Update 1 – After waiting a painful month for this used guitar to clear, I was finally able to purchase it. This review has been updated to include a new ending.
The Tale of the Red Jazz Guitar
A month ago I went into the Guitar Center on Hillsborough in Tampa with no intention of buying a guitar. But sometimes deals drop on your lap and you have to take them, if you’re me, if you spend your Saturday afternoons looking for budget guitar steals. I’ve always been interested in semi-hollow body guitars. Not enough to buy one, though, because they’re so dang big and I’m not crazy about the necks. I’ve never played a Gibson ES335, but it wouldn’t matter because I won’t spend crazy money on a guitar. So I’ve only ever tried Epiphone and Ibanez and lower-end instruments. I’ve played the dot, the 335, the Casino, a bunch of them. But none of them ever felt great to me.
So yesterday I’m looking through the used guitars, and reminding myself that even if I wanted a guitar, the only thing I could possibly afford right now would be something under $200. And I knew I wouldn’t see anything any good for that, but you never know. My Jagmaster was like $119 and it was an awesome find. And then I saw it.
Used Red Epiphone 339Pro. $199. I took it off the rack and found a spot in front of a Peavey tube amp. Some metal amp with a “6” in the model number. (Edit – It was a Peavey 6505 combo. Definitely a very rock/metal amp.) I looked the guitar over from top to bottom. No serious blemishes. Definitely some use. The frets had some wear on them, but not too terrible. (Edit – Not too terrible, but the 12 fret high E is almost dead. A refret is in this guitar’s future.) The neck was reasonably straight – might need some truss rod adjustment. With some elbow grease it could be a great looking guitar.
I wonder what the story is. Al told me they got it for a really good deal. Maybe it’s way older than I think it is. Doesn’t look it. They probably paid some guy $149 for it. I can’t imagine selling that guitar for $149 unless I were desperate. But guitar players can be a desperate lot. This instrument had fret wear in the “solo” zones, but the body had no dings on it. To me that means it was played by a bedroom player. Judging from the wear, I’d say they played blues. Great guitar for it. Except the pickups.
Ah, the “review.” I got carried away and almost forget. This guitar looks amazing, if you like the look of a red semi-hollow body. But it also plays amazing, or rather, amazing for an Epi Semi. The action on mine is set a little too high. Rob (Chapman) says that you can’t get low action on this guitar but that you don’t really need it. Once I have it I’ll find out for sure and update this novel, err, review. (Update at end.)
That’s right. I don’t have it yet. Guitar Center (grr) loves to put used stuff out as soon as they get it, even though they will not sell anything used until they’ve had it for 30 days. I tend to find these bargains after they’ve only had them for a few days (or a few hours.) Not surprising. This guitar wouldn’t last another week – it’d be gone. And that’s why I go to music stores every weekend.
Name dropping, me? Why, me and Chappers are old buddies! No, not at all. I don’t know Rob other than being a huge fan of his videos with Captain Lee. But how could you not love the guy? He and Lee both love guitars. You can tell. They LOVE guitars. I can relate. After putting this guitar on layaway, I went home and looked for an online review, and I went to Rob’s channel first, and he and Lee had reviewed this model. Hooray!
If you don’t like to read a lot of words, you’re probably thinking right now “God this guy goes on and on. Get to the point!” Hmm. You must be new here. Look, you made it this far…
So I plug it in and turn it up and start playing clean. And a couple of things strike me. One, the Peavey tube metal 6 something sounds like shit clean. I’ve played through this amp before. Brian Wampler once told me that you can either make a reasonably priced tube amp sound good clean or good dirty. Not both. No, he really did tell me. I’d emailed him a question about it. You’d know that if you read every page on this site.
Two, the Epiphone pickups weren’t that great when it came to a nice clean sound. No great surprise. These are the Alnico Classic or Pro or some hogwash “upgraded” Epi pickups. I’ve heard them in other Epiphones. I always replace the pickups in budget guitars. Put your money in the pickups because they have a huge impact on the sound. But I got a surprise on the amp’s Crunch setting. The amp sounded great in crunch mode. That’s not the surprise. The pickups sounded great in crunch mode. I mean GREAT. How much was the amp? Dunno. But I can’t pretend these poop pickups (poopups?) didn’t sound great. Double-negative. I think Epiphone designed these to sound good in crunch mode (and nothing else.) (Boy was I wrong! More in a minute.)
Once I get this thing home I’ll know a lot better. There’s a small chance I might not replace these. Probably will, though. We’ll see.
The neck is slimmer than the other semi-hollow bodies. It felt somehow a little chunky but a little small at the same time. That’s just the neck profile. Regardless, I really liked it. The body is slightly smaller than a 335, and felt absolutely perfect. This guitar looks and feels great. And it plays good. But that’s Epiphone’s claim to fame. They make copies of Gibsons that look almost identical. They look spot on. It’s when you actually play them that you understand the difference.
Doesn’t matter for $199, though. Absolute steal of a guitar for the money. This guitar goes for $469 new. Would I spend $469 on one? I don’t know. I might. (Update – no.) It’s a great budget guitar. I think Epiphone does a better job on the semi-hollow bodies than on the Les Pauls. I’ve played a zillion Epi Les Pauls. Some were pretty good, some were meh, some awful. None of them ever spoke to me. This guitar did. I started playing it and it instantly felt right. I’ve probably played a thousand guitars in my life, some for a while, some for only a minute. I know when something feels right, when I connect with something. Not much logic involved, but logic doesn’t understand. I got chills playing this thing. In crunch mode, that is.
And then I realized why I liked it so much – it sounded like a Les Paul with that crunch sound. Wow. I really wanted to turn the amp up and start playing and singing “Molly’s Chambers,” but I didn’t. I played a bunch of classic rock riffs and some other stuff. Sounded fantastic. Sold.
At $469 new, I think this is the best semi-hollow body electric out there for under $500. At $350 used, it’s a good deal. Less than that, it’s a steal.
Now I don’t ever want to try a Gibson ES339. If I do, it might ruin my feelings for this copy, and I don’t want that to happen. I will never drop four figures on an electric guitar. Ever. And I doubt Gibson ever made a 70’s tribute ES339. Inside joke.
30 Days Later…
I got it, I brought it home, and I was happy with it. I was right about some things and wrong about others. Here’s the big reveal – the pickups really are poopups when it comes to… dirty sounds, through my amp. They’re awful sounding. But clean, they sound big. A little muddy, but big. The Peavey tube amp was a 6505+, and it makes every guitar sound good distorted, apparently. This guitar, through the dirt channel of my ValveKing II micro head, sounds like mud. No clarity or separation of notes. It makes my great-sounding distortion sound like a fuzz pedal.
Which is funny, because it was the dirt sound that sold me. If I go for a small amount of crunch, I can hear a little of what I heard in the store – it’s in there. So I know I can improve the dirty sound of this guitar with better pickups. The question is, do I want to? I can make it sound better dirty, but will it sound better than my Gibson Les Pauls dirty? Uh, no. However, right now, with this poopups, this guitar does have the biggest clean sound of all of my guitars. A bit muddy, like I said, but big. So for now, the Epiphone “Alnico Classic Pro” pickups stay.
This thing had 11’s on it. I put 10’s on instead, and then I had to adjust the truss rod, but I’m happy to say it adjusted just fine. I lowered the action, too, but it’s a tad too buzzy for me now, so it’ll be going back up a bit. The more I play it the more I think it’s destined to be a “clean” sound guitar. The jazz chords and runs sound good on it.
There is some fret wear. Actually, the high E 12th fret is a little dead. Which is the final bit of evidence I need to say that yes, the person who owned this before me played blues in a bedroom. Not a blemish on the thing. Don’t misunderstand – I play in a bedroom, too. My bedroom is a recording studio, but still. I have, however, played plenty of gigs in my time. And maybe will again someday.
Future mods? Hard to say. I need to live with the pickups a lot more before I decide to replace them. I need to record them, too. This guitar would definitely sound better with Gibson Burstbucker pickups, no doubt about it. But they’re $139. Each. I’m not afraid to spend money on good pickups though. And obviously I could get a similar sound from a Seymour Duncan imitation. But I’m a fan of the Burstbuckers. I could see pulling the trigger on one, and then several months later on the other.
The tuners are Grover Deluxe, and they look cool and work OK. I like locking tuners better. But I don’t see the point in replacing these. They’re fine. The nut feels like plastic. I’ve never understood guitar makers skimping on the nut, but they do. Replacing the nut would be a good idea, but I don’t have that level of skill. Yet. Someday I will.
The biggest future upgrade would be a fret job. The frets are medium jumbo but they feel a tad lower to me. Could be they’ve already been leveled once? Is there enough fret left to do another level and crown? I’m not sure, and I am just in the beginning stages of learning to do fret work, so I won’t touch it until I know what I’m doing.
So there you go. I love this guitar for $199. New strings and some truss rod and action adjustment and polish, and it’s a neat instrument. A great addition to my collection.
FINAL UPDATE
What a disjointed messy piece of writing this page is. It’s awful, but I’m leaving it as is. Here’s the deal with the pickups: do they sound good or not? Yes, they sound good, even distorted… at lower volumes. At low volumes, they’re good. But if you crank them, they’re not so good. They’re OK. They’re not bad. Which makes these pickups just like a Line 6 amp. But that’s what confused me. Weird for pickups to sound good at low volumes and not as good at higher volumes.
