faizal_rocks
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Features: Limited Edition Custom Shop.Made in China.Double cutaway,hollowbody guitar, ES-335 style, with 2 f-holes. Vintage sunburst colour. 2 chrome dogear P90s. 22 frets. Bigsby tremolo equipped. 2 vol, 2 tone knobs. 3 way pickup switch. Stock Epiphone tuners. The neck joins at the 17th fret, meaning it will difficult to solo beyond the 17th fret, but I'm ok with it. Hollowbody means there is no center block in the body unlike a semi-hollow which does. Bought from Swee Lee last year, 3 mths ago for just $999, which was a special offer price and got it with a rockbag gig bag, for an additional $50. So on to the Casino, its made famous by The Beatles (John Lennon, in particular). John Lennon ditched his famous Rickenbacker guitar in favour of the Casino and used it thru out the Beatles' career and his solo career. You can read more here: http://www.epiphone.com/story.asp. I will now describe the upgrades that I have done to the Casino.
Upgrades/mods done: Stock tuners changed to genuine Kluson tuners,changed the golden volume/tone knobs to black ones. Changed the stock pickups to GFS Vintage P90s. Added a roller bridge and orange drop capacitors. Added a black rubber washer around the pickup switch. Took off the pickguard too cos the Casino looks nicer without it. Thanks to Beez who did the upgrades on the Casino. Doing rewiring on a (semi)hollowbody is never easy, according to him, as it has to be done thru the f holes. It took at least 3 weeks to complete the upgrades but it was well worth it.
Sound
layed thru my modded Epiphone Valve Junior Head/Cab(with Eminence Red Fang speaker).Sounds absolutely sweet sounding on cleans and overdriven tones. U can get a jazzy clean sound at the neck pup, rhythm clean at the mid and biting leads at the bridge pup. The P90s sound warm and fat with a single coil character. Not as fat as humbucker and not as twangy as a Strat/Tele, u get the idea. P90s will hum, as expected in the Casino but not an issue to me. The neck pup is a tad louder than the bridge pup. I mostly play the mid position when playing clean rhythm, it just sounds heavenly. Overdriven wise, it becomes a rocking guitar but not close to say, a Les Paul. The bridge pup in overdriven mode, sounds great for leads and rhythm. I can even play Led Zeppelin/ACDC riffs on it, beleive it or not. But, since its a hollowbody, it will feedback easily if u overdo the overdrive/distortion. Able to nail the Beatles sound from Revolver to Let It Be. Unplugged, u can even play it like a normal acoustic cos it is loud, due to its hollowbody. Not only can u play Beatles and other British Invasion bands that u can think of, its also good for 50s rock n roll,80s new wave and 90s alternative music too. And with the Bigsby trem, u have a guitar that looks vintage and retro looking. Reliability/Physical Appearance: Physical appearance-wise, I have to complain about the sloppy paint job in the bottom f hole. It seems that the sides are not fully painted. I dunno whether it was meant to be like this. I could be wrong though. The Bigsby tremolo works well, so as long as u don't dive bomb on it, its not what its for. Meant for light vibrato. The Bigsby adds weight and sustain to the sound. Before the upgrades, whenever I used the Bigsby, it will go out of tune at the slightest push on the bar. After upgrading the tuners and bridge, I decided to lubricate the guitar nut with GraphitAll lubricant and now the tuning problem is solved. I can use the Bigsby and bend strings as hard I can without going out of tune. If gigging live and using heavy overdrive, make sure not to stand too close to the amp or it will feedback like mad. The strap buttons are reliable so far. The Casino is pretty light in terms of weight, light as a feather.
Conclusion: If you are a huge Beatles fan like me but can't afford the Elitist or even the John Lennon Revolution models, get this and along with the upgrades, you will spend less than its expensive brothers. Well what can I say? Looks great, sounds great and you'll look great playing it
Pardon me if u might find this review lacking, as this is my 1st guitar review.Hope u enjoyed reading it!
