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MGR/Adham Koura « Epiphone Special II »
Published on 12/11/03 at 15:00I got this Epiphone online from WWBW.com (woodwind and brasswind), the delivery was on time. I paid 200$, got a brand new Epiphone Special II, with a vintage sunburst finish, a good quality, versatile amplifier, 3 hard picks, a cable, an instructional video tape and an accurate quartz tuner.
I'm close to a professional guitar player, even though I have been playing for about a year, I mainly play Blues rock and metal influenced stuff, I play similar to Zakk Wylde of Black Label society and I love to play fast solos. I have to say I read some reviews on this guitar saying that it was bad, but I think its amazing. They did tell me that when you first buy the guitar, theres a buzz sounds and that the neck has some dead spots. This is entirely true. But once you do some adjustments using the truss bar to the tension bar at the head of the guitar (under the Gibson word). I actually made these adjustments on my own since the nearest guitar shop is miles away. It took me 2 hours to completely fixup the guitar. The pickup and sound quality is truly amazing and the tone is thick and fat almost as good as the Gibson Les Pauls. The playability is really good as well. The pickup switch works perfectly well. I actually replaced the strings with Zakk Wylde Boomers, because I like to play heavy stuff. The sound quality is perfect. I suggest you get a decent distortion pedal to get a good distorted tone (one you can actually hear the cords through). I use an Ibanez Smashbox and its amazing. A boss MT2 works fine as well, but I prefer the smashbox. The body of the guitar is considerably light and the finish looks beautiful but that depends on your personal taste. This Guitar is an excellent buy and very worth every single dollar you pay for it. It just needs to be optimized and adjusted, especially the neck to remove the buzz sounds. I suggest you take it to a guitar technician at a guitar shop to get the neck fixed up and neck tension adjusted.
It takes a while to adjust the neck as I said. But once thats done you're going to be fine. Also, at the beginning, it untunes very quickly, but after a couple of tunings, the strings should stretch out a bit and you should be fine.
Neck adjustment should have been done at the factory, other than that, well done Epiphone!
Many people dislike this guitar because they think its just a cheaper and crappier version of a Gibson. The guitar is perfectly fine, but you need to have some patience to adjust the neck thats all!
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
I'm close to a professional guitar player, even though I have been playing for about a year, I mainly play Blues rock and metal influenced stuff, I play similar to Zakk Wylde of Black Label society and I love to play fast solos. I have to say I read some reviews on this guitar saying that it was bad, but I think its amazing. They did tell me that when you first buy the guitar, theres a buzz sounds and that the neck has some dead spots. This is entirely true. But once you do some adjustments using the truss bar to the tension bar at the head of the guitar (under the Gibson word). I actually made these adjustments on my own since the nearest guitar shop is miles away. It took me 2 hours to completely fixup the guitar. The pickup and sound quality is truly amazing and the tone is thick and fat almost as good as the Gibson Les Pauls. The playability is really good as well. The pickup switch works perfectly well. I actually replaced the strings with Zakk Wylde Boomers, because I like to play heavy stuff. The sound quality is perfect. I suggest you get a decent distortion pedal to get a good distorted tone (one you can actually hear the cords through). I use an Ibanez Smashbox and its amazing. A boss MT2 works fine as well, but I prefer the smashbox. The body of the guitar is considerably light and the finish looks beautiful but that depends on your personal taste. This Guitar is an excellent buy and very worth every single dollar you pay for it. It just needs to be optimized and adjusted, especially the neck to remove the buzz sounds. I suggest you take it to a guitar technician at a guitar shop to get the neck fixed up and neck tension adjusted.
It takes a while to adjust the neck as I said. But once thats done you're going to be fine. Also, at the beginning, it untunes very quickly, but after a couple of tunings, the strings should stretch out a bit and you should be fine.
Neck adjustment should have been done at the factory, other than that, well done Epiphone!
Many people dislike this guitar because they think its just a cheaper and crappier version of a Gibson. The guitar is perfectly fine, but you need to have some patience to adjust the neck thats all!
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com