hollowbodys

Good Morning,

My name is Robert hammer and I have been playing guitar for about 12 years. I currently own a fender American standard strat and a Taylor 410-ce. I am looking to purchase a hollowbody with a bigsby in the near future. The type of music I play is everything from Pop to classic rock to hopefully jazz soon. I have found about 3 models of hollowbody/semi-hollowbodys and need the most knowledgeable and honest opionion of each


1.gretsch 5120
2.epiphone wildkat
3.epiphone counry deluxe

I am looking for all information- tone, ( hi to low), playability, construction everything you know of!

thank you

Robert

You've chosen 3 attractive guitars, but I'm not sure they're in the category you need, especially if you intend to start playing Jazz.

The Gretsch 5120 Electromatic and Epiphone Wildkat (with P-90 pickups) are import models, made in Asia (Korea and/or China), and are probably average-to-good instruments. Both guitars could give you good pop, old school rockabilly, and country tones. Not sure how good they would be for classic rock or jazz, since those two styles are usually played on guitars that have Humbucking pickups (Gibson being the leader). Having said that, I just read an article about Grant Green (go here: Get that Tone Grant Green ) and how he played Jazz on a Gibson ES-330 with P-90 pickups, so it's not unheard of.

The Epiphone Elitist Country Deluxe is closer to what you're looking for. Made in Japan, where they've been turning out high-quality insturments for decades, but with US-made Gibson humbuckers, this guitar should have what it takes to get you the jazz tones you're looking for. It may not have quite what it takes to get you into the classic rock arena. Here's a review of the Epiphone: Guitar Player : The Complete Electric Guitar Package

If you want one guitar to play classic rock and jazz, you may need to look at a Gibson ES-335, or something very similar from Epiphone or Ibanez. This is a semi-hollowbody with humbuckers, so it can get you into the jazz arena, but if you want to play classic rock, this guitar will resist feedback better than a fully hollow guitar. Also, the humbuckers are much quieter than P-90s, especially at higher gain settings normally used for the overdriven tones of most classic rock songs.

You can get a lot of information on all of these models through Google. But the best bet is to go to a local guitar shop, play all of the models, and make sure you do so through an amp that is set up for the jazz or rock tones you want. This will be the only way for you to judge the tone, feel, playability, etc., of each guitar.

the epiphone sheraton 2 is a nice guitar, very similar to the ES-335. John Lee Hooker used to play one.

I'd second Badger's recommendation to look at a semi-hallow 335-ish guitar. Particularly if you play to play fair loudly with some overdrive. The 2 best jazz guitarist I know either play Gibson L-5's (completely clean) or Gibson 335 (clean & a little dirty).

The Epiphone Sheraton is widely recommended as an inexpensive 335 alternative. Also, many of the Ibanez Artcore models are fine inexpensive semi-hallow/hallow body guitars. Ibanez also makes the illustrious John Scofield model, which a few jazz/rock/fusiom guitarist I know prefer over a real Gibson 335 (especially ones made in the last 30-40 years), although it will cost you. They also make Pat Metheny and George Benson hallowbodies that the artists actually use.....so I bet they know a little something about making decent jazz guitars.

I am still hoping to sit down with a Gibson Larry Carlton Model ES-335 at some point...which is modeled after a late 60's 335 like the one of my guitar teachers has. To this day that 335 was probably the very best instrument I've ever played. Unfortunately, a real 60's 335 cost about as much as a decent new car.

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Badger made some excellent points but I would like to add to what he has said.

The first area of his quote I highlighted in red states that most jazz is played using humbuckers. Now this is true for modern jazz but many of the greatest jazz players of all times relied on single coil pickups including Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith, Joe Pass, Sal Salvadore, and many, many more. Now the guitars they endorsed for various companies might have come with humbuckers, but the guitars they played did not.

Some of the more popular single coil pickups used for jazz would be the afore mentioned Gibson P90, the Gibson Alnico V Staple (P90 cousin), Gibson Charlie Christian blade (quintessential jazz tone), DeArmond Rhythm Chief, Gretsch DynaSonic (DeArmond), and Epiphone New York.

Thusly, the Epiphone Wildcat would be an excellent choice for jazz however the Gretsch 5120 in its newest form (silver pickguard) is voiced more for country,rockabilly. The older 5120 (clear pickguard) is voiced very much like a Gibson humbucker and will do nicely for jazz.

Adaptable mentioned the Ibanez Artcore series, and I must concur that they are excellent guitars. I own one myself. However the pickups (humbuckers) that come with them have ceramic magnets and tend to sound a bit brittle. Of course a good set of Alnico humbuckers or humbucker sized P90s are very inexpensive from companies like Guitarfetish.com and they are of very good quality.

The Epiphone Country Classic is based on the Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman that no longer carries Chet's name since his estate renegotiated with Gretsch. However the Gibson built pickups in the Country Classic are voiced like Gretsch FilterTrons not like Gibson 57s which makes this guitar more suited for country or rockabilly music.

One guitar not mentioned is the Gretsch 5125-5129 series. These have DeArmond 2000 single coil pickups which not only great for country, blues and rockabilly, but are also smoking jazz pickups. Take a look at one of these guitars before you make your final decision. I also have one of these and it is an awesome guitar. The difference in model numbers relates only to the finish. 5125 is all black and the 5129 has a red top with black sides and back. There is also light blue, gold sparkle and silver sparkle 5126,27, &28.

Stock Gretsch G5125




My Gretsch G5125