Find yourself a good used Gibson CS RI 57 and never turn back...
As it turns out, my local GC has a new one of these in stock so I played it. At first I was turned off by the neck size but after A/Bing it with 10+ other LPs on the wall I realized how much better it really is. That said being all Mahogny it was definitely darker than the maple cap LPs across the board- which sound killer for bluesy riffs, but I have a suspicion in a mid / high gain band setting the maple cap ones will cut better.
So, I went down the rabbit hole of the 57RI vs the 68RI vs the not-RI Custom. Did you know the 57's PUPs are unpotted, and the RIs both use nylon nuts which likely have something to do with tuning stability? Anyway long story short, for what I'm going for I decided the non-RI Custom is probably the one for me.... and it'll be here on the brown truck this afternoon.
On paper I wanted the white one till I found out they're made on the USA production line because they have to be painted over there. For that price I want an actual custom shop build, so that was a nope for me. Black it is!
I also spent a minute looking at Custom Explorers, but at the end of the day what I'm really after is the LPC TONE which I've yet to experience another guitar that does that particular thing.
Over the years I've had a ton of passive PUP humbucker guitars and have bonded with essentially none of them despite
@Beyond Black continually telling me I need a good one. So, here's hoping this one fits the bill.