All the demos of this guitar that were run through an actual amp sounded very good. The signal chain here is larded up with pedals before going into a computer sim of an amp and out to computer speakers. Then the playing seems deliberately heavy handed like chopping wood. I don't put much stock in this review.
I have that same guitar..only in tabacco sunburst..all.i did was change the strings and lower the action.and she plays like beauty queen..i love it..people jus need to be patient..thers no need to bash the guitar..open your heart and be grateful
I replaced the tuners on mine, put Seymour Duncan JB Jr and lil 59 pickups in, levelled the frets and gave it a proper setup and it's a great little player.
i am a bit late but i own the same guitar and honestly i don’t feel like buying a new guitar as I already have this on hand. i want my guitar to sound better so that humbucker that’s the size of a single coil pickup is really really cool. i really might buy 1 to add but i have 0 experience in wire working so i either will destroy my guitar and send it to someone to repair or successfully follow youtube videos and have a banger cheap guitar build
@@DanielAlvarez-oq8exi want to add my model i own is black and is built of wood. the finish i like since it is a black matte wood finish. so idk if ill treat the guitar like a car build or leave as is lol
I have one, I also have guitars worth 3k. For a $150 guitar it's actually pretty good with a proper fret polish, and setup. What exactly were you expecting?
Mine is divine and I got it from first issues in South Africa at equivalent of $99. I learnt on it. I have the black one, tones are great, stays in tune for loooong. I use if for studio work, and It's great. Action is a bit high, but that's how I learnt and I am used to it like that. So yeah, I disagree, cause it's not garbage and it was great for me when I started out.
They put the guitar together and sell it . The fine detail set up work is what you pay for with more expensive instruments . You can do some basic setup things to this guitar and it will be a 100% better guitar. That’s the fun part of these guitars
In all honesty, if you can't get it in tune, you need to learn how to set up guitars properly, because if you do that with one of these Epiphones, it's actually a very good guitar indeed and especially for the price. I've got one myself and even though it was fairly well set up on arrival from an online German music warehouse store, I knew it could be improved further, so I took the nut off, sanded the back of it down quite a bit then refitted it, then I lowered the tailpiece and tweaked the truss rod slightly to improve the neck relief. I dressed the frets a little bit to remove some of the scratchiness, but in fact they were not actually too bad as they came. None of this stuff is especially difficult to do either, but having done it on mine, it now has a really excellent and extremely low action with no choking on any string bends at all, and amazingly, it stays in tune pretty well too despite having fairly inexpensive tuners. I would replace the tuners if this was not the case, but there is no point since they are doing fine as is, which is surprising, but a welcome surprise for all that. As far as playing it goes, I'm not a massive fan of the neck pick up tones, but the bridge pickup more than makes up for this, offering excellent rock/punk tone and it's got a pretty high output too thanks to the ceramics, which makes it interesting for being a Les Paul/Melody Maker style guitar, but with much more treble than you normally get out of Gibsons and Epiphones owing to the single coils this one has. It sounds a bit like a Gibson LP Special with its P90s to me, so it might even suit Indie players because of that. In all honesty, it is one of the better guitars I have for glam/punk style music, despite the fact that I've got a lot of much more expensive guitars including Fender Teles, Jaguars, a Jazzmaster and Les Paul Studio and so on. Given the £101 quid I paid for it, plus £8 for delivery, I would strongly recommend one of these to anyone who knows how to set a guitar up properly, because it's a lot of bang for not much bucks at all; it looks pretty good in the black/white colour which mine is and if anyone is looking for a cheap punk/rock guitar with a lot of its own personality and bags of lo-fi street credibility, you could do a lot worse than try one of these things out. Oh, and if you are gigging and stood up with it on a strap, it's very lightweight, which is another plus point.
Yes I totally see your point. And to be honest, if I did a lot of work on it, I bet it would be a pretty good guitar. However, like you said, this will be a good guitar for someone who knows how to set up a guitar. New guitar players don’t even know how to play much less set up a guitar. So it just irks me when these companies say this is a beginners guitar when it’s not fit for a beginner to even play in the first place. I know there are some companies that really do a good job setting up guitars before you get it, but some completely don’t. It’s a bummer, but it’s just the way it is I guess. Thanks for watching
OK, I got one 2 years ago, changed the pickups, change the tuners, even repainted it, and I'm very happy with it. And I guess that's the point of this guitar, I'd never recommend it for a beginner, for that I think Squier and Ibanez do a way better job making affordable and still decent instruments. To me, the point of this one is being a very cheap you can practice modding on.
Yes, I think you’re right. It’s a modding guitar for sure. The thing is us music folk see that but the average Joe looking for a starter guitar won’t realize that. Thanks for watching!
Yeah that was my first guitar definitely had more fun with a squier strat also theres tagimas they are like squiers but for brazillians but they play like a mim after some work solid necks an upgrade on pickups and electronics and its good to gig with
What’s the problem then? It, again, seems there’s a misunderstanding. I’m approaching this from a new guitar player’s POV. So yeah, there are a lot of problems, and the guitar shouldn’t be one of them. But tell us, what’s the problem?
Tuners-- mine are serviceable. Just need to get yourself slightly "under" the target note and then tweak upward until you nail it. Mine are holding tune with no problem, although I'm not exactly crazy about them. Nut-- was sitting a little high, resulting in first-position chords wanting to fret "sharp." But it was easy to remove the truss cover, very gently tap the nut (in the direction of the Epiphone logo) to undo the glue bond, slide it out of its channel, sand down the bottom surface of the nut just a bit, and slide it back in. This really improved the first-position feel and intonation.
In my own experience, every guitar, whether it’s a cheap starter one, or a professional model needs a fret dressing and a set up. Mine had great fretwork out of the factory. All I needed to do was set the bridge and truss rod. I even kept the pickups because they are unique. I did change the wiring harness and pots/caps to Gibson ones, but ultimately once I had the truss rod and bridge set up it plays absolutely great. It’s a nice, unique guitar. It’s Tele-esque, it had a bit of its own voice too.
I’ve owned 1,000 $ guitars that needed a truss rod adjustment and some new strings, action set up is a personal thing so it’s needs adjusting as well. Cheap guitars have cheap tuners, it’s well known before you buy them, it has a very unique sound, with a good set up and some tuners, it might be a cool instrument.
Dude, chiil down. It's a base model guitar selling new for $160. I got one to add to my collection just to have fun with. It looks cool and is a neat tribute to the old Gibson Melody Maker. It's fine for what it is, and my tuners work. The single coils are ok. The fit and finish are good. No sharp fret ends. What do you expect for $160 new? These guitars are meant for beginners, or as platforms for modding, or to be used as a traveler or as an extra to have at the office, etc. With all respect, please quit the belly aching and clean and oil the fretboard, adjust the action, and replace the strings. Replace the tuners and pickups too if they truly just aren't working or aren't good enough for you in this $160 base model guitar. Then you'll have a very cool looking axe that you should be happier with.
I think you mentioned the point that I’m trying to make. This is a guitar for beginners. As I stated in the video, and in other comments on here, this would be a nightmare for a beginner that has no knowledge or access to setting up a guitar. I know that when I was a beginner back in the 90s, I sure didn’t have access to anything. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know what setting a guitar up was. So if I got this guitar as a beginner with no help, I would be discouraged. Do you know how many people would probably completely stop playing guitar if they got a piece of garbage like this in their hands first time? Or maybe they just need to chill down. Thanks for watching.
I love my SL. Man. I bought it for fun, and it is awesome. Modding it. Only reason I bought it. BUT! IN ORIGINAL GUISE, awesome. So. Don't give up so quick.
I think the problem with this guitar is what people expect of it, you see Les Paul on it and you think it should sound like a Les Paul, but hey! You got a 100 usd guitar, what are you expecting? Something you can gig with?
You have a good point, but I personally think a quality guitar can still come at a low price. if it can tune and the neck is straight; it can work. This one just couldn’t do any of that. It was a bad guitar and they threw the Epi logo on it. Epiphone has some great guitars. I don’t know what they were thinking with this one. Thanks for watching!
Mine rocks. Sorry yours is a lemon. I quite enjoy mine, all I did was minor adjustments to the truss rod, pickup heights, action/bridge, polish frets and clean/oil fretboard and some new strings (string them up using the locking method) and don't forget to stretch the strings, lube the nut with a pencil and tight/loosen the tuner buttons as needed. I threw some telecaster knobs on it and called it a day (and a 24.75 scale telecaster also).
@@rockandgroove306 But that is the problem with most youtuber guitarists who like to do reviews... they pretend that their cheap guitars are going to play like a $1000+ guitar and then completely trash them when they don't. Had you used some common sense and did some minor adjusting to improve the playability without spending money on modding, only a fresh set of strings and maybe you could have presented a more realistic review and had some fun while doing it. Thanks for reading.
@@socialdef3 But that’s where you’re wrong. Out of my videos, which aren’t that many, only a couple discuss how bad products are. I think what you fail to realize is that many folks who buy guitars, especially beginners looking for a cheap guitar, are not going to do all this work modding nor want to spend double the guitar’s price on having a guitar shop fix it up. They are looking for a guitar that’s going to play halfway decent out of the box. This guitar did not. I played a lot of guitars, and this guitar was a piece of garbage. There’s no sugarcoating that. And I’m really never clear on what it means to play $1000 guitar. What is the main difference between playing $1000 guitar and a $100 guitar? I’ve played many cheap guitars that have actually outplayed $1000 dollar American guitars. There’s a certain amount of hype and cork sniffing that goes into thinking that a cheap guitar is not going to play well. But the truth is a cheap guitar can definitely play well. all it takes is a little care from the company. I’ve seen it many times. Nevertheless, thanks for chatting with me and watching.
@@rockandgroove306 I had given you the benefit of the doubt, but when you told another poster that "it's trash" that's when I had to speak up. No guitar at any price point is a guarantee out of the box. Thousand dollar GIbsons and Fenders sometimes need some serious adjustments at worst, at best, they still need minor adjustments to make it playable FOR YOU. And that is where you youtubers are wrong. Treat the $100+ guitar as a $100+ guitar and you will be ok. Otherwise you are only fooling yourself!
Bought mine used, but mine stays in tune. Pickups are a bit noisy, but they actually sound alright IMO (I've owned about a dozen electrics). All in all, for the price, I'd give it a good 4.5/5. Without considering the price it'd be a 3/5. Be nice :)
I have one and love it. All the other RU-vid reviews that I've seen were very positive. You however, can't seem to get anything out of it. Seems to me, that it's too much guitar for you. I really hate it when someone with limited skill blames his poor performance on the instrument.
I just bought one of these off of ebay in black. Like you, I cannot keep this thing in tune. The turners on it absolutely suck! To a point yes, you get what you pay for but $150.00 is still $150.00 and I didn't pick that money off the money tree in the back yard! It ought to at least hold tune. I'm not going to give up on it though. I will take it to our local guitar shop and have them put some decent tuners on it and set it up and see how it goes.
I love my Epiphone SL. For the price, you too harsh. A setup is all it needed. I know the pups are 4 and 5 K on my digical meter. But I put Frankentone Lil Chester pups in at 7.4 and 8K with Gretsch circuit. Added a master volume ot the horn, two volumes for each pup and a master tone knob. Moved the jack to the side on the rear. I haven't finished yet, but the mod is already an improvement! I bought it to mod. A good guitar to learn setups on too. A fun thing!
i played a few and the big killer was the bridge doesn't match the radius of the neck and you really cant do anything to change it, you would have to bend it....
Yes, that is always nice. I remember when I was starting guitar, I would buy the guitars straight out of a shop and they would come with a decent set up. Nowadays, a lot of these beginners will get them off of the Internet. They will come in The mail in bad shape. I hate that because many of these younger, beginner guitar players are not going to know to go get a set up, or may not have the ability to, or perhaps they just don’t want to spend the same amount on a set up. But yes, if you can get it already set up, I’m sure it plays pretty all right. Thanks for watching
I’ve had this one for just over a year before the price went up. I love it, never had any issues with the tuners or the neck, just had to adjust the action a bit. Now that I’m a bit better with guitar though I’m looking to upgrade soon and sell this one.
Thanks for watching! Try a Cort out. They have some good stuff. Keep in mind, too, as many have pointed out, this guitar could do fine if you’re willing to gut it. If not, go for the Cort!
Dude, it's a bit over the top but I get where you're going. This is not an instrument you want to give a kid to learn on, Though back in the 60's, most of our first guitars were worst then this. It's for geezers like me who are old and bored and looking for a project. My brother just got one for 60 bucks as a throw-in with a nice Squier Tele($120 for that), and the Tele is a much finer piece. These are more like those import Harmony's they've been making for decades. I got one at Goodwill and that had the same cheap tuners, though twenty years ago they must have made them a little better. It's a nice wall hanger that can be upgraded, but not to learn on.
Yes, the epiphone SG’s are great guitars! They feel great and are comfortable. I recently got my hands on an SG Special with P90s, everness green. Amazing player!
My SG 400 reissue is my first “real guitar” the one I got when I was 15 was straight from the JCPenney’s catalog, the Terminator with the paper amp built in it. It is long retired but I think this one will be better than that one
The issues is not the guitar..... its the setup. 😂 @10:59 you can throw all the gear you want at it but it’s completely pointless if it’s not even setup properly.....🤦♂️ Since they came out I’ve set up half a dozen of these for friends getting started with 🎸. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them. Infact they make a great first guitar especially for the price. If you are going to buy one just take it to someone who knows what they are doing to dial it in. Because an average guitar with a good setup up beats a great/high end guitar with a rubbish setup every day of the week.
Yes I agree. A good set up is great. However, I’ve set up plenty of guitars to know that this will take more than just a set up. Also, the point of it being a beginner guitar is that it ought to be playable out of the box. Of course some cleanup and some tuning is in order. But I can say that many beginner guitar players, especially those that don’t have access to guitar shops, are not going to go spend the same price of the guitar on a professional set up. So if someone gets a guitar like this, they are probably going to be tempted to throw it in the trash.
No sane person who ever learnt to set up his guitar to his own tastes and technique ever complained about a guitar needing a setup out of the box. I mean really? What kind of guitarist you are? Why are you complaining about it having high action out of the box? If it would have lower action and you still want to lower, does it really matter? Would you just keep playign a guitar out of the box without setup ever?
Apparently, you along with a handful of other people, missed the point of the video. I know how to set up a guitar. I know that I need to set up a guitar when it comes out of the box. However, my point was that if this was a “beginner” guitar, most beginners, especially those who don’t have access to help getting things set up or any kind of know-how, would be extremely frustrated and probably throw it out the window. I’m not looking at it as a starter guitar. I am not looking at it as a guitar from anyone’s eyes that has experience. I am approaching this as if I were a beginner. When I was a beginner player, I didn’t have any kind of access to tools or anybody that could help me set up a guitar. There wasn’t RU-vid, and there wasn’t any local music shops that could repair it where I lived. Therefore, I would’ve thrown this directly out the window. i’m sorry this hurt your feelings, but we have to look at this from other peoples viewpoints. Stop for a moment and think about it when you first started playing guitar. Now imagine not having anyone to help you or guide you.
@@rockandgroove306 but no matter if you are a beginner or not, they can't ship a guitar that is perfectly set up and matches literally everyone's needs. PS: I learnt to set it up myself bsed on a book and friend's suggestions all alone. There was no internet for me at the time.
@@yeoldefoxeh254 yeah, I totally get what you’re saying. And yes everything you say there is totally right. They can’t send them 100% perfect in the box. But, there’s no excuse for taking a crap and then throwing in in a box. And that’s what this was, at least the one I got. And again, yes you may have had access the books and friends and all of that. But there are many people who don’t. That’s who I’m thinking about. I’m like you though, I understand your point and I’m the same way. But I know others aren’t. Thanks for watching man
It's a cheap guitar, one cannot expect to be able to gig with it or be in a highly-playable condition out of the box. It's not highly recommended for beginners and it's not up there quality-wise, but calling it garbage is a stretch. With setup and some hardware replacements, it is decent for its price.
Man if I have this guitar I will probably throw it from my roof the sound of pickups is cheap the neck also not good the fender squire is better or fender Telecaster squire that guitar is good entry level guitar or Ibanez also good
Yeah, it’s bad. For a beginner’s guitar, it’s junk. I think a beginners guitar needs good attention. The last thing anyone needs to do with a starter piece is so tones of work. This thing is not worth it. Thanks for watching!
It definitely has similar tones. However, it lacks the versatility. And to be honest, it didn’t sound horrible. Some combinations sounded pretty darn good.
I have the Sl and i have to say it plays really well no tuning issues what so ever i paid £50 second hand and am well happy with it .Seems you decided you didn't like it before you even plugged it in .Your view is your view but your review is NOT accurate in the slightest .Stock strings are not going to be decent and probably not installed the best .I'm HAPPY with mine it stays in tune sounds great through my amp but then i don't play it like a heavy handed buffoon.Maybe stop doing reviews if you cant do an honest one for the money what do you expect
It's a shame how many parents buy cheap guitars for their kids to begin on , they are so poorly made and difficult to play that the kids quit the hobby altogether due to losing enthusiasm and getting disheartened...... such a shame.
