« A great vintage reissue »

Though Epiphone is known for building guitars that today are mostly copies of Gibson designs, people forget that they had some great models of their own back in the day. One of the most popular models was the Casino. It was used by people like John Lennon, George Harrison and Keith Richards in the sixties and was noted for its very nice hollow tone, easily on par quality wise with a similar Gibson. This model is a modern affordable import reissue of that original classic and is very cool. It features an all hollow maple/basswood body, a mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard, a tune-o-matic bridge with trapeze tailpiece, small button sealed tuners, and a pair of Epiphone P90s wired to a pair of volumes and a pair of tones as well as a 3 way toggle switch. Its most similar to the Gibson ES330 which an all hollow guitar much like the Casino.

UTILIZATION

The design of this guitar is pretty ergonomic considering the market for which it was designed. It's nice and light because it's a fully hollow guitar and it balances fairly well on the body in sitting and standing positions. Unfortunately the upper fret access is a weak point here. It's got a pair of fairly stubby cutaways and they don't really allow to the best reach, but considering that the people using these guitars back in the day weren't the Steve Vai shredder types, so I guess it's not surprising. Considering what the guitar was designed to play, it feels like a nice solid feeling guitar that plays well and has a nice feel, something not really found in many of the Gibson copies I've tried of theirs.

SOUNDS

This guitar sounds pretty good overall. It has a nice resonant unplugged sound straight off of the wall, which is great for showing that the guitar has good woods and construction. The notes ring out nice and clear for chords or lead breaks alike. Plugged in, the pickups are actually not too bad. Epiphone isn't known for their modern pickups but these ones do a decent job. They're a nice vintage output P90 that sounds great through a clean amp. It's great for jazzy chords on the neck pickup, or for some nice pop rock tones in the center position or on the bridge pickup. Adding a bit of overdrive makes this guitar sound pretty raunchy. You will get feedback if you try and turn it up too much but when managed it gets some nice classic rock tones that really sound different from a typical Les Paul, SG, or even a 335 type sound.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think the Epiphone Casino reissue is a great guitar for someone looking for a decent reissue of a classic. They seem well made and the parts are of decent quality. It offers a nice set of woody hollow tones that are close to a 330 or 335 but have their own sort of vibe going on. They run about $600 new which is a fair enough deal considering that it's got decent quality. I would take one of these over a DOT or Sheraton based on the quality of each respective model that I've tried...