View other reviews for this product:
tjon901 « Epiphone Les Paul with a metal image »
Published on 06/29/11 at 12:06Gibson has a budget line of guitars made overseas named Epiphone. Epiphone makes guitars to pretty much the same specs as Gibsons except they are made overseas. The electronics are not as good but they are made from the species of wood but the wood may not be the best quality. Gibson has a line of Gothic series guitars which are all black and have a metal look so Epiphone makes a budget line of these guitars. This is pretty much a Les Paul studio with the black Goth paint job. They have the standard Les Paul setup with mahogany body with a maple top and a mahogany neck with a 22 fret rosewood fretboard. The fretboard has no inlays apart from a 12 roman numeral on the 12th fret. Two humbucking Alnico Classic pickups with dual volume and tone controls with a 3 way toggle switch pickup selector. The up position on the switch selects the neck pickup. The middle position on the pickup selector selects both pickups. And the down position on the pickup selector selects the bridge pickup. It has a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail piece.
UTILIZATION
The Epiphone Goth Les Paul pretty much has the same advantages and disadvantages of any Les Paul. If you are use to modern guitars with thin necks the Les Paul neck will be very big for you. The 60s profile neck that this guitar has is slightly slimmer than the huge Gibson necks they use to use but it is still big compared to something like an Ibanez or Jackson. I would have preferred an ebony fretboard for a better feel and it would match the metal motif of the guitar better. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. The tuning stability is good because there is no tremolo.
SOUNDS
The most likely weak spot on any budget guitar is the pickups. The pickups Epiphone uses are not that great. They are pretty muddy and dead. You do not get much attack with these pickups. Since these pickups do not have much definition the neck position can get really muddy. With a high gain amp the sound might get muddy due to the lack of definition. With some types of music these pickups are great. If you want a bluesy sound these pickups will do really good and you will be able to get a smooth tone out of them. With a pickup swap this guitar can sound great so I would recommend to anyone who has one of these Epiphones to try it out with some after market pickups. Since this is supposed to be a metal guitar I wonder why they dont put hotter pickups in it. Some other Epiphones come with EMG's and I would strongly recommend those pickups for metal over these pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Some smaller foreign companies are exceeding the quality of Epiphone nowadays for the same price. But being Epiphone it is like buying the official copy so its not like you are hurting the company. There are peices on this guitar that should be upgraded like the pickups but once you do that you have a solid metal Les Paul.
UTILIZATION
The Epiphone Goth Les Paul pretty much has the same advantages and disadvantages of any Les Paul. If you are use to modern guitars with thin necks the Les Paul neck will be very big for you. The 60s profile neck that this guitar has is slightly slimmer than the huge Gibson necks they use to use but it is still big compared to something like an Ibanez or Jackson. I would have preferred an ebony fretboard for a better feel and it would match the metal motif of the guitar better. Because of the set neck design there is a large neck tenon and joint. This can make the upper frets hard for some people to reach because the body essentially joins the neck at the 17th fret. After the 17th fret you are reaching around the body to get to the frets. The tuning stability is good because there is no tremolo.
SOUNDS
The most likely weak spot on any budget guitar is the pickups. The pickups Epiphone uses are not that great. They are pretty muddy and dead. You do not get much attack with these pickups. Since these pickups do not have much definition the neck position can get really muddy. With a high gain amp the sound might get muddy due to the lack of definition. With some types of music these pickups are great. If you want a bluesy sound these pickups will do really good and you will be able to get a smooth tone out of them. With a pickup swap this guitar can sound great so I would recommend to anyone who has one of these Epiphones to try it out with some after market pickups. Since this is supposed to be a metal guitar I wonder why they dont put hotter pickups in it. Some other Epiphones come with EMG's and I would strongly recommend those pickups for metal over these pickups.
OVERALL OPINION
Some smaller foreign companies are exceeding the quality of Epiphone nowadays for the same price. But being Epiphone it is like buying the official copy so its not like you are hurting the company. There are peices on this guitar that should be upgraded like the pickups but once you do that you have a solid metal Les Paul.