View other reviews for this product:
mooseherman « Cheap imitation, beginners only »
Published on 11/22/10 at 09:10This is a guitar made by Epiphone, which is the Gibson equivalent of Fender's Squier. That is to say, they make cheaper versions of the classic guitars of the parent company. This is no exception. It is a lower-priced version of the SG, speficially a 60s SG. The cool thing about this is, that with knowledge of guitars in general, this can be upgraded considerably with a little work.
The guitar has a mahogany body and a rosewood fretboard. It has 22 frets, a tune o matic bridge, and some cheap hardware. Honestly, the 3-way toggle switch is pretty flimsy. Other than that it has 2 mediocre humbuckers in it.
UTILIZATION
This guitar doesn't really play all that well. I like it, but sometimes it's tough to play fluidly and rapidly on it. It's difficult to really move through the strings like I can on better guitars. Getting a good sound out of this is difficult, unless you are running through a heavy distortion or fuzz. It's not as heavy as a classic Gibson SG which is nice, so it does earn points for being ergonomic. The top notes are easy to reach but it's tough to play the guitar anyway, so it doesn't really make it that much better.
SOUNDS
I have used this amp with a Marshall stack as well as a Fender Twin, and I must say, I think it's better with the stack, though not by much. It needs a ton of distortion to sound good. The clean sound of this guitar is flat, unnaturally warm and bassy, and doesn't cut through at all. If I were to buy this guitar, I would definitely buy new pickups and have them installed, as these are really not all that great. That's probably the biggest complaint I have. They work better with high-gain sounds. In fact, their ultimate redeeming quality is almost definitely the low amounts of noise, even with punishingly high amounts of gain.
OVERALL OPINION
While the playability of the guitar isn't perfect, it's at least usable, and a setup might alleviate the tension. The pickups, on the other hand, beg to be replaced. Even if they are virtually noiseless, they have few redeeming qualities. After replacing the pickups and getting it set up, it'd certainly be a much nicer instrument, however, you have to wonder whether or not it's more worth it to just get a better instrument. It's certainly cheap, but I still think that it's worth it to spend a hundred or so more to get a much better instrument, which you can if you look at some of the higher end Epiphone models.
The guitar has a mahogany body and a rosewood fretboard. It has 22 frets, a tune o matic bridge, and some cheap hardware. Honestly, the 3-way toggle switch is pretty flimsy. Other than that it has 2 mediocre humbuckers in it.
UTILIZATION
This guitar doesn't really play all that well. I like it, but sometimes it's tough to play fluidly and rapidly on it. It's difficult to really move through the strings like I can on better guitars. Getting a good sound out of this is difficult, unless you are running through a heavy distortion or fuzz. It's not as heavy as a classic Gibson SG which is nice, so it does earn points for being ergonomic. The top notes are easy to reach but it's tough to play the guitar anyway, so it doesn't really make it that much better.
SOUNDS
I have used this amp with a Marshall stack as well as a Fender Twin, and I must say, I think it's better with the stack, though not by much. It needs a ton of distortion to sound good. The clean sound of this guitar is flat, unnaturally warm and bassy, and doesn't cut through at all. If I were to buy this guitar, I would definitely buy new pickups and have them installed, as these are really not all that great. That's probably the biggest complaint I have. They work better with high-gain sounds. In fact, their ultimate redeeming quality is almost definitely the low amounts of noise, even with punishingly high amounts of gain.
OVERALL OPINION
While the playability of the guitar isn't perfect, it's at least usable, and a setup might alleviate the tension. The pickups, on the other hand, beg to be replaced. Even if they are virtually noiseless, they have few redeeming qualities. After replacing the pickups and getting it set up, it'd certainly be a much nicer instrument, however, you have to wonder whether or not it's more worth it to just get a better instrument. It's certainly cheap, but I still think that it's worth it to spend a hundred or so more to get a much better instrument, which you can if you look at some of the higher end Epiphone models.