Jolene's New Geetawrr

[jawbone60]

http://images.epiphone.com.s3.amazonaws ... Splash.jpg

[DaveG]

Sweet! How does it play and sound?

[jawbone60]

a little background: Jolene had a Emperor Regent for 3-4 years and it was her main gigging guitar. we recorded our latest cd with that one, unplugged, and the tone and projection was a phenomenon. very little was done in studio to enhance the guitar tracks on the cd if that's an indication of how great this guitar body sounds. now flash forward a couple of years.
the Swingster is what the Regent has evolved into. we were at GC 2 weeks ago paying for an electric piano when Jo saw this guitar on the wall. slightly used and a pretty good price on it. we laid it away and took the piano home. next week we went and paid off the guitar after she sold off a couple of guitars and we returned the piano. even in the middle of noisy-ass GC, she knew she needed this guitar.
the acoustic tone and projection are very close to the same to my ear. it's the same body and neck. the tailpiece has the bigsby style trem setup, something she may or may not use a lot. the heart though is these alnico humbuckers, and there are 2 where the Regent had one straight up humbucker. these alnicos can be overdriven with a pullout switch built into the tone knobs of each pickup switch. add to that a 3 way switch for front, rear, and both pickups and this is a formidable axe. she is just beginning to get used to it again after most of a year working with a telecaster as her electric guitar.
the back story is, Jo had injured her neck/shoulder repeatedly by playing the Regent a lot. this is why she sold off the Regent and went to a telecaster. but when she saw this Swingster she told me she had to have it and would limit her practices to a couple of hours a week.
in addition we are about to get an mbrace guitar stand she can use to play this one- or any other one- standing up. we think this is a winner. i've hear it said, once you get that hollowbody archtop thing going a solid body electric has big shoes to fill.

[jeffl]

Very nice, jawbone. You guys play outdoors a little... is it stayin' in tune well?

[ricbleu]

A superb instrument. And you say it has good tone unplugged? - that's a real bonus. The two p/ups are a must imo. You are very limited tonewise with just one. I owned a cheapo jazzbox , one H/B for a while and I was always getting frustrated at the lack of tone options. For my electric I now have an Ibanez Artcore with bridge & neck p/ups and with two tone controls and three p/up options, there is a ton of variation. But I love that machine of yours Joelene, it has the acoustic option as well which my Ibanez doesn't, being only about 1 1/2 inches thick with a block running from neck to heel. Beware the foreign raiders, you two. Peace

[jawbone60]

ric the body on this is about 4 inches thick. as far as tone options go, Jo was happy with just the one pickup because she had no concept of needing more choices. since she has the option now she will be trying different settings on different songs much like i will swap harps and positions frequently, because i can!
i imagine that even with just one pickup one could have a rack of pedals. i once saw john campbell play all night on a big body acoustic with a slide and pedal rack and i have seldom seen such a big palette of tone qualities out of one guitar. but that can get complicated and expensive for a workingman like me as well.
we have a couple of amp choices, the first being a silvertone 1482 tube amp from the mid 60's. this has been her go-to amp for several years now, and i have one to match it for harp as well. we also have a couple of danelectro amps, a dirty thirty and a nifty fifty, both small solid state but both pack a huge punch!
this may be the last guitar she'll ever want. time will tell!

[bottleneck]

i think we all understand the "had to have it" mentality


www.shakeylee.com

[jawbone60]

ok, one more chapter. the one we got Jo was slightly used, $500 at the local GC. this past week she says, hey look, it's the same guitar at a GC in Florida, only it's $400, with case, and free shipping! so she calls that store, buys that guitar, and returns the one we'd got her locally. it's like we got a free case and a hunnerd bucks back. IF this guitar arrives in good shape.

my wife the wheela deelah!!

[bottleneck]

SWEEEEEEEEEEEET!!! PLEASE post a pic!!

www.shakeylee.com

[jawbone60]

http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Archtop/Emperor-Swingster.aspx

hope that does it! this one we're getting out of florida has been sitting in memphis all weekend. we're both really itching to get it here, she to play it, me to see if the case is \really ok for it since my info is there is not a dedicated case yet for these. the bigsby trem setup needs a bubble i think.

but also! i went and ordered a mbrace mount thing for this. i have a stand cobbled together that we can adjust the height on so Jo can get the guitar positioned and angled for best fit while playing.

[jawbone60]

so we got the guitar and case in the mail today. Jo called me at work and told me how much she loved the tone and feel of this guitar. after supper, we plugged in for a bit of living room jamming. she took a good look at this guitar and was wondering where it was made. the back of the headstock says "CUSTOM SHOP". so- made in usa, free shipping, case thrown in, $400. i told her i didn't want to hear about who's lucky or not lucky any more!!!