Epiphone Limited-Edition G-400 Deluxe Electric Guitar with Maestro Vibrato Tailpiece

One reason why I have been listening to even more different types of music than usual is that I am now playing in a cover band! It's still in the practicing stages, but it's a bunch of old guys (my age!) doing classic rock, with a few oddities thrown in.

So, because of this, I have been updating my equipment, much of which I got rid of when I moved to Vegas. I still have my HiWatt amp and one Gibson SG Custom, but I decided to retire that and use less expensive guitars.

I've been an SG fan for decades now (late '80's is when I really started playing them) and I'm a whammy bar fanatic, so when I started searching for something new, I wanted an SG w/the bar. Unfortunately, I guess many people are not fans of this style because I had a really hard time finding a new guitar with these seemingly simple qualifications until I came across this Epiphone.

This was impossible to find in Vegas (I really miss LA sometimes!) so I ordered it online and I was not dissappointed! Definitely a different neck from the Gibson SGs that I have owned - slightly larger, mostly - but not bad. I've been playing with the intonation a bit and think I still need a few adjustments, but overall, this is a great instrument with fine playability and sound. Not quite as versitile as the classic Gibsons, but well worth the $500.00 that Guitar Center is charging for this.

For specific details, see the Guitar Center site here.

Edit - One odd thing about this guitar is that the whammy does not fold back flat onto the guitar is the back position like the Gibson whammys do. It remains in the "up" position even when pointed towards the back of the guitar. This means that it does not fit easily into any normal guitar cases of even gig bags without the bar being pushed down by the case or bag, which affects the strings and the neck. Even the people at Guitar Center seems surprised at this. I have yet to find a case for this, though I have not done an extensive search.