Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue Review
- Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue Review Youtube
- Epiphone Casino 1961 Reissue Review
- Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue Reviews
PROS: Great fit and finish; fantastic neck; highly responsive and articulate P90 pickups.
CONS: None.
PRICE: $599 w/out case
My 61 Reissue Casino was perfect and i sure wouldn't classify it as lousy.lol.i have seen some of the recent stuff from Gibson that i would use that word for.and they sure aren't cheap and the quality control there sucks.The Chinese are very capable of building good guitars,just look at Eastman. Hey Guys,just bought my new casino 1961 reissue in VSB for 580 euro from my local shop in Italy,the guitar is ok,the pups are nice,the wight is 'LIGHT' as an acoustic one wich after 10 years of 335 is a bit weird to me.Anyway the guitar all around is ok,the finish look a bit cheap cos the.
The Casino has been around for decades, first brought to worldwide fame by the Beatles. Since then, Epiphone’s production has moved around the globe a few times, first from America to Japan, then to Korea and now China. While some aficionados maintain that the Korean-made Epis of the 1990s were better made than the contemporary models coming out of the brand’s Chinese facilities, this reviewer begs to differ. The production-line Casinos being produced today, in 2014, are perhaps the finest in the brand’s long history.
Fit and finish are immaculate – the binding, the fret edges, the neck contour, the pickup routing. We were incredibly impressed by the aesthetics, even more so since it came in our preferred “natural” finish. What sets the Casino apart from other 335-style guitars is its completely hollow body (no sound block here like on the Dot) as well as its single-coil pickups (as opposed to Gibson/Epi’s standard humbuckers).
▼ Article continues below ▼ Those two factors alone give the Casino a lighter, more articulated tone. We greatly preferred the detail and clarity we heard when A/B’ing it against similar guitars with semi-hollow constructions and full humbuckers. Those sounded a bit muddier to us – and yes, while they had a louder output and will perhaps overdrive an amp quicker, the P90s (yes, the stock pickups) in the Casino are so incredibly versatile, we couldn’t fine a genre they didn’t fit into with ease.
Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue Review Youtube
The age-old problem of feedback was even a non-issue. We picked up a tiny bit of squealing just once, and never again; no need to stuff the sound holes. So all in all, if you’re in the market for a mid-range guitar that can pretty much tackle any job you throw at it, test-drive the new Casinos and fall in love like we did.
FEATURES
- Body: 5-ply maple with basswood top bracing
- Neck: mahogany
- Neck Joint: 16th fret, Glued-in
- Fingerboard: rosewood with parallelogram inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets
- Fingerboard Radius: 12”, 24.75” scale
- Nut Width: 1.68″
- Neck Profile: SlimTaper “D”
- Pickups: Epiphone P-90T and P-90R
The Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary 1961 Reissue:
My guitar is number 1549 in the series of 1961 units ever made of this particular model. I bought one in a sunburst with the tremotone vibrato system. It is a limited edition from 2011 made in the event of the Epiphone Casino 50th Anniversary. I bought it second hand in the US and had it shipped to where I live last year. It is in mint condition except for a small ding at the back of the headstock.
Epiphone Casino 1961 Reissue Review
I really like this guitar. First off, some of the specifications. It sports a 5-layer maple/birch body with a mahogany neck which is glued on at the 16th fret. It has 22 medium jumbo rosewood frets with pearloid dot-inlays and it also has a set of Wilkinson Deluxe machine-heads.
I prefer the Gibson variety of the so-called “slim-taper” neck. This particular model has the signature chunky Epiphone neck – however, for an Epiphone it feels very nice. The frets are nice and level with just about perfect action and feel thanks to a good setup, courtesy of Mr. Andy Halliday. One of the first features one usually notices with the guitar is the tremotone vibrato and the unusual headstock. The headstock is of the “open book” style and sports a metal logo plate pictured along with the rest of the guitar on the upper picture.
To me, visually everything is just about perfect except for one thing and that is the dot-inlays – but I don’t really mind. The original guitar had dot-inlays so it’s no problem. The metal logo plate however, wasn’t on the original. I think it looks awesome but I’m into that retro look. The logo is really more of a tribute to the older Epiphone models from the 30’s and 40’s before Gibson put them under their wing.
Epiphone Casino 61 Reissue Reviews
The guitar sports American dog-ear P90 Pickups and sounds terrific. The guitar is perfect for Blues, Jazz (Grant Green with his ES-330 comes to mind), Alt Rock and just plain Rock music. The completely hollow body and the hot pickups do become problematic when shooting for that Metal sound so it’s definitely not an axe for heavy duty in that field – I find however that it’s a great guitar for playing with feedback so it depends on what you’re into. The finish doesn’t look cheap but it’s very high-gloss. It was either that or a faded one in this price-range so you can’t really beat that! A chinese guitar from 2011 just doesn’t have the same feel as a 50 year old guitar with a naturally faded and cracked finish.
The Tremotone is a tremolo in the style of a Bigsby and is surprisingly stable. It’s great for a slight, subtle vibrato but not a good system for divebombs and the likes – wouldn’t want to break anything, eh?
This guitar feels exclusive considering the pricetag (I believe it goes for about 800 bucks on ebay now). It has great tone when plugged in – courtesy of the American hardware – and has a pleasant, warm tone when unplugged. A fine instrument.
– Andreas