Encore ES335 Copy

i've luckily just acquired this guitar through my girlfriend. it's got 4 knobs, 2-3way toggle switches, and 2 single coil pickups. The neck and body are cheaply bound(probably plastic,-still adds that classy touch. It's got 21 frets on rosewood-(like material anyway), a beautiful transparent deep green finish, hollowbody f-holes, an old style tremelo system w/ 1 big spring in the corner, rectangular neck pearllike inlays, cheap tuners to.be.replaced., some inside wiring and switches that i just gutted and will replace hopefully this weekend.anyway, w/ some decent pickups>and a little work, these guitars have enormous potential. All that my encore says on it is ENCORE buldging in plastic between the tuners, but descriptions in this section are this guitar.-looks black a few feet away-cheap accessories, that old tremelo, and it could be chopped in half down the fretboard/hollow body that is light and buldges out in the center of the body. it's already easy to play and unlike others in this section, mine luckily stays in tune up & down the board. I can't wait to plug it in in a couple days. "play all night!"
charlie

replace the wiring and pickups, and I'll never get rid of it-

i've been playing since the stones played Clemson's Death Valley in 1989--15 years. It plays & looks so good, and from what i hear/read they're always cheap...if that neck stays in tune, I'd get a couple more^^^^every glance at it reminds me of B.B. King.

Possibly made in Jimbo's backyard shed. Plays horrible, I can never get the neck straight and no matter how hard I try, it never stays in tune. Tuners need replaced, as well as the funky looking pickups. Cheap Bigsby trem copy, spring pops out sometimes. Sunburst finish looks like my cat whizzed on it then left it outside to sun bleach.

Is that a Moose dying outside...nope, it's just the guitar. Actually, it sounds somewhat better than a dying Moose, maybe as good as a dying cat, only with more feedback.

like a said, it WONT stay in tune. I set it up, but it still sucks. If the playability wasn't so bad, the guitar might sound good enough to turn down at low volumes and drown out with other guitars.

A bar chord could break it, I'm afraid. No Pete Townshend-style playing for you. It is heavy, so it might be fairly solid though.

lol

I've been playing for about eight years, and this is THE WORST guitar I have ever owned, and I have owned near 20 guitars. If someone stole it, they would bring it back. If you compare it to a guitar you made from a tissue box and rubber bands, it's a good guitar.

No different from any cheap guitar. Noisy when turning knobs, and the pickups look like a 50's refrigerator. The worst tuners I have ever witnessed. A bridge that stands about three miles off of the body. My grandfather refinished it, it looked like ass before.

Ha Ha Ha. The pickups may be salvagable. It needs a complete overhaul.

Really bad, I will have to fix the neck, its loose and the strings sit at least 1/2 inch off of the fretboard.

I wouldn't let my dog chew on it yet.

I'm thinking...probably not!

I've been playing for years, i don't even know how long, and I've fixed many guitars. I hope this can be a decent one. If you know abuot guitar repair, go for it. You can have yourself a mediocre 335 copy to hang on the wall. Whoopie!

My friend got this guitar new around 1973 and I assume that it is around '73 when it was built. It was made in Japan as is stamped on the neck plate. The guitar has 22 frets. It has a laminated top ( looks like spruce ). Looks like it had two volume and tone pots a pick up slector switch and a switch for a .001 cap on the volume ( none were working well when I got the guitar ). 2 pickups/passive, neck/bridge Jap knock off of P-90's. Neck is Mahogany w/rosewood fret board. Body is Mahogany back and sides with what looks to be a Spruce laminated top. Sunburst finish. Tailpiece tremlo, cheap tuners, cheap roller bridge. Rosewood fret board with plastic inlay 24 1/4 scale.

This thing sounded like crap until I fixed it up a bit. The pickups were falling apart so I had to repair and wax pot them. After the repair they don't sound too bad and do have that P-90 sound, not as good but close. The pickups are noisy but they are single coils after all. I play through a Fender Dual Showman ( black face ) frankly it is the best amp that I have ever heard and it will let you know what your guitar really sounds like. This guitar dosen't have a bad sound it is good for a dark blues sound or a jazz ( not too clear sounding ). But, as I play rock/blues and normally use a hard wood ( maple or ash ) solid body guitar it gives me a nice change for a song or two. The neck feels really good for a cheap guitar but the frets are soft and with heavy use you would need to get a fret job. The tremlo works really well and stays in tune. The guitar is light ( as it should be because it is an arch top ) The finish is nice also.It is a fun guitar to beat on. However, the tuners are crap and I replaced mine. the bridge is so-so and I will most likeliy replace that in time. The nut is plastic and I feel that this guitar would sound better with a bone or brass nut. As I said the pots and switches were all bad or going bad so I changed them all.

The action is good and no fret buzz but the frets are soft so this could be a problem in time. The pickups adjust well however, I scraped the ugly covers. The wood is very nice. The bridge needed to be glued in place because the tailpiece and the bgidge location do not line up exactly and the bridge was moving.

I do use the guitar live but only for a few songs as a change of pace type of thing. I would not even think of playing it 100% of the time. I always have a back up of some sort on hand. After the work that I did on it it seems to stand up well to normal playing. The tremlo is great and works well. I think that if you get it for the right price, I would say $50.00 or less with some work you will be pleased with the guitar. It is NOT a real ES-335 and if that is what you are expecting you will not be happy. But I do enjoy playing the guitar and the price was right for me at $ 0.00.

N/A

Great guitar for the price I paid ( $0.00 ). I would not make this my # 1 axe but it is fun to play and dosen't sound too bad. Remember, this guitar is not "stock" as I changed a few things...New tuners, custom electronics ( 1 volume, 1 tone , 1 bass cut , 1 tone switch )repaird and wax potted the pickups. I will be puting on a new bridge and nut soon. The repairs did not cost much as I did them myself. If your into tinkering with guitars as I am and the price is right I would highly recomend picking one of these up. Because it sure beats tearing into a real ES-335 at about $ 1,500.00 or so. The guitar looks good sounds OK( stock ) and plays well so that is a great start for a DYI project..

Extremely cheap knockoff of an ES-335. /* This is obviously not the same guitar that the poster below this reivew wrote about. I came across it in the late 70's so it's probably of late 60's early 70's vintage.*/ Hunter green finish, a selector switch on each bout bottom one for pickups, top one tone or phase perhaps? Rosewood board with cheap plastic inlays, extremely thin/light plywood body. This is probably the lightest guitar I ever picked up. Primative "bigsby" one-spring thing that moves the tailpiece slightly. Cheezy trapazoid style single coil pickups, they had two-tone plastic black/white covers. Soft metal worn frets a la Univox. Also 2 vol, 2 tone with cool looking aluminium knobs. Only have one left so I put Les Paul style knobs on it.

Had a nasal overdriven sound with orignal pickups, when I was a kid I bought Les Paul Custom pickups off a guy who installed super distortions for $20 each (only paid $20 for the Encore). Had too make a special block of wood to hold pickups in. Doesn't sound ES-335 like even with Gibson pickups in it. Has a midrangy plasticy sound, that's all I could say, was cool for slide bits. Actually, a cheezy yet unique voice was there when it had the original pickups, but they are long gone. Plastic rollers on bridge actually kept it in tune when using the bar.

OK action when it still had frets left, the green is pretty cool kinda like a Gretsch Country Club but darker. Almost looks black in a dark room.

I have to say, I thought this thing would have broke years ago but it is still in a cheap cardboard acoustic case somewhat in tune. This was my friends first electric guitar which he paid $20 for and took it home with one hand while riding a bike. Years later I fixed it up and got the cheap case for it. Besides one slide bit on a studio tape, I only used the guitar once a year. That was to go to Central Park, NY on Dec 8 to play Beatles/Lennon songs after my Univox Hi Flyer suffered a broken neck (see review). This guitar turned out cooler for this purpose because it kind of looks like the Epiphone Casino that John used.

Sounds like Encore was popular as a student guitar in the UK from what I read in this forum. Other then the one I have I never heard any other reference to Encore until today (maybe it's the same folks that are now Samick :-)

Has a boxy sound that's good for slide parts as long as they are sufficently buried and heavily effected!

Korean made semi-acoustic, similar in look and spec. to a Gibson ES335. 22 fret, fitted neck (the neck is slimmer than the Gibson, but is extremely playable even with my steam shovel sized hands). 2 volume and two tone control knobs, one of each for the relevant pickup(bridge or neck - take your pick. Gibbo style 3 way selector switch. Passive circuits, humbucker pickups (they really are humbuckers too, normally on cheaper guitars they're just single coils with a big shiny cover, but these sound great-output is low though. The body is apparently NATO wood(what the hell is NATO wood?? Anyone??), the Neck is mahogony (I think)and the fingerboard is rosewood. Laquer finish is good. Tuners cheap and nasty, but they stay in tune so hey, who cares? Other hardware is GOTOH Gibson spec stuff and it all fits together well. Bought second hand so all I got was the guitar-no strap, no leads, no tools, no humidifier(what??) and no blow job.

I mainly play rock/blues with my band, and this instrument was bought purely to enable us to play a gig after my main guitar crapped out. It's not a lighweight guitar and I found I had neckache after an hour or so of the first set. I'd only played it at low volume and through the clean amp channel in the shop, and it worked so that was good enough for me as I needed something quick. When I put it through 100w of Marshall with my stage pedals in line I was more than impressed. It creates such a good tone of itself that overdrive, delay, reverb, etc. all worked really well. Because of the build quality the sustain carries on 'til next week and given the price I paid for it I was highly delighted.

I got to the guitar after someone else had owned it, but whoever that someone was they hadn't done anything too unusual to it. There's a saying here in the UK - you can't polish a turd, ie. if it's crap before you start you won't be able improve it. Cosmetically it's a beautiful thing - well finished, the fitted neck is flush, the binding around the body is well done, the neck is smooth, all of the frets are fine, the head stock is cool and the nut is flawless. The only thing I had to do was to reset the intonation to suit my playing (I'm very heavy handed) and I lowered the action a bit.

This guitar has been seriously hammered at a lot of our gigs, and has stood up as well, if not better, than Mr. Gibson or Mr. Fender's finest. For a little while it was the only instrument I took along when we played, and I was only ever concerned about it for about a minute and a half at the start of the first gig I used it at. After playing, a wipe down with a dry rag brings back that deep shine, and I dont think it'll ever lose it. It has worn off a bit on the back, but that's due to my belt buckle. When I was 15 (I'm 32 now) a guitar fell of the strap while I was playing and ever since I fit straps directly to the guitars I play, but should you chose to employ them I'm sure the strap buttons are chunky enough. I do feel that I can depend on this guitar, but as I said, it is quite heavy to wear round your neck for two hours at a time.

I sent off to John Hornby Skewes (the distributors of Encore in the UK )for some info on the guitar, and they were great. As to needing to contact them with problems - I can't see it happening.

I've been twanging away for 18 years or so, I've got a lot of gear that I've aquired over the years. I mainly use a Marshall VS100R with seperate effects pedals(I can't be doing with those all in one computer terminal type jerk-off boxes). I read a lot of reviews wher people complain about noisy electronics - do what I do chaps, buy decent leads, or better still buy high grade cable and connectors and make your own. Bye-bye nasty noise! I almost fitted a Bigsby trem unit to it, but I'm glad I didn't. If it was stolen I'd be heartbroken because I don't think I'd find another one at the price, and it certainly wouldn't have all the gig memories attatched if it was a replacement. I don't gig with it now - I mainly use a Yamaha 120SD Pacifica (see my review) - but I still play it at home a lot, and I prefer to use it if I'm writing stuff. I have been told by a proffessional music technician that it plays as well as any Gibson ES335. Yah boo sucks to them that's paid #900 for one!!