Epiphone Joe Pass with DiMarzio EJ Custom pickup

I liked this guitar, but has some problems in the low quality plastic nut (changed with a tusq one, now tuning is solid rock), an ugly pickguard (removed) and some nice looking but not so good stock pickup. As i got those excellent pickups i try to put in... and i'm amazed. Tone of this guitar change a lot, maybe it is not the usual dark jazz guitar (i'm using thin 10-46 strings anyway) but become a great sounding guitar for a lot of uses. Tone is bright and definite, something like a tele, but with an excellent neck tone warm and full on all frequencies. I uses my new Roland Cube 30x amp with direct input into a mixer.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• epiphone
• joe
• pass
• emeperor
• dimarzio
• ej
• custom
• pickup
• neck
• bridge
• roland
• cube
• 30x
• yamaha
• audiogram6
• electric
• guitar

[juanohv]

Hey dude, what strings????how do you eliminate the feedback with distorcion????

[rafport]

@juanohv i used various kinds of strings here, it depends on tone you're searching. feedback cannot be eliminated, so not loud volume or far from the speaker. someone put something into the F holes, but more on slim hollow body like 335... here you should put a lot of things inside!

[MrBlackstratocaster]

Joe Pass guitar needs a player in the style of Joe Pass... Gary Moore style... (in heaven with him) is not the best way to play this guitar.... 

[rafport]

@MrBlackstratocaster you're right, but i can just play on my style, i'm not a jazz player but i enjoy play sometime even this one. You can find easily skilled players on jazz side even with this guitar. With the EJ (i leaved out) this guitar play more like a telecaster than a jazz hollow guitar anyway, the tone was very, very different from expected one

[MrJessehendrix10]

how can i get my epiphone emperor II joe pass to sound like THAT??? pickups + strings? tell me more... flat wound are out of the question on this one

[rafport]

@MrJessehendrix10 here i had jazz strings, the d'addario chrome 11-50. the "trick" was the pickups (even too much sparkling, i leave out of the guitar). I tried some different pickup on this guitar, i can say the stock one was very poor. Put something different in, for example a paf like (Wilkinson did excellent paf's at a very affordable price) and improvement is big. flat or not wounding has a very different feel, this depends on taste, if you prefer a conventional tone use common string

[dotandtj]

Micheal Jackson called from beyond the grave, he wants his thriller outfit back! Nice licks man!

[blowinviper]

That is just wonderful, skillful playing. And the EJ's sound great coming out of that hollow jewel. These sound like old humbuckers like some Guild had on their Starfire line. That explains at least part of that tortured tone Dave Davies wrung out of it on stuff like "You Really Got Me." Thanks.

[rafport]

@WormOfTheWorld too many highs and to weak basses is still present, and the attack is quite hard (like a single more or less) so miss the gentle response of a paf for example, so you need the right tone. in general i prefer the seymour duncan jazz to this one, for a bridge position, but this is very good in the right contest... but JB and Jazz can be use everywhere, this couple is a bit extreme in shaping so is not suitable for any guitar

[rafport]

@WormOfTheWorld EJ custom is much brighter than the SD Jazz, equalization here can seem has more bass than it really get thanks for guitar and tone (and anyway it play very bright, sometime it seem a tele!). Is not exactly like a single like noiseless pickup (which are humbucking anyway), but EJ has a sort of chime typical of singles with some air of a piezo; splited seem really like a piezo pickup, how bright become. Can be a good choice but for the right instrument, risk to have too