Epiphone Wilshire 2008 Reissue
Guitar Review by Brett W. Bertram
Let's start by disclosing that I am not an employee of Gibson and no one asked me to write this review. As of this date, the nice people at Gibson have yet to offer me one of their Les Paul Axcess Guitars in exchange for a review of said Les Paul Axcess Guitar.
I have although, worked in the retail music industry on and off since 2002. For several years I designed web sites for a west coast boutique guitar retailer with his own custom shop. I photographed all the guitars that came through the store for the web site, many of which were uber-expensive boutique guitars like JET's, D'Aquisto's, McNaught's and Gledura's. I also got to play them, along with all of the best of the top-of-the-line brand name guitars like Jackson and Gibson.
This Epiphone guitar is an inexpensive reproduction/reissue of the 1960's era Epiphone Wilshire Guitar. I've always liked the retro look, small body and fret access of the Wilshire and I must admit, I bought the guitar solely because I like the look.
I did not expect a great deal of craftsmanship or quality for the $249.99 sale price tag, but when I saw this body style was being reissued, I just had to get one. The good news is that I was very pleasantly surprised.
The guitar is built solidly, with my few complaints being cosmetic and minor: One, that the nut is slightly slimmer than the neck, which does not effect string placement or playability, two, that the two tone paint on the Batwing headstock is just a wee bit sloppy where the colors meet, and three, that one of the tone knobs was attached in an incorrect orientation.
Since I bought the guitar for playing, not collecting, I decided to turn it into my System of a Down guitar. I put 12's on it, dropped it a whole step then dropped the bottom to C. I like to play along with Toxicity and Steal this Album. I use my SG to play with Mezmerize and Hypnotize, and had been using my slimline hollow body Samick with 13's for the lower tuning for the earlier albums. But I digress...
After a little intonation work the Wilshire sounds pretty darn good. The neck is fully bound, which effectively smooths the edges of the fretboard. I get a nice fat tone out of the 12s (I replaced the 10's with which it came equipped) despite the (very likely) bargain electronics.
My biggest complaint would be the difficulty in forcing the harmonics out of the chunky, "D" shaped neck. The harmonics sound a bit timid, and raising the pickup to high thoroughly distorts the tone (duh). I would also prefer a fatter fret wire, but that is not in the style of the guitar so I really shouldn't complain about that issue.
This is a fun guitar to play. I would recommend this small bodied, retro guitar to anyone, especially at the bargain basement price of $249.
SOAD's Hypnotize w/Metronome - 1982 SG Special Through a Sovtek Mig 100 and a PODxt
Musician's Friend Description
The paragraph below comes straight from Musician's Friend website.
"Original Wilshire guitars are demanding high prices in today's collectors markets. Epiphone has worked to bring it back in an affordable package without sacrificing quality. Perfect for anyone who wants to stand out or already has an SG and LP. Mahogany set neck construction, alnico humbucking pickups and classic white finish are just a few of the outstanding specs. The Epiphone Wilshire guitar also features a rosewood fretboard, chrome hardware with inline Grover Mini-Rotomatic tuners on a cool, batwing-shaped headstock.
"Epiphone Limited Edition Wilshire Electric Guitar Features:
- "Body Type: Solid
- Body Wood: Mahogany
- Scale Length: 24-3/4"
- Neck Joint: Set
- Neck Wood: Mahogany
- Fretboard: Rosewood
- Neck Shape: "D" Shape
- Frets: 22
- Nut Width: 1.68"
- Fretboard Radius: 12"
- Bridge: Chrome ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic
- Pickup Bridge: Alnico Humbucker
- Pickup Neck: Alnico Humbucker
- Controls: 2-Vol, 2-Tone, pickup selector switch
- Tuners: 6 inline Grover Mini-Rotomatic
- Hardware color: Chrome
- Pickup selector: Yes
- Finish: Gloss Polyurethane"
Brett W. Bertram
