Opinions on Epiphone Joe Pass?

[randyc]

Those are good questions ...

It's unlikely that the guitar wiring is a problem. Almost equally unlikely is a pickup problem (although not unheard of). These are all passive components and failure probablility is infinitesmal except for the potentiometers.

Wiring diagrams? Choose the one that your guitar manufacturer uses - the manufacturer has doubtless optimized all of the variables (considering even the most inexpensive components) for best performance.

There are experienced techs on the forum that can suggest alternatives that don't occur to me; when they wake tomorow morning it's likely that you'll get some sensible information rather than my meanderings...

(The likely explanation for the problem is that the pickup hasn't been adequately "potted" ... IMO.)

sleepily,
randyc

Good luck!

[famousbirds]

For the standard Gibson-type config (2xHB, 2x Vol/Tone, 3 way selector) there are two main types of wiring, 50's and Modern.

They are both very similar electronically, but many people have reported that the 50's wiring preserves treble content better with the volume rolled down.

In any case, upgrading pots and caps can make a HUGE difference in the overall quality of your tone, if your current pots/caps are of poor quality or out of spec.

I'm curious though - when you say one of the pickups is distorted, how do you mean? Is it distorted all the time, or just when the volume/tone knob is moving/less than full? I'd check and double check for bad solder joints or incomplete grounding.

[Christien]

Has anyone purchased or played this guitar? I'm new to jazz and was thinking about purchasing my first jazz guitar. This one seems not too pricey but something I could use for awhile. I've listened to the guitar through Youtube and it sounded great (well to my ear but I'm still new to jazz). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
OF course playing the guitar is going to make the final decision and taking off the ugly pick guard so any feedback would be great.

[jazzrat]

The only one I played was very nice. Nice neck shape and good tone.
Play and compare if you can with with the Artcore Custom guitars.

[guitar1303]

I've had a Joe Pass Emperor for about 10 years and I've found it to be a great little jazz box for the money. The smaller body makes it a bit easier to play and the neck is beautiful. It's a great instrument in its stock form and, as you may see on this forum, it gets even better with a pick-up change. Though I lean a bit more on the Epiphone Broadway for playing (I like the fuller tone from the larger body), my JP still gets a lot of use.

[mongrel]

I bought a used one in the summer of 2007 and have played it everyday since then until a week ago when I got a nice used Epiphone Dot to compliment it. My Joe Pass was made in 2006 at the factory in Inchon, Republic of Korea, and I paid $450.00 US for it at a local music shop. When I first got it, it had thin gauge wound strings and made very good blues sounds which wasn't why I got it. I put a set of .12 Chrome flats on it and the tone mellowed into an acceptable traditional jazz range. I took off the pickguard for aesthetic reasons and replaced the tailpiece with a gold one with no filigree, again for aesthetic reasons. After awhile, I decided to swap out the pickups because the standard ones seemed muddy on the neck and very tinny on the bridge. I had a set of Duncan Phat Cats lying around but decided to go with a pair of Vintage Vibe HCC single coil blade pickups. These are low impedance units with the neck wound at 5.5 K-ohms and the bridge at 6.0 K-ohms. After I put the pickups in, I istalled a set of Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing .14's. The combination of these pickups and the strings got me into sort of a vintage single coil world that I was aiming for-- like an early Jimmy Rainey or Barney Kessel. The guitar is very comfortable for me to play sitting down with great balance and the neck is as comfortable as the '60's Les Paul I used to have. The natural finish has a heavy coat of poly which has withstood the guitar's sitting on a stand and never in a case for going on three years. Plus the top has aged exquisitly since we smoke heavily in our home--it looks like it was made in the '50's. Altogether, a purchase I have never regretted since it was my first and only fully hollow jazz box. If fortune prevails, I will probably buy a better fully hollow archtop but since I only play by myself for my own enjoyment, it is sufficient. If you are looking to get one, my advice is to avoid the ones made in Indonesia and the Peoples Republic of China. Every one of those I played in shops feels inferior to every one made in Korea that I have played.

[gadabout55]

I had one for about 10 years but never really bonded with it. I'd wanted a jazz box for many years. When I ran into the Joe Pass Emperor II, I pulled the trigger, since the price was attractive and was about what I was willing to spend at the time. A couple of years ago I ran across a used D'Angelico EXL-1 for a pretty good price so I bought it, trading in the Joe Pass as part of the deal. I have no regrets. I love the D'A.

[bbcoz]

Yes it's not a bad guitar.I've owned mine for about 10 years. I replaced the tuners before the pickups. You can get a good sound if you tweek your amp settings so no hurry to change pickups, but the tuners were crap.I left the pick guard on as I prefer to have it there. It's an older model and the guard doesn't look as naff as the modern ones which are really cheap and plasticky.

[Christien]

Thanks for all the help but now I'm stuck I can't decide between the Joe Pass or the one of Artcore model. I'm also leaning towards the hollow body guitars but what would be everyones suggestion on a semi-hollow guitar? This will only be played for JAZZ I have plenty of other guitars for different styles. Lastly suggestions of $600 or under please I'm a broke high school student whos still trying to pay off his Gibson Les Paul Custom.

Edit: which Artcore Model would everyone recommend.

[Christien]

okay I'm pretty sure I'm gonna pick the Joe Pass but are there any specific pickups that anyone would recommend because the Pickups on this model aren't very good. I heard one guy playing it and it sounded amazing he changed the pickups and it was like a completely different guitar of course he didn't mention the pickups he was using.

[gadabout55]

Personally, I don't think the pickups are going to make or break the Joe Pass Emperor. I think the stock pickups were just fine, but the sound is very sensitive to the height adjustment. My main gripe with the guitar was that the small body made it not feel like an archtop, and the plastic fingerboard inlays were very cheesy looking. If you start changing pickups, you're going drive up your total $$ outlay.

Another thing about archtops if you're not already used to them is you have to lay back on your picking attack. If you pick the way you might pick a solidbody, none of them will sound good.

[mongrel]

The standard humbuckers are muddy and bassy-woofy on the neck and weak and whiny on the bridge. Almost any other aftermarket pickups will make the JP sound much better. I've heard them with '57 Classics that sound 100% better and people have raved in other forums about the cheap GFS '59's also. I put a set of single coil VVG blades in mine and it transformed it from a mud machine to a rather mellow instrument with harmonics I never realized could be gotten from a cheap plywood heavily poly'd hollowbody. When I took the original pickups out, they were both marked "Dot Neck" although the bridge measured 8.2 kohms and the neck 8.0. The pickups I now have in a lower resistance, a 5.5 neck and 6.0 bridge and with heavy flats I can pick the hell out of it and it sounds great. Face it, its a cheap entry level jazzbox but it can be made to sound much better than it does off the store rack.

[Christien]

Another thing about archtops if you're not already used to them is you have to lay back on your picking attack. If you pick the way you might pick a solidbody, none of them will sound good.

I'm a classical player (i finger pick). Would that affect the tone on one of these guitars?


Thanks Mongrel ya Im gonna get the 57 classic humbuckers theyre kinda pricey but I think it would be worth it.

[gadabout55]

Christien,

Everything affects the tone. I'm just saying that in order to get the best out of these guitars, you have to adjust your picking to match the guitar. It's not that big a deal really, but when you first pick one up it might not sound quite like you expect because you're picking it differently than it needs to be picked. Your touch will naturally adjust to it after awhile.

[NURREDIN]

I would do two things with this guitar.1.Swap out the pickups with Gibson 57 Humbuckers (the same ones used on the $10,000.00 Gibson L5) for about $200.00 a set, and use Beorge Benson Thomastik Infield strings,about $120.00 per dozen. I did the same thing to an Epiphone Dot and you can't tell the difference between it and an ES335.

[lindydanny]

I've got one that is one of the newer ones. I've only had one issue with it and it was fixed by tightening the input jack (it was loose and causing some distortion in the line). For the most part, I would call it a great medium duty entry archtop. I wouldn't play it if I did it for a living, but I do know of a guy who does.

~DB

[Doctor Jeff]

I think it's a nice jazz box and you would have to pay 2 or 3 times the price to get a neck that plays better. I also think its a great looker, especially in blonde. (I added a rosewood pickguard and knobs.) The headstock is killer.

A lot of people change out the pups. I haven't seen the need to yet, but may do it one of these days...

[SamBooka]

I have a few stewmac GA HB pickups. Good pickups for the money but not mindblowing. Having actually tried them (two in my Epi Les Paul and for a short time one in the neck of my tele) if I were looking for PUs in that price range I would try some GFS pickups.

Personally I would stick with the stock pickup in the bridge and spend the money on a good neck pickup. Classic 57 (I have and like), Lollar Imperial (I would like to try but since I am happy with my Classic57 I probably wont).

[NURREDIN]

I just saw Johnathan Butler (a fairly famous jazz musician) not too long ago here in Vegas playing an Epiphone Joe Pass. He had removed the pickguard,and the truss rod cover that says "Joe Pass". I asked one of his roadies if I saw what I saw, and He told me Butler's guitar tech had replaced the pickups with '57 Gibson Humbuckers, and he used The Benson strings. The roadie said he uses it because he gets the same tone out of the 57's as an L5, and if it's stolen on the road it's no big deal. If you check him out on the internet,you can find pictures of him playing this guitar live,on stage!

[lindydanny]

Don't mean to grave dig this thread, but I have an update on the issue:

After I put it back together, it suddenly wasn't having the problem anymore. Since March (this posts origination), I've played it quite a bit without any problems. But, along comes the summer when I end up playing in two different musicals and I'm putting a lot of time on the electronics. It suddenly shows up again.

This morning while playing at church, not only did I get the crackled and distortion, but at one point the electronics cut out all together. I had it on treble and rhythm setting and after flicking the switch back and forth it came back but had the crackle even worse. It sounds simply horrible now. I've got to replace the wiring.

Here is my big problem now: This coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is the last musical performance for my summer. I have rehearsals Tuesday through Thursday and a day job. I can order kits from almost any website and the best I can hope for on overnight shipping is Tuesday. That would leave me only a couple of hours after work to take the thing apart and put it back together (not to mention tune and setup) before it would need to be performance ready.

Oh, and this is my only electric guitar.

I'm boned.

~DB

P.S.: I'm guessing my best bet at this point is deal with it, find a work around, and first thing replace the hell out of some electronics after I need it to play for a month.

[mongrel]

This is an Epi Joe Pass? I have one and your problem sounds like a defective pickup selector switch. Whenever mine starts to act up, I unscrew the gold ring on the top that holds the switch to the top and hold the knob with one hand and spray contact cleaner into the hole with the other hand trying to get the spray into the contacts. Sometimes it gets messy but, what the hell, its a cheap poly finish laminate so you can't really hurt it. This usually fixes everything for a couple of weeks or so. If I had to rely on this guitar playing out, I would take it to someone capable and have the whole thing rewired and definitely replace the pickups, the weakest link in any humbucker equipped Epiphone.

[RonD]

+1 Finally, someone mentioned the selector switch. I see this type of problem regularly at the shop I teach at. The repair guy said he has to change out tons of these.

[Little Jay]

+2

Yep selector switch! Waggling it back an fourth a few times should indicate if it's the culprit: you'll probably hear crackling noises and it might even temporarily solve the problem.

By the way, I placed the afore mentioned StewMac Les Paul kit in my ES175 copy and that switch also gives problems sometimes........

[lindydanny]

I got home and put her back together. New strings and adjustment to the bridge in addition to everything else.

Plugged in the amp and the problem persists. I've cleaned the switch and the pots out, but still the crackle/distortion. It only happens with the rhythm pickup selected and selecting both only activates the rhythm.

I can still get some sound out of the treble with no noise. So, I can ride out the weekend. I'm just going to have to replace it...

~DB

[RonD]

You need to change the switch.