs. Or maybe it's just me? Or these strings are very dull.

Re: String gauge - http://www.guitartipoftheday.com/gauge-setup.html

Re: Twelve string - The 3rd (G) through 6th (E) strings are tuned one octave higher. The 1st (E) and 2d (B) are tuned the same.

It's okay to change the gauge of strings, just be sure to set the intonation every time you make a switch.

And yes, 12 strings sound excellent.

I would have to disagree. While distortion boxes and overdrive will increase the gain, it won't actually increase your sustain.

I have another question concerning necks.

I strung my Les Paul a couple of weeks ago and I didn't tune it out of laziness and because of being occupied with my new doubleneck. I've been using 10's for a year already and I am wondering, would tuning it after all this time mess up anything?

I don't know if it will mess up the neck, but don't wind the strings too fast or aggresively, they may snap.

When you say "tuning" are you refering to tentioning the strings to the appropriate pitch or .."setting the intonation" where in you will have to adjust the bridge to adjust chord length at the 12'th fret?

In either case, you can do them at any time.

Yeah but I had my guitar tuned down a whole step for a few weeks, and when I tried to tune them back up, the string snapped.

It's just because youre too much man, Joey..

Are you comparing me to a young and semi-ignorant Clark Kent?

He was just naieve.. not semi-ignorant..

and, yes.