General Music Chat

I've owned a couple of Epi Les Pauls, and now have a Gibson Studio LP with p90s. The Epis are great guitars, not perfect, but excellent for the cash. Both have had a very slightly muddier sound than the gibson, some stray harmonics here and there, but nothing so as you'd notice without listening really hard. I had a lot of trouble with the electronics in my first Epi (mid 90s), my second one (mid 00s) was rock solid reliable but didn't sound quite as nice to my ears. Both felt really nice to play, fast necks, well balanced. Really though, if you want an LP and don't want to fork out for a Gibson, you can't go wrong with them.

My experience with Epiphone is that they remind me of Tex-Mex Fenders. you can get a good one or one that ain't so good at all.

Personally don't like them but I don't play comfortably on Gibsons anyway so my opinion is not worth much.

Best bet is play it through an amp. if it feels good and sounds good - it probably IS good.

Talbot

Sometimes, I think even the cheapies make mistakes... I've had a Hondo (Yech!). It was an LP copy. Got it (and an amp), for a song. The amp was better than the one I had. Somehow, that Hondo played GREAT! I wanted to keep it but was offered twice what I gave, I threw in my old amp.

Talbot, when picking an electric guitar, I always play on it acoustically before I even think of an amp, if it rings and sustains, stays in tune, then I head to an amp.

If you arent careful an amp can make a guitar sound better, in fact lots of times thru the years I would just plug a guitar in, love it, buy it, and then when I got home and plugged it into my amp it just didnt sound the same.

Anyway, not cutting what you said, but thru the years this is just a little tip Ive learned about electric guitars, if it sounds good acoustically then it will probably sound decent on an amp.

Talbot, when picking an electric guitar, I always play on it acoustically before I even think of an amp, if it rings and sustains, stays in tune, then I head to an amp.

If you arent careful an amp can make a guitar sound better, in fact lots of times thru the years I would just plug a guitar in, love it, buy it, and then when I got home and plugged it into my amp it just didnt sound the same.
.

This. Been burned myself this way. I think it's a pretty standard sales technique to plug folks into a really good amp that'll show the guitar off to it's best - all well and good, but just 'cos it sounds great through that tube AC30 doesn't tell you much about how it'll sound through your 30w solidstate at home. You can tell a lot about how good a guitar sounds by playing it dry.

Sometimes, I think even the cheapies make mistakes... I've had a Hondo (Yech!). It was an LP copy. Got it (and an amp), for a song. The amp was better than the one I had. Somehow, that Hondo played GREAT! I wanted to keep it but was offered twice what I gave, I threw in my old amp.

cool! My first guitar was a Hondo LP copy.. I didn't like it at first, but after dismantling it, sanding down the neck a little, refinishing it, and reassembling it, replacing the pups with dimarzios, it played and sounded incredible! It had rock-solid intonation, stayed in tune, and once sanded, the neck was fast as hell and ultra-comfortable. Action was incredibly low even by today's standards. I really miss that guitar!

Apparently I smoked WAY too much pot between then and my mid 20's, as I have zero recollection of what ever happened to it

Anyone here tried "Rondo" guitars? Some of the guys on the old Digitech forum bought them and really liked them. They said the craftsmanship was excellent and they were well set up right out of the box. A couple of the guys changed the pups but others were satisfied to leave them alone. Incredably low prices on guitars that play and sound really good. You can check out the finishes on them. Prices start at about $200 for the better ones.

I have considered buying a Start copy just for the parts.


http://www.rondomusic.com/

Anyone here tried "Rondo" guitars? Some of the guys on the old Digitech forum bought them and really liked them. They said the craftsmanship was excellent and they were well set up right out of the box. A couple of the guys changed the pups but others were satisfied to leave them alone. Incredably low prices on guitars that play and sound really good. You can check out the finishes on them. Prices start at about $200 for the better ones.

I have considered buying a Start copy just for the parts.


http://www.rondomusic.com/

Rondo is the distributor, not the brand. The Agile series are actually quite good, and most of their models are built to the original specs of the originals- I bought two guitars from them a couple of years ago, an Agile AL2000 and a Douglas FXsomthing. The douglas guitar was an ibanez RG knockoff, and the Agile was a les-paul knockoff.

The douglas ($150) was basically a superstrat body, thinner than an ibanez and very lightweight (alder), has a beautiful finish, H/S/S pups, and a floyd rose "licensed" recessed locking tremolo. I generaly liked the single coil pups, but the humbucker sounded flat, so I replaced it with a dimarzio "steves special" which has nice balanced mids for beautiful cleans, and smooth OD/Dist. It sounded fantastic in this guitar. The guitar itself was cheap in some ways- The tremolo was absolute crap, the locking nuts stripped out from the hex wrench right away, so I replaced the screws, but then the better screws stripped the nut.. all cheap metal. The fine tuners also seized a lot, were hard to turn because of poor metalwork and lubrication. When locked, the guitar did stay in tune thru divebombs and such. The neck was straight, and played o.k. I never liked ibanez necks, and this guitar did a good job of replicating the flat/thin ibanez type well, so that's probably a personal preference more than a bad neck.. So anyways, I dismantled the guitar, ripped out the trem, and plan to rebuild it with a strat-styled neck, all new original floyd rose, and evans pups.. I love the body on this guitar, although the hardware was all crap, the body and electronics are all solid and suitable. It will be a great player someday. (my 4th profile pic is me playing the douglas (burgundy-ish finish).

The Agile ($200) did have some funky electronics issues, the pup switch was bad and the volume/ton knobs rub the surface of the guitar (not a big deal really). Other than that, the guitar itself is beautiful- the paintwork and binding are outstanding. The action is low, and the guitar is mahogany,; neck is straight, and yes, set up right out of the box. I had the pup switch replaced. The pickups were a little muddy to me, so I replaced the bridge picup with the dimarzio after yanking it out of the Douglas, but for whatever reason, they don't pair well and the pickup - while not muddy, just doesn't seem right. I plan to someday pull it and pop in a duncan JB and see how that sounds... the JB works well with heavier woods I believe.

Yes I know that Kramer. But it is Rondo who distributes several brands, not just Agile. So before I looked up the site I posted it as Rondo guitars since that is all that I remembered at the time. I did it so people could Google it simply as Rondo guitars , because I knew it would show up that way.

Later I edited and posted the link.

Been an Epiphone fan for years. Same as any though, you have to try them out one by one. Avoid the strat copy with a down angled headstock, you can't keep it in tune till the end of a song. The strings bind in the nut due to the spreading there, goes out of tune even if you don't touch the whammy bar.

I've played a bunch of them, usually play as good as Gibsons or better. Owned a great Epi acoustic that was stolen in Austin, took a long time to find one that would match it.

JW123 has an excellent point, something I always do. Try it unplugged first. If it doesn't impress me unplugged, it never sees an amp. Dull, dead sounding unplugged usually won't improve a lot plugged in. That's also something you have to develop a feel for, I'm used to it because I play around the house unplugged more than through an amp.

Epiphone has made some excellent guitars, the Sheraton is one of them. And whoever it was that posted it, they were king of the hill for a long time, before the Gibson buy out. If I remember correctly they originally made mandolins in the early 1900's. (May be wrong though, didn't go dig up any info)

I'll check out Epiphones every time, I've seen some very good ones. Just looked at a LP Special a few days ago at a local pawn shop, really wish I could afford it, great price, sounds good and I didn't listen through an amp, and price that can't be beat. Needs minor work - setup, strings, intonation, pickup height but that's standard procedure for every guitar I've ever bought. From what I saw when I checked it out, in a pinch I could throw on some new strings and take it onstage as is.

Same as a couple of others, I'll always check out an Epi. They've made some excellent stuff over the years.

Paleopete

I have always preferred Epis over Gibsons when it comes to acoustic electric guitars. But then, I always had older stuff. Even Gibson doesn't fudge on their construction. They are still a quality guitar. But I have found $100 Silvertone Strats that had good necks and sounded just fine. (The starter stuff that Walmart, Sears and Target sell at Christmas time. With a bit of time and a little skill those guitars can be made to play rather well.)

If they were made of real wood instead of plywood some of them might even be keepers good enough to play at rowdy clubs where beer bottles fly through the air like little glass birdies.

A good many top line guitars have the nut cut improperly. Almost every Fender Strat that I have played goes out of tune until you re cut the nut groves so that it doesn't pinch the strings. I use a hacksaw blade sharpened like a knife with a gradual width increase to do the job. The variable thickness allows be to trim the groves without over cutting them. If Leo had placed the tuners on both sides they wouldn't go out of tune as easily. There is simply too much string behind the nut that can slack and not return properly without modifying them in most cases.

When you look at all the big band pick from years ago (Goodman, Heath, Miller, Dorsey etc) almost all the guitar players have Epiphones. The Epiphone Emperor was a favorite. Early on as Gibson became more prominent a lot of the jazz musicians went for the L5's and Super 400's.

Paleopete

I have always preferred Epis over Gibsons when it comes to acoustic electric guitars. But then, I always had older stuff. Even Gibson doesn't fudge on their construction. They are still a quality guitar. But I have found $100 Silvertone Strats that had good necks and sounded just fine. (The starter stuff that Walmart, Sears and Target sell at Christmas time. With a bit of time and a little skill those guitars can be made to play rather well.)

If they were made of real wood instead of plywood some of them might even be keepers good enough to play at rowdy clubs where beer bottles fly through the air like little glass birdies.

A good many top line guitars have the nut cut improperly. Almost every Fender Strat that I have played goes out of tune until you re cut the nut groves so that it doesn't pinch the strings. I use a hacksaw blade sharpened like a knife with a gradual width increase to do the job. The variable thickness allows be to trim the groves without over cutting them. If Leo had placed the tuners on both sides they wouldn't go out of tune as easily. There is simply too much string behind the nut that can slack and not return properly without modifying them in most cases.

When you look at all the big band pick from years ago (Goodman, Heath, Miller, Dorsey etc) almost all the guitar players have Epiphones. The Epiphone Emperor was a favorite. Early on as Gibson became more prominent a lot of the jazz musicians went for the L5's and Super 400's.

Samick Silvertones or Sears & Roebuck Silvertones?

Samick Silvertones.

The Target, Walmart, & Sams are also Samick Strat copies. The first time I saw one I thought they were junk. Then I found that it was actually playable. With some tweaking I traded a Samick for a nice amp and the guy who traded just loves it and uses it at all his gigs. Usually they come with strings that feel somewhat like they were made from railroad ties. Very rough feeling. Put some good strings on them and they are OK.

Naturally, the tuning heads are crap at that price but you can get Shalers or Grovers for about $30. The pickups sounded good enough to keep. Intonation needed tweaking. I also cut the nut so that it wouldn't pinch the strings and go out of tune.
All in all for what little I had invested into it the thing was gig worthy in a crisis. But they are plywood. I thought that would make them really crappy but not as bad as I had previously thought. The one I had was light plywood made from tone woods, quite unlike the lead plywood Fender Strat I first had. I wouldn't suggest anyone purchase one though. Just saying that some of them can be turned into something actually playable.

That is a lot better than my first bass that was made from sawdust and glue. Literally. (Gibson kalamazoo) It weighed a ton but made a remarkably fine weapon when threatened by unruly drunks.

Yeah. I paid my dues.

I had a Samick Silvertone Model SS10BK that was out of this world in quality that I guess was considered a Strat copy. the guitar played like a much more expensive guitar..sold it on eBay after acquiring it from my favorite Mennonite trader guy.. people do not realize Samick sells more guitars worldwide than anybody..

JW

You make a good point about trying it acoustically. If it rings right that's a darn good indicator.

A word of caution though, for beginners. I have two guys I've been teaching and both of them spend too much time unplugged in - missing totally the point of having an electric guitar.

When you practice, plug in.

Talbot