The Legacy Special is one of my favorite guitars to gig with. I use a Legacy for about 60% of my songs and then I do about 12-15 songs a night on a 2HB, like a Les Paul, ES-335 or one of my Ibanez GR-520 Ghostriders. My band is G/B/K/D doing mostly classic rock covers, with blues, jazz, pop, country and bluegrass tunes available. I will often take 5-7 guitars to a gig: Legacy, 2HB, Legacy Special, acoustic dreadnought, 5-string banjo, DanElectro Innuendo 12-string, and sometimes a Takamine dreadnought 12-string. It just depends on the gig and the venue.
Now I could do a whole gig with just a Legacy-body, but we play a wide variety of material, and having a 2HB at hand is a great way to get those thicker rock and blues tones--it really changes things up. However, I would NOT want to do a 4-5 hour gig with just a Les Paul. It's heavy, I'm not crazy about the ergonomics, and I like the tone of the vintage single coils. I have lots of gain with my Mesa amps for singing, sustaining solos; and with the Mesa's 5-band EQ, I can really thicken up the Legacy's solos, and keep the clean channel bright and snappy.
So, of all the guitars I own, the Legacy Special really is special because it can do something that none of the others can, and that is--it is the PERFECT backup for both Legacy and Les Paul. It has a much thicker one than the Legacy, the great ergonomics of the Legacy, and it is much lighter than my Les Pauls.
I set my amp's clean tones with my Legacy so that I have the maximum treble I will need from the bridge pickup. I set the bridge pickup highest (closest to the strings) and the others taper down to give me roughly equal volume. I usually don't change amp settings when changing guitars. I set my Legacy guitars with the PTB's Treble=10, Bass=5. I usually have the guitar volume at 7-8 for rhythm, and then I can roll it up for solos. Same with the Legacy Special. While the Gotoh Blade pickups are much thicker than the Legacy's alnico pickups, I can get CLOSE to the Legacy's tone by simply rolling down the PTB Bass AND rolling down the guitar's Volume to 4-5. The volume change is important because of the hotter output of the Gotohs.
From my "normal" setting (PTB T=10, B=5), I can roll up the bass if I need to add more punch to a solo. If I want something jazzy and darker, I can switch to the neck pickup and roll down the PTB Treble for some great "woman tone". I think the narrower field of the single coil-sized Gotohs keeps things a little clearer than a PAF-style bucker, with a little better string separation--but the tone is still much thicker than the regular Legacy's alnico. Not EXACTLY a PAF tone, but very close.
And one other cool detail--the PTB works even better on the guitars with the hotter pickups (S-500, LS, Comanche) than it does with the Legacy's alnicos.
I'd really like to put a Legacy Special in the hands of Carlos Santana, Al DiMeola, and even Clapton; I think it might be a revelation for them.
Now you might also want to consider a couple other guitars with Legacy bodies and different pickups. The Legacy HB uses the alnico pickups, but adds a beefy humbucker in the bridge position with a coil split switch--and for some players this is the most versatile system. The Legacy 2HB is the "Fat Strat", or Big Apple strat version--so popular with the NYC session guys. The S-500 has strat-sized MFD pickups like your ASAT, and has an aggressive, single-coil tone with lots of output. The Comanche has the similar MFD Z-coils, but they are humbucking and not as aggressive sounding as the S-500's pickup. They aren't really vintage sounding and probably not for everybody, but you can do a lot with them. I think of them as a blank slate, and I set mine up to sound dark and powerful. They really keep their clarity, too.
If you are doing more rock, metal or shred stuff, you might also want to look at the Invader line, with the Floyd Rose vibratos. (I think these are also available as hard-tails.) They come in 2HB, S-S-H and H-S-H versions; the "single coils" are actually the Gotoh Blades of the Legacy Special. You do give up the PTB with these guitars. Personally, I'm not a fan of the FRV (I prefer the Dual Fulcrum Vibrato), but these are cool guitars nonetheless.
What you'll have to figure out is, whether you want a contrasting Strat tonality to your buddy's LP, or whether you want something thicker. You'll need to factor in how you'll use your ASAT with the new guitar, or whether the ASAT is being replaced. Will the ASAT be a backup, or will you continue to use it on certain songs? And then consider this--if you really love your strat-bodied guitar and that is your main instrument, perhaps you should have a Number ONE and a Number ONE-A--a guitar so similar to your Number ONE that you could gig with it comfortably while your other guitar is being repaired, etc.
All of these are good choices--just different flavors. It's hard to choose, I admit, so your best option is to simply have two or three of each model! LOL!
Take care. Let us know if you have more questions.
Bill
(i'm from Belgium and been reading the board for some time)
