Hej Gents,
now here it is, my latest NGD. The ones who had a look in my LP/ES recommendation thread already know, but here now is the full and completed thing, with pics, and an early impression review of both the guitar and the pickups.
How did it come to this...Well, due to stuff I recently found myself being heavily drawn towards bluesy music (straight up blues, blues rock, etc.). So I started to play that and it felt so good. I have guitars which can do that well in sound, no doubt (Emerald, Crawler, and Manhattan neck in particular), but none was a blues guitar in feel. Plus there was certain singing sound I could not quite get. The MH came close, but I needed a HB.
So I started to look for a LP/ES style guitar. Lot of cool stuff out there and certainly something like a Vintage will follow at some point, but during my research I came upon a certain ES335 model once again. I already looked closely at it a while back, but was more metal at the time. Now I had another look and reminded myself of the backstory. What can I say, it struck a chord. It just felt right for me right now. Thus I took the plunge and ordered it off Thomann. Saved some on a B-stock someone sent back...well what can I say, Thomann just seems to have good stock. I can see how someone was not wowed by the stock strings and pickups, was still good with them though, but now...oh my.
Now it is a here, my very own Epiphone Lucille. Maple body and neck, rosewood board (with some pretty stripes, perhaps the prettiest I have). I feel that you really notice the maple. It deffo sounds more bright and present than Dots I have tried in the local stores. Also a bit more heavy, so you don´t absolutly think „hollow“ when you pick it up. More like a decent LP. Once I took of the stock 11s and put on the BKP Rotosound 10s the resonance seemed to increade a good bit too. The neck is nice and thick (50s style I believe), which is not my normal style, but for this blues playing (and old school rock) it just feels right, just what I needed.
Generally I am positivly suprised by the build and quality. I knew most Epis were pretty decent, but this seems better than most of what I have seen in this price range. I have yet to really find a big fault. Some minor things are not perfect, but man, it sure looks pretty clean. The hardware is good with Grover tuners and a solid stop tailpiece with fine tuners. Feels really solid. I was mostly concerned about the electronics though. First look in revealed mini pots, a giant PCB Varitone, and a lot of thick black wires. I thought „sh*t“. Well, I had another look and actually it actually seemed better than what I had read about. Volume pots measured in at 537k and turned nicely I thought. The Varitone sounded good and seems to be really hard to do better, so hey. And the wires are almost exclusivly thick braided wires with thick black plastic shielding. Man, this is really solid!
So I left it in for now.
The stock pickups, 57s, also were surpisingly good, well for stock pickups that is. Poor in comparison to what it has now, but usable.
Now on the pickups is where I went a bit the heretic path (not worthy!!), but I took a page out of knowledgable forum members book, not putting it in my wine cellar. So cheers. Now I am proud to say that my 10th Anniversary set has found a temporary home (till a custom is realistic). It just felt like the right thing to do and man am I glad I did it right now. These are chrome cover and unpotted, full of alnico II goodness. My god. I have had a lot of big changes from pickups, but none has left me as warm and fuzzy as this. Clear as crystal mountain air, sweet as honey, roaring with the soul of a young Tom Waits, and as warm and homely as a fireplace in a winterstorm. No guitar of mine can deliver chords with this sort of vintage roar. There is something about the harmonic content and distortion frequencies that just is special. And the sweetness...doing the „Sweet Child O´Mine“ has never felt so right. There sure is a good pinch of Slash dust in these pickups. I deffo got that flavour and I am playing a semihollow into an Orange!
Now I have named her Sofia. This one is on Sufjan Stevens, as „Sofias Song“ just came on my playlist at the right time and it reminded me of something about music I had almost forgotten right now.
Ok enough ranting, more than enough text. I am off on the honeymoon. Finally, pics!
Cheers,
Kiichi
