Epiphone Les Paul Studio Review - How Close to Gibson is It?

The Epiphone Les Paul Studio is a extremely good beginner-level instrument at a competitive price.

Gibson's best-selling guitar is on a regular basis the Les Paul Studio, which is understandable, since it permits its owner some of the features of the more pricey Gibson Les Paul at a much more inexpensive cost.

Nevertheless, at over $1,000, the Les Paul Studio is still out of the price range for many people, especially younger players. The Epiphone Les Paul Studio is an attempt to bring the feel of the Gibson model to a more inexpensive level.

Features

The Epiphone Studio model features a mahogany body and set mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard. Chrome hardware is standard equipment, as is a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tailpiece. Pickups consist of two open-coil Alnico Classic humbuckers.

Performance

With a list price of less than $400, it's certainly much more inexpensive than the Gibson equivalent. But what about the guitar itself?

We were delighted to see that the instrument has a set neck rather than a bolt-on, which is what you ordinarily see with guitars in this price range. That's not a bad thing, since many good instruments (i.e. Fenders) have bolt-on necks, but having a Gibson with a bolt-on would seem just plain weird. Regarding the wood, it uses mahogany for both the neck and body and has a carved top.

With respect to the guitar's other features, it has a rosewood fretboard, chrome hardware, a tune-o-matic bridge, and stopbar tailpiece. Electronically, the Epiphone has two Alnico Classic open-coil humbuckers.

Given the cost, we found this instrument to be a strong beginner instrument. However, you might have to budget for some modest upgrades.

The action was very nice. Some buzzes were present here and there, though, because of some high frets (not uncommon).

The instrument's selector switch and volume pots were a bit scratchy, but not too bad. The humbucking pickups supplied some truly nice blues and rock tones.

Nonetheless, those are relatively bargain-priced fixes and minor complaints. When you realize that the price of a new Epiphone Les Paul Studio is around $350 and that a used one goes for around $200, it's difficult to complain.

The Bottom Line

All in all, the Epiphone Les Paul Studio is a extremely good beginner-level instrument at a competitive price. It would make a fine first instrument or even practice instrument for a more experienced player.

Name of Gear: Epiphone Les Paul Studio

List Price: $606.00

Manufacturer Info: The Epiphone Company; epiphone.com

Pros: Good value; nice guitar for the price

Cons:Noisy pots and pickup selector; a few high frets

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The Epiphone Riviera - Classic Hollowbody Styling and Tone But Overlooked by the Beatles

The Epiphone Riviera helped reinvent Epiphone in the 1960s, after the faltering company's founder passed on and was aquired by guitar giant Gibson. This semi-hollowbody guitar with double cutaways and humbucking pickups was introduced in 1962, and was a departure from Epiphones other models to date.

Then President of Gibson, Ted McCarty, saw the opportunity to leverage Epiphone as a second Gibson brand, instead of the lesser idea of using Epiphone to produce acoustic Gibson basses.

The slightly smaller "mini-humbuckers" on the Epiphone Riviera were actually an attempt to keep the guitar on a lesser tier than it's big brother, the Gibson ES-335. Instead of the traditional PAF Humbucker tone, the mini-humbucker produced slightly lower output.

The Riviera has been overshadowed in the vintage market by the Casino model. While you could argue that both models are quite similar in design and tone, the Casino had one irrefutable advantage: The Beatles.

While the Fab Four would have been happy with the Riviera, it just happened that they (especially John Lennon) favored the Casino. Countless chance choices have shaped the fate of many guitars over the years, and such is life.

The Riviera has the standard Gibson pickup configuration: two humbuckers, neck and bridge, each with independent volume and tone knobs. This classic setup can also be found on the Les Paul, Flying V, SG, and plenty of others.

Top players of this guitar include Otis Rush, The Edge, and Nick Valesi of The Strokes, who has his own Signature Riviera, the P-94.

This is an excellent guitar for jangly rock sounds and excels capturing a vintage tone. This is no one trick pony though, as this axe is comfortable playing rock and country music as well.

The original is no longer in production, nor is the Epiphone Elite version of the Rivera, but these days you can find both on auction sites like eBay. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a reissue, and $5,000 or more for an original.

For a retro look and sound that you just don't see too often, the Epiphone Riviera is a great choice.

For a closer look at the Epiphone Riviera, including videos and more articles, check out My Guitar Guide

What is Your Opinion on Epiphone Guitars?

You can gauge the age and knowledge level of a burgeoning axeman by asking their opinion on Epiphone guitars. Some may say that the company makes a decent electric that is more than serviceable onstage. Others may scoff and consider the line simply a bunch of Gibson's generic offerings. A true player, however, knows that Epiphone is at once one of the oldest and most respected guitar companies in history.

Few are aware that Epiphone dates back to the 1870s in Old World Europe. All the same, the company was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what it is now. One thing it had in those days, though, was its own identity. The company become wildly popular in the middle of the 20th century because of its expertly made archtop guitars and banjoes. The archtop market had, up to that point, been dominated by Gibson. Epiphone, however, offered models like the super famous Triumph and Emperor that were less expensive and, in some cases, better than Gibson's similar models. The respective companies were rivals from then on, until 1957 when Gibson bought Epiphone. If you can't beat 'em, pay them to join you.

To be fair, Epiphone never reached the grandeur it still has to this day until Gibson was in the picture. The company's (arguably) most popular guitar is in fact the first model put out after Gibson took over: The Epiphone Casino. Here, again, we can gauge the age of our six-string slinging ilk. Those born too late to fully realize the effect of Beatle Mania need only know that the Casino, based on Gibson's own famous ES-330 became an overnight sensation much like the fab four itself when not one but THREE Beatles (Mccartney, Lennon, and Harrison; the good ones) began using the Casino as their axe of choice and continued to do so for much of the band's lifespan. It wasn't a fashion choice, though the Casino and the ES-330 did have that retro large body that was in vogue at the time. It was more because of the heavy rhythm sound that the Casino had thanks to its hollow body and single coil, non-humbucking P90 pickups. The Casino still sounds amazing today, giving a very thick, deep pluck and amazing reverb.

Epiphone still makes its own classic archtop guitars but it is more widely known now for its Gibson copies that sound nearly as good as the originals but cost far less. There are Ephiphone copies of the Les Paul and Explorer, naturally, and there are even Firebird, Flying-V, Hummingbird, and LP knockoffs. This is a good thing, to most burgeoning guitarists, because a decent Gibson Les Paul can fetch a price of anywhere from three to ten thousand dollars or more and a Epiphone Les Paul can be found brand new for less than five hundred dollars. One of Gibson's most popular models and one of the most famous acoustics ever made, the Hummingbird, can be bought as an Epiphone model for more than fifteen hundred dollars less in even the most generous of circumstances. Epiphone may have lost its original voice in light of Gibson's buyout, but Gibson has arguably done more for the Epiphone name than anything made previously by the company.

Please visit our site for a full catalog of Epiphone guitars.