Epiphone Alley Kat

This is an update to my previous review, which is the first one for this model. I received my replacement AlleyKat, sealed from the factory in it's original carton. The guitar I pulled out was nothing like the first one I had. It looked 5 years old, and not in a cool way. One of the pickups was hanging out. Glue was splattered all over the fretboard. It was dirty, not set up, had a shitty nut, and was just bad in every way. So much for quality control. I rate this one a ZERO in every category, and say good riddance as I send it back for a refund. Whoops - as I go to rate it, I see zero is not a choice.

Gotoh Tuners, block inlays, beautiful laminated top, 57 humbuckers, mini NY in the neck. The action on the backside of the neck isn't real fast, but is decent. Master volume, individual volumes for each humbucker and a master tone. I THOUGHT This was supposed to have a solid block center, but it DOES NOT! It is merely a block of wood where the Tune-o-matic bridge is, and a block up at the neck. There is no solid wood under the humbuckers which makes it a weak sounding guitar.

I honestly felt it was piss poor on the sound variations. The tone knob doesn't seem to do much for it. I think they are dull and muddy. There are some tweaking to do on these.

I was very sickened with the alley kat I purchased.

The one I received had a blemish at the nut on the neck. It looked like someone at the factory chiped it and just glued the chip back and clear coated over it. The one F-hole had two mis-cuts in the binding. It was disgusting. Also, the most PATHETIC thing I found was that all the volume/tone knobs were mounted cockeyed so the knobs would look like they are wobbling like a flat tire on a car! The only thing I can give them credit on is the heritage cherry laminated top. Looks real!

They need to get their act together and build a decent guitar and not slap them together like a 2 dollar whore.

didnt use support.

I'm think it's junk. Don't get me wrong, I like a good bit of Epiphone guitars, but this one in my opinion is shit.

This is a very nice foreign guitar. Probably made in Korea, but their factories are a lot better than they used to be. It's semi-hollow, by the way. Beautiful, almost flawless finsih, even though I suspect it's not really a flame-maple, just looks that way. Bound F-Holes make it impossible to tell. It has 1 master volume, 1 tone, and 2 volume controls; 1 for the the "New York" mini humbucker, and one for the '57 humbucker in the bridge. Unusual, but very nice pickup config. Brand new body style, tune-o-matic bridge, decent gotoh tuners, thin neck, low frets on a rosewood fretboard. Not even a gig bag included. I had to hunt down a case on-line, it doesn't really fit in any other case, I tried them all.

I've been playing guitar for 4 years now. I've been studying jazz and blues and for about that long, but I use this guitar in my band. We play some punk, alternative, and even a little ska. I either use a Peavey Badnit or a Roland JC-120. It goes a little like this. Alleykat>Boss Chromatic Tuner>Boss Turbo Distortion>Ibanez Chorus/Flanger>Danelectro Echo. It always sounds great. Big fat mellow sound for jazz on the neck (It never gets muddy!), blend the pickups and roll up the tone for some good rock sounds, plays really great with distortion, good for ska too, you might want to use a bright switch on your amp though. Just remember it's a semi-hollow body guitar, you might have to do some tone tweaking with knobs to get it to sound prefect. It's suprisingly twangy at the bridge, great for some kinds of blues.

The action was nearly perfect for my tastes. The pickups were set-up well. Cheap plastic nut, I'm going to get it replaced pretty soon. I hate tune-o-matic bridges. At first I would break strings like crazy (I use D'addario 10 guage) so I raised the stop bar. It helped a little. I had the problem still for a while. I started rubbing graphite in the saddles, and it seems to be fine now. I would buy some graph-tech string saver saddles, but I'm a student, and a musician, and I'm studying music, so $30 is more than I have.

This guitar is well built. I am amazed at the quality of guitar for the price. It will stand many years of playing, the hardware seems sturdy ans well built. The finish is beautiful. Definetly reliable nad a good buy.

I love this guitar. Any guitar that can withstand a big guy like me jumping around a stage with it, and then playing a jazz concert the next day, is a winner im my eyes. I compared it against some other hollow-bodies and a couple les pauls, best neck and feel out of all of them. I would definetly replace it of something happened to it. It would be nicer with independent tone knobs though.

2001 Model, Korea, 22 jumbo frets, 24.75 scale, laminated maple flametop, master vol, master tone, vol for ea pu, 3-way pu selector, NY mini hb neck, Gibson 57 hb bridge, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, mahogany semi-hollow thin body, just a little bigger than a Les Paul smaller than a 335. Single cutaway, very much Les Paul styled, tuna matic w/stop bar. Gotoh tuners - very very nice, thanks to Epi on that. Cardboard box included.

Good rock & roll guitar, puts out nice creamy distortion but feeds back on high gain. Clean it's ok, thought it would be better - overall a bit colored towards the bass. I bought it to dip into some jazz chords, and it's ok for that, but surprisingly to me its a rocker. The sound is very good to average except for the sustain which is anything but average. I've never touched a guitar that sustains like this thing. Sustains too much. I raised the stop bar to cool it off a bit. Really - it won't stop.

Set up with 10s or 11s, I swapped for 009s right away. Intonation was set perfectly, bridge and nut are nice. The NY mini hb polepieces are not perfectly under the treble strings. Not bad, but not good either. The finish is perfect, mine is transparent black, so the flame top is subtle. Very nice. The rosewood fretboard is dyed black with block inlay. Sweet. This a very cool looking guitar, with fantastic playability. Unbelievable for the price. Overall a superb piece of workmanship except for the electronics. The tone pot cuts out at one end. The bridge pickup stopped picking up after three weeks. Seems unfair to have to rate the woodwork and electronics under the same category, so I'm rating the wood, neck etc here, and the other stuff under "reliability".

Wiring and electronics replacement is a must. This thing will quit in the middle of your first gig. The rest of the guitar is great. The strap buttons are huge and nice, and the tuners are superb. Gotta give it a 2, 'cause it won't fall apart (so it's not a 1), but it won't make any damn music either. For the price plus some good pots and wiring work, its still a great deal.

Gibson said to take it to my nearest authorized repair center, where I was told that Gibson won't pay the shop anywhere near what it will cost to fix it, nor will they send parts anytime soon. So as far as I'm concerned, Gibson sucks. Perhaps if I had bought the guitar from the dealer he might have been interested in fixing it. Thanks to Musician's Friend for being the only ones willing to support a customer. They're sending me a new one.

It is a shame that such poor electronics went into what is otherwise a great guitar. The attention that went into setting up the nut, bridge, neck, bookmatching, etc has to be spoiled by cheap work concerning the pickups. I played the guitar 3 or more hours a day for more than three weeks before I had to send it back, and I'm looking forward to getting my new one. I guess I'll have to do some work on the new one myself, perhaps re-wiring it with good stuff. Then it would rate an overall 7.