Epiphone Dot

Standard Korean made Epi 2 tone 2 volume and a 3 way slector... pretty much identical to a gibson 335 for a fraction of the price wonderful guitar...

I play alot of blues and this guitar fits it perfact. hell it can fit into any styles includeing metal witch is weird haha. i play it through a Vox amp. I bought the guitar used and i got it for a steal of 300 bucks and the pickups and severl other of the crappy cheap products were replaced and my pickups were swaped with some Gibson pickups and it sounds sweet much better than the other ones ive played at stores makes a world of differance the tone is amazing!

The action of the guitar was flawless i love it so sweet and smooth

Ive played this guitar live before and it sounded great so if you are wondering if they hold up trust me it sounds fantastic... alot of the factory hardware was replaced on my dot before i bought it including the tuners,pickups,pickguard,and the bridge and it really makes the world of difference in the guitar with the changes its a completly reible guitar but since ive olny ever played a factory one just for a bit i cant really tell

Never had to deal with Epiphone

Ive been playing for 4 years and this is my main guitar i love the tones you can get out of it i love every bit of it...if it was lost or stolen i would cry my heart out cause id have to spend a fourtone to get a new one and get it upgraded... this guitar sounds feels and looks like a gibby 335 or even a little better in my own mind if u change some things...one word of advise to anyone looking to buy this guitar is use some thicker strings ur sustain and tone will sound great and another thing is to do the "texas stringing method" witch is where you String the string backwards and wrap it around the tail peice instead of stringing it through stright makes any guitar with a tailpeice sound a world better sustain is great and it hardly goes out of tune this way just a bit of advise

My wife got me this Dot for my birthday - source was Musician's Friend. Not sure what the price was. Black finish with rosewood fingerboard. Looks drop-dead gorgeous out of the box, but was a little surprised at the uneven coloring of the rosewood. It was pretty severe, but did not impact playability one bit, so I overlooked it pretty quickly.

Otherwise, nothing too special about the features.

As good as this guitar looked was as bad as it sounded when I plugged it in to my little Fender Champ. Pickups sounded muddy. Having read a few reviews about it, I wasn't entirely surprised. I eventually brought the Dot to my local guitar tech and had him drop in two Seymour Duncans, an Alnico in the neck position and a Pearly Gates in the bridge. I also noted that the pots and pickup selector felt cheap (I was already starting to get noise from the selector), so I had replacements thrown in there while I was at it.

Voila!

Great sounding guitar. Yes, it was a fairly large investment for an inexpensive guitar, but in my case I thought it was worth it. The thing positively sings now. The rating reflects significant upgrades. Without them, I'd give it a 6 at best.

The guitar was very playable out of the box. The action was a bit high for my taste, so I had it lowered. New strings are a must. The finish was flawless, the binding was put on perfectly and I really could not tell that I was handling a very reasonably priced guitar.

I've had the guitar almost a year and have had it out of the house only on a few occassions. Otherwise, its in my office hanging next to the amp for daily sessions. So far, so good. It hasn't developed any buzzing or electronic problems, but its pretty much been handled with care.

Never had a problem that I had to call Epi on. That always beats the alternative no matter how helpful the customer support folks are.

If you want a guitar that you can customize without alot of guilt, this is one you should definitely consider. If you think about what a "real" 335 costs, even with the costs of new pick-ups, pots and selector (and virtually anything else you please), you're still MILES ahead of the game. And once you've set it up the way you like, this truly becomes YOUR guitar.

Late Chinese made Dot (Epi??s "335") , 2008 , Natural finish , pretty thick poly (searched long time to get a natural finished one !). Bought it from England in january-february ??09. Body is maple laminate (with maple center block), neck seems to be something like mahagony?... Poor man??s gibson ES-335, nice playable (and affordable) instrument :-)

Well, here??s a small story. I kind of liked the sound of original pickups, but hated the muddiness (you know - when you roll down the volume pot which has no treble bleed). Tone pots were pointless - from " mud" to " more mud" ( sorry - I am regularly a fender guy :-), its my one and only HB instrument). So I firstly planned to change out the pickups for better ones, got a set of Seth Lovers ( SH-55 - the replica of the HB Grandpa). While tearing the wiring out of it, I discovered a very weird wiring, which was not a Gibson-like at all to my eyes. Made a proper 50-s style wiring with 4x 500k audio pots , 2x 0.022 tone caps , and added later also the treble bleeds. Well - believe it or not - the original pickups came to alive , sounded now better than the SH55 , with a proper wiring! So, I left on the originals (if i remember the neck one was around 8.9k, nice creamy sound, and bridge one about 9.1k - pretty sharp ??snapper?? if you??d like it to be - they are kind of Epi??s interpretation on Gibson 57 classics, I would say). Btw, the treble bleed caps sounded more natural/warmer when i used 0.002 instead of the common 0.001, so its got 002-s now. Would have given 10 if it??d sound as it sounds now ??out of the box??

Sustain is very long. If you??d want you??d get that nice feedback whistle as well, which is nicely controllable (I play it through Laney VC15 and modded Peavey Classic 50 410 plus some funfactor-toys like Roland??s MC, Vox??s DA5 ...)

Sounds very nice as well unplugged.

Again - 9, not 10. Pretty good but not perfect ??out of the box??- nut??s string slots needed to get a tiny bit deeper. Btw - nut is not cheap soft plastic, if it??s even cheap, it is very hard, reminds something acrylic.

Action itsself was perfect btw ??out of the box?? and the quality of frets finish smokes the guitars twice the price.


Btw - The late Chinese Dots are know for their junky neck profile, but my Dot has got it a little thinner than for example a cherry one in my local music store - my Dot??s neck is just perfect, not thick and not thin.

Absolutely flawless finish. Mine is worth at least a nine on that ! would have got 10 if the nut would have been perfect and the neednt to be attached better :-)

Nine again - that is mostly because of the legendary design weakness - the glued-on headstock with 14 degree angle - one careless drop/ fall-over and we??re done ...

no bad notes on hardware - even the tuners work perfectly (somebody has mentioned them to be crap, i cannot confirm it)

Absolutely usable on stage, without any problems, everything is intact, ??sound?? solid on my Dot - from strap buttons to tuners.

No deal with them so far , cannot assess

Solid 9 , no doubt.

I am more an hobby player but played 25 years .

If stolen I??d cry, probably buy the same again ( although there is a risk related to the Epi Dot??s variable quality - so better to not buy online, which I still did and got lucky :-))

My favorite guitar is Fender Telecaster. But I wanted an HB instrument to ??balance??. I am not in the masses of liking LesPaul. I looked more towards either the " 335" or the "SG". My Dot makes me happy when i just sit on the sofa and have it on my knee :-)

Current Chinese-made Epi Dot, all laminate, basic ES-335 feature set. Horrible tuners, horrible pickups, horrible nut, hardware.... you get the idea. Basic Epiphone.
You buy this guitar for the neck & body, and should eventually replace everything else.
Mine's black with a polyester finish. It's a big fat neck, different than the Korean-made dots. It's rounder whereas the Koreans were flatter.
I gave it a 9 for features because it has all you need- 2 pickups, a 3-way selector switch, 2 volumes, 2 tones, and an adjustable bridge with a stop tailpiece. Anything more than that deducts points. Less adds. Less is more!
These guitars are totally worth tricking out.They should just sell these guitars blank with no parts and let you fill in the rest.

Once you upgrade the electronics, pickups, and hardware these guitars sound great! The stock pickups are shrill and bright, the stock hardware is cheap pot metal that absorbs tone. Same with the plastic nut that's incorrectly spaced. Oh, and same with the cheap pots and tone cap.
I play this guitar through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a pile of pedals. Sounds killer with a Gibson '57 Classic in the neck and '57 Classic Plus in the bridge. That plus a bone nut, new Gibson keystone tuners, Tonepros bridge, new lightweight Allparts tailpiece, new CTS pots, Orange Drop caps, and braided wire.

Sounds thick, rich, but still jangly and totally alive and very responsive! Great controllable feedback if you leave your effects on!
I play atmospheric rock stuff like Radiohead, Doves...
Rated 8 with upgrades.

I bought it used so I can't comment on the factory setup. Usually the Epi's come virtually unplayable with tiny strings and super high action or a totally backbowed neck. Any decent brick n' mortar shop will probably make a few adjustments before they hang it up or set it up for you when you buy it. The nuts are just generic and don't fit the neck width or saddle spacing.

The finish is usually inconsistent with paint over the binding and weird blobs n' globs. Who cares? Play it, beat it up!

The frets are usually unlevel and need a good fret dressing. The black neck binding is lame and hidden under the paint. Why not just make it white like the rest of the guitar? It would look 100 times better.

Again, very reliable once you ditch the crappy electronics and tuners.
The finish will probably survive a nuclear attack, unfortunately. They should use half as much finish, it will improve the tone twice as much!
I always change out the strap buttons for Schaller Strap Locks.
The hardware will last, but the chrome plating will eventually flake off. If you're a heavy strummer than plan on some serious string breakage with the stock bridge since the strings will cut nasty sharp grooves in the saddles. Swap out the bridge for a Tone Pros, they make a Nashville style bridge that fits the import specs. Maybe even put some Graph Tech saddles in there too if you're prone to string breakage.
So 2 for stock components, 9 for upgraded.

Bought used. I'm sure it sucks.

Been playing for 17 years, gig once or twice a month and practice & record constantly. The Epi Dot doesn't hold a candle to my Gibson 335 but it's still a fine guitar in it's own right. It's brighter and snappier feeling due to the maple neck and poly finish.
I'd buy it again and perform the same upgrades, it's worth it- but I'm a 335 fan and I'm lucky that I can do the work myself. Getting parts at a discount helps too.
I'm not super-into the elongated headstock shape, and the body is slightly clunkier than a real 335, but overall it's a cool guitar.

Obviously if you just play casually around the house then you can leave this guitar stock and still enjoy it. The switch & volume pots will eventually crap out on you though.
If you're a gigging musician than this baby will need a little love.

You have to play a few before you'll find a keeper. Make sure the truss rod works and that the bridge isn't all the way down with high action.

Brand new Epiphone Dot, in Natural finish. Looked nice enough, but horribly Quality Control problems. The finish was a little uneven in places. It is being shipped back to the store immediately.

Never even plugged it in. It's going back to the store and they're going to have to ship me out a new one. I loved the sound of my early 2008 Dot, but that doesn't count for this review.

The Natural finish Dot arrived with the D string tuner bent at an angle, but was still solidly held into the headstock. There was no obvious damage to the exterior of the Epiphone box, so it must have left the factory this way. There was a hole drilled in the proper position, however the tuner itself appears to have been screwed in at an angle.

There was no "100% set up and inspected in the USA" sticker on the bad of the headstock, as was the case on my older (early 2008) Dot. Only thing on the back of the headstock was a "Hand Crafted in China" sticker, and an "Inspectioncard QC" sticker, with no QC inspector number.

The finish itself was a bit uneven in places, and there was a very small circle on the front of the body where the finish was matte instead of glossy. It was about the size of the head of a pin.

The truss rod cover had a light scratch across it.

All things considered, the finish and truss rod cover problems were acceptable for this price range. The tuner problem was completely unacceptable from any guitar manufacturer. I'm pretty sure even a blind person could have felt how wrong that tuner was installed.

As evidenced by the lack of the "100% setup and inspected in the USA" sticker on the back of the headstock, apparently Epiphone's QC for the Dot is no longer occurring in the USA, and it shows.

I have pictures to show just how bad the tuner was when the guitar arrived. Email me, if you'd like to see the pics. I am not nit-picking or being finicky - it was glaringly obvious something was very wrong with this guitar, and it came from the factory this way.

Arrived with a terrible tuner, so durability and reliability are irrelevant - I got a lemon.

Epiphone Customer Support will surely be hearing from me about this disappointment. No guitar manufacturer should ship guitars that look like this.

Unfortunately, this guitar gets a 1 in this category. My 2008 Dot would have gotten a 9. I loved my older one. The Natural Finish I just received is totally unacceptable.

The usual ES-335/Epi Dot features.

Grover tuners, Samsung (according to dealer) pickups.

Made in China in 2005 and bought that year.

I hope some readers here are old enough to know what I'm about to say. I play in an oldies band, and we do everything from folk to blues to melodic rock.

We wanted to get that Justin Hayward sound for songs like "Story In Your Eyes", "Rock & Roll Band", etc., and were having a tough time getting there with Strats and LPs. Rather than invest in a 335, we decided to try the Dot. Good decision. We saved a ton of money and achieved the sound we wanted. The Dot is played through a variety of amps, but most often a Peavey Classic 50 4x10.

Our lead guitarist even uses it for Stevie Ray's "Mary Had A Little Lamb" even though he has a Strat on a stand right next to him. He says he likes the blues tone of the Dot better. It's also great on Skynrd, particularly "Simple Man".

This guitar can basically sound like whatever you want...just tweak the amp settings.

My dealer set everything. I'm not sure what it was like from the factory.

It's the Cherry model, and it is stunningly beautiful.

We haven't found any fret flaws or any of the other things folks have mentioned, but again I'm not sure how much our dealer's luthier had to do.

This guitar has traveled all over the U.S. in its standard Epi case, mostly in airline baggage holds. No problems.

I always use it without a backup.

Broke the phenolic nut by placing it wrongly on a Hercules stand. When it fell, the stand grabbed the low E string and snapped the nut.

Sent it to Gibson, who called me three times to let me know the status, and they replaced the nut with a bone one for an extra 10 USD.

I've been playing for 44 years.

My background was mostly acoustic until the last ten years.

I love the Dot because it can be used as a 335 at a fraction of the cost. I'd buy another if necessary.

Basically new, but with reduced price by store because it was preowned. Recent model 2008 Epiphone Dot with a natural finish. This guitar is basically a Gibson 335 at one third the price. It features a rosewood fretboard. Pickups are a '57 in the neck position and the Epiphone "Hotbucker" in the bridge position. Silver hardware. Only real "cheapo" part was the gaudy plastic "E" on the pickguard, but that can be easily peeled off without damaging anything- which I did. Epiphone is a great value for many of their models, and even beat "Gibsons" many times. I used to completely discount Epiphones like the plague but now realize that was a major financial mistake.

Sounds like a fantastic Gibson 335 at a third of the price...the 335 lies between the Les Paul sound and a full hollowbody sound. I love it because now i don't have to keep switching guitars during my gigs unless i want to. The pickups are pretty high output- I feel no need to change then at this time. I need to gig with this guitar a little but more to know for sure about the pickups.

The finish is absolutely gorgeous- it looks much better in person than what you see in the catalogs. No complaints in that dept. and many compliments from people when they see it.

I expect many years out of the guitar. The toggle switch will probably have to be upgraded at some point, and I may decide to upgrade the bridge, but overall a great value.

Haven't needed it yet except a call to Gibson to find out what kind of pickups had been installed- the tech I talked to was extremely nice and very helpful.

Overall, I would give this guitar a solid 8.5 rating and highly recommend this model to those who play Blues, Classic Rock, Jazz and Country.

Features

I think this is an '04, from the serial number. I'm assuming it's from China or Korea It doesn't really matter if the manufacturer is using the correct materials and watching QC like hawk.

As somebody already said, we all knows the specs on this guitar, how close the important bits are to a real 335. For me, this baby knocks out the mid-70s 335 I owned years ago. I never expected the vintage prices to increase as they did, but I also never dreamed I'd be recommending an Asian-made copy.

My suggestion is to look at as many as you can until you find one with a neck that you can live with, but more importantly find the one that sings. You'll know it before you even plug it in. You'll find this guitar has a wonderful "bite" to it's tone, regardless of which pickup you are using. The stock pickups put this sound across beautifully.

The woods used on this guitar appear flawless. I'm told maple top, back, and sides -- all laminate like the originals. But mine seems to have a maple neck, doesn't look anything like mahogany, and the guitar weighs more than any 335 I remember, so it may be true. The tuners are adequate and so is the nut, there's the odd creak when bending higher strings, but the guitar always returns to correct tune, provided you stretch your strings after changing them. (!)

I think this is a guitar you should definitely ckeck out if you're learning or playing electric of nearly any style. And you'll find this is no Ephiphone Les Paul with a bolt-on neck, this is a fully playable GEM at a steal of a price. Professionals will find these to be excellent work horse guitars requiring little mods that will delivery solid, dependable performance every night.

Better than my 70s 335 that never had a very distinctive tone for lead work. The Epiphone Dot has a more distinctive biting tone, especially from the bridge pickup -- it sounds almost like a Les Paul. The neck pickup gives a much fuller tone, but still cuts through for lead work. Can't go wrong for such little money. It'll feel every so slightly (watch out for unpolished frets) cheaper than a 335, but if you're a player, you'll realize this is one of the best electric guitar deals on the market.

The feel of the guitar was terrible at first, but only because the original owner had never really played it much; hence, the frets were unpolished. Half an hour of playing and the frets were transformed. Pickups need adjustment, mechanism was smooth, gave me no problems, I was done in minutes. The action is beautiful, with no buzzing when bending the higher strings. The fingerboard is very good quality rosewood, surprising. The tuners are fine with no slipping noticed so far. The peghead is nicely inlaid, and the truss rod cover said "Gibson" -- which seems unusual, every other one I've seen has "Dot" on it. The finish remains to be seen, I suspect it is not as tough as the old Gibson finishes, but I have no intention of bashing it around.

I've no doubt this guitar can stand up to years of hard club playing, although maybe not as much as a Les Paul or Strat. I'd gig with this one, no problem. But then ALWAYS carry a spare. Hardware looks decent, but can all be placed if need be. So far so Good.

bought used -- so no warranty, but this didn't affect my purchase one iota, the way the thing played in my hands before plugging it into an amp was enough to convince me..

Been playing for 99 and one half years. I would definitely replace this guitar if it was lost -- I can't afford anything better and it does me fine for what I need it for. I wish it had a bound fingerboard, properly done, they can give you a little extra fret to work with.

I am not going to list all the features again. Made in China 2007 Epiphone Dot stock standard.
The Grover tuner are excelent on this guitar and is probably the best hardware on the whole guitar.

I play mainly blues, rock, jazz and alternative music. I am playing through a Laney VC15-119 valve amp and a little Vox Pathfinder 10 for quite home practice. The trebble was the most pronounced sound comming from the pickups, the bass and high E were the least pronounced sound. The pickups sounded uneven in voloume. In general with distorsion the pickups didn't sound to bad but on the amps clean setting jazz chords diddn't sound full like the should be.

When I first got the guitar it needed a proffessional set up because the action was to high, the fretts had a buss in many spots on the fretboard. The paint finish could have been a little bit better because clear laquer is uneven in spots. All the volume, tone controls and input jack were loose and neede to be tightened as well as the pickups needed to be ajusted wich were to far away from the strings. The toggle switch fehlt very flimsy. Some frets needed reglueing because they came loose after a few hours of playing. The saddles on the bridge are very loose when changing strings and I guess would put the intonation out after a string changes. The parts are very cheap on this guitar. I've got a Epihone Les Paul Junior which was spot on from the factory in china, the only difference it stated on the bach of the headstock Epiphone Custom Shop.
But I ended up buying this particular Dot because it was the only one in the shop with a slimm fast neck and it sounded the best unplugged out of all the other Dots in the shop.

I ended up throwing out the pickups and replaced them for a Gibson black open coil 57 classic in the neck position and a Gibson black open coil 57 classic plus in the bridge position. I used also Schaller strap locks. Then I purchased a compleate rewiring kit with cts 500k pots for volume and tone, braided wire and a switchcraft toggle switch and input jack as well as a Tonepros bridge and stop tail. I gave the lot to my guitar tech who installed the lot for me. After having spent $450 Australian dollars just for the parts and another $100 for the tech I can honestly say that that money was well spent because now I can depend on it without a backup. After this complete refit of just about all the parts the Epiphone Dot is now worthy of a 9 out of 10 in sound compared to a Gibson ES335.

I never tried Epiphone customer support however the people at the Gibson service department were great and answered my questions in regard to pickup changes and some of the issues with the loose frets and pots.

I've been playing on and off for 12 years and these days I've got my Laney VC15-110 with a Laney 210 extension speaker which has a great sound and my little Vox Pathfinder 10 which is a great little amp with a better tone than the Pathfinder 15. I have no Effects anymore and just use the overdrive or clean channels on the amps. Now that the Epiphone Dot has been transformed with all its changes I love it even more, it now sounds fantastic and I wouln't change anything else on it. I love the slimm neck and did I mention that the Tonepros bridge and stop tail made the guitar sound even louder when not plugged in, it also increased the sustain when plugged in the whole guitar feels alive now. I also love the fact than you can almost hug this guitar when playing it unlike any other other guitar I ever owned and I used to own Fender Strats, Telecasters etc. but this guitar I love best out of all for feel, sound and playability after the changes. I would buy another one any day. Therefore my rating after the changes is a 10 and without the changes a 6-1/2

I bought my Dot about 5 years ago for less than ??300 new. Only grump was that I also had to buy a custom-made hard case for it, as none of my other cases would take it. The quality of construction is first-class, my only slight criticism is the graining of the wood, which in places is rather coarse. I've played it a lot since I had it, and there are no cracks, warps or anything. It keeps very good tune. Someone once told me that the Epiphone buckers are no good, but they're good enough for me. Once in a while I have to go around it to tighten things up, but this is no big deal.

I play mostly finger-pickin blues, and it's perfect for this style. I use a Marshall AS50 amp at home, and whatever amp is available when I'm playing away. Never had a problem. It always comes across very, very full. I don't mess around with the settings too much, as I have them where I want them for my style.

The set-up was fine as delivered, and I only had to make a couple of slight adjustments to the Tune-O-Matic stuff. As I noted above, the quality of wood used in the top could be improved, but for the price who cares? No-one comes up to me with a magnifying-glass to check.

It'll last me out, that's for sure.

Never needed to find out

I've played a genuine Gibson 335 Dot, and if anyone can convince me of any massive difference between these two instruments, then I'm listening. If it caught fire, I'd call the brigade immediately.

I love it because it sounds like I want it to.

2005 black, Korean Dot, w/Grovers. By now we can all recite the Gibson/Epi specs, so let's just move along . . .

The bridge is an ABR-style bridge, with the little retaining wire, which is what you get on every Korean guitar I've seen. I hated those bridges when Gibson used them, I don't know why they're still around, but they're authentic, at least.

One thing worth noting is that the Dot and the Gibson 335 are both made with maple laminate; you're not getting a solid maple top and back with your $2000 Gibson.

For features, I have to give it a 7, not because anything is particularly bad, but because there's nothing special here, either.

I bought my Dot after trying too many of them to count, and found one I really like. I'm more of a prog/fusion player than a jazz player, so I wanted the Dot as a spare sound, rather than a main guitar; still, it has a decent unplugged sound, and a good range of electric sounds, from mellow jazz tones, to distorted Joy Division sounds. (Yes, Bernard Sumner used a 335.) No noise problems, no snap-crackle-pop from the pots, nothing; it sounds clean.

Of course, it's not a "real" 335, but there are 335's that suck, and Dots that rule; that's why I tried so many of the damned things, until I found a good one.

I'll give the Dot an 8 for sound, because it's very good, but not great.

My Dot was ready to go from the moment I picked it up. The action was comparable with any Gibson guitar, and all the hardware worked well. With a black finish, it's hard to judge the woods, but the finish was very clean. I was glad to get Grover tuners, instead of the fake Kluson-style tuners I've seen on most Epiphone guitars.

A bit of advice . . . any guitar that's been sitting out in a place like Guitar Center has probably taken a good beating. I got my Dot the day it came out on the floor, before anyone could play it, tweak it, or screw it up. Three years later, it still looks and sounds like new.

After three years, I'd say it's held up very well. I'm not sure how it would stand up to serious road abuse, but that's not what I got it for. (I have a Faded LP Special for that.) At some point, I may swap out the bridge, but it's not an issue right now. The finish seems good, but I'm one of those players who polishes his guitar every time I change the strings, so my finish gets good protection. I put Schaller strap locks on all of my electrics as soon as I bring them home, period. The Dot isn't my main guitar, by any means, so it doesn't get out much, but any semi-hollowbody is going to be more delicate than a mahogany plank. Having said that, if I were a jazz player, the Dot would probably be my back-up guitar, for places you wouldn't want to take a 335 or a D'Angelico.

I give my Dot a 10 for reliability; it's lived through three years of use without any problems.

I've called Gibson's 800 number for help and advice, and I've always gotten a good response; I've never needed any warranty service.

I've been playing since before men walked on the Moon. (Yeah, I'm old.) I have a few nice working guitars, and some seriously tweaked sound effects. I'd been looking at Dots for a long time before I bought this one, and I'm happy with my choice; I'm also glad I waited.

If something happened to my Dot, I don't know if I'd be in a hurry to replace it, but I'd keep looking. For what I paid, I got a very good guitar, but that doesn't mean another Dot would be just as good.

I love having a $400-500 guitar that only cost me $300; the ABR bridge I can do without.

I tried a few other guitars in this range, including the Hamer Echotone, and the earliest edition of the Dot Studio; this guitar felt and sounded right.

I wish it had a Schaller bridge; actually, I wish it had a bunch of things, but then it wouldn't be a $300 guitar.

I get a lot of enjoyment from my Dot, which is part of the point of any guitar; if you don't like it, why in hell would you play it? It's not a "real" jazz guitar, but it does what I want, and that's what matters. I give it an 8 for overall rating, because there are better guitars, but for $300, I got a very good guitar.

1998 Epi Dot Natural
Classic Gibson Features 2 tone 2 volume, 3 way

I play blues, punk, rock with it, I replaced the bridge pickup with Gibson 57s. The original pickups sounds OK, but it needs to be hotter. You dont see the difference as much until you play it side by side with a better pickup.

Action and was good, and the bridge setting was acceptable. Only things were little washers were loose on the knobs and input jacks.

Soldering came loose and crackly in the 3 way (as with all epi/gibson), also the soldering came loose in the input jack. everything else was good.

No preaging or anything like that

Did not deal w them

For the price it is a GREAT guitar, I love the action and the way it plays, it has nice sustain and is a fun guitar! I would buy it all over again.

I also own:
Gibson Les Paul Custom
Gibson Les Paul 56 Goldtop RI
PRS Hollowbody 2
PRS McCarty 2
Gibson SG
Gibson J-45
Taylor 414CE
Larrivee D-04
Martin D35
Gretsch Brian Setzer
Fender American J Bass
Musicman Stingray
Rickenbacker 4003

1999 korean- natural finish, you know the rest

bought mine used and the previous owner had already changed the pickups to duncan '59's and added a bone nut. the guitar is amazing. i play in a band that covers a lot of ground from a little country to nickelback, ac/dc, 3 doors down, pink floyd etc. this baby handles it all well.

had to get it set up the way i like. previous owner used it mostly for slide

other than my acoustic i don't carry a backup. no reliabilty issue so far.

dunno

been playing gigs for about 25 years now. owned one of everything. this guitar is as good as anything i've owned. if stolen i would find the thief, beat him to death with the guitar, then by another just like it.

Saein Plant, Korea/China
July 2004
Production Number: 0285
22 medium frets
2 Seymour Duncan '59s replaced the standard Epiphone '57 humbuckers
two volume and two tone controls
3-way switch
Cherry finish with ivory binding
Gibson Tune-O-Matic bridge replaced stock Epi bridge
Gotoh tuners replaced Epi tuners

With these replacements I rate it a 9. Got it used with the replacements already installed.

Sound is classic 335 humbucker sweetness. I was really surprised by this guitar. I got it in trade for a Weber Mass attenuator and by far got the better of the deal. It really sings. The '59s are sweet and full sounding. No harshness. Very full sounding. Endless sustain from the hollowbody at the right volume.

Beyond what I would expect and have heard about recent Epiphone guitars. I think this is a very well made guitar and easily worth the current prices. Not sure if the 2008s are as good as this 2004 though.

Again, this is a used guitar traded from a good guy and player, so the the setup was nice and the guitar was still in great shape. Had to re-install the pickguard because the previous owner didn't like it on there, but he had all the parts (old guard and mount, old pickups, old bridge, old tuners). Switched from the 9s that were on it to 10s and the action is perfect. Might go to 11s at some point, but for now the 10s sound and feel great. DR Pure Blues.

Only finish problem (and to me it is a minor one) was at the neck joint. Somewhat to be expected, the joint has a crack in the finish along the joint. Does not effect playability or sound that I can tell and is not even noticeable unless you inspect closely.

The cherry finish is dark and doesn't show much of the maple grain, but the maple looks pretty decent from what I can see (no knots or voids or weird grain swirls). You can tell its maple by the weight too. This thing is heavier than it looks and heavier than my Strats or Teles, but not too heavy. Not Les Paul heavy.

Hold tuning very well thanks to the upgraded tuners. Seems solidly built. I think I could depend on it for gigging. I would never go to a gig with only one guitar though.

never dealt with them. Hopefully I won't have to!

Been playing for 21 years. Play mostly alternative rock, though lately been getting into the blues pretty heavily. This Dot is perfect for both. I get a really nice blues tone out of it through my '65 Deluxe Reverb RI and '65 Tremolux. I can also get really nice effected tones when I want to. Works well all my pedals. Those SD '59s are great.

If it were lost or stolen I would replace it.

This is a really great guitar for the money and the best way to get a 335 without having to spend well over $1000.

I got several Teles, an '84 Strat, a '68 Jaguar, a '92 Jazzmaster, '49 Gibson archtop, '68 Yamaha acoustic, and more. This guitar, while not in the same class as the others collectibility-wise, is on par with them playability and tone-wise. Very surprising. The cheapest guitar in my collection is one of the best I've ever bought.

2007 Dot, just bought it a few weeks ago (today is 5/20/2008).
I don't know what the stock pickups are but, they're not very articulate, & relatively mild output. the Grover tuners it comes with aren't half bad.

I think it would be good for most styles. For lack of a better adjective, I'm playing indie rock with it, whatever that means. I'm using it through a Fender Super Champ XD, they're, the combo of the dot & the amp are actually quite good. The stock pickups (I've already replaced, I'll get to that below) are ok if you're not real serious about your tone. I didn't buy this guitar with the intention of keeping the stock pickups.

So far I've replaced the neck pick-up with a Gibson 57' classic. Holy hell, that changed everything. I know there will be some purist who will want to argue this, but I swear it sounds surprisingly close to the Gibson 335 I played it next to. The new pick up gives it the output, articulation, and tone it was missing before. I'm debating weather or not to change the bridge pickup, I kind of like having a lo-fi sound down below, but I don't know how practical it is to switch between pickups in the middle of a song, so I'll probably put a 57' Classic Plus down there & get that effect w/ an eq pedal or something.

I had to have it set up, this is almost always the case with epiphones, it's one of a long list of reasons it's so much less expensive than a Gibson. Some of the nuts that hold the knobs on and the jack nut needed to be tightened, which is a little disheartening, how hard is it to have a guy with a wrench at the end of the assembly line tightening those? Otherwise it was pretty solid.

It seems pretty durable, I don't have any real concerns that it's going to fall apart. I don't really care if the finish wears off, I like a guitar with a bit of wear on it. The strap buttons seem solid, but again, it's only a few weeks and two shows old.

no idea what customer service is like with epiphone

I've been playing for most of my life, I tour about 6 months out of the year and have to depend on my gear coming through for me at 100-150 shows. I researched this guitar for several months and played probably 20 of them at different music stores. If it were lost or stolen I would buy it again. I love, love, love, that I got this solid of a guitar, and after a few upgrades have the sound that I want for less than $1000. There really is nothing to hate about this guitar, it plays well and is easy on the eyes.

I can't emphasize enough how great this guitar sounds after some simple upgrades. Swap out the pickups and the nut and you have a professional grade guitar anyone would feel good playing.

I bought my Epidot in 1998. I'm pretty sure it was made in Korea.
22 frets. Laminated Maple top. Cherry red with white binding. Volume and tone for each pickup. 3-way toggle switch. Mine came with two Samsung Humbuckers. Maple body and neck with rosewood fretboard. Nice Cherry finish. Semi hollow ES-335 style electric guitar. Tun-O-matic style bridge with stop tailpiece. Grover style tuners. I don't they are real Grovers. I played many Epidots until I found one with a slim 60's neck. Most of the necks I played were big and uncomfortable for me. I bought the matching Epiphone HS case with this guitar.

After a few minor changes this guitar does it all. Classic rock, jazz, couontry, blues, R&B, you name it. I gig often with this guitar. I play through one of the following. Peavey Classic 50/410, Fender Deluxe Reverb or a Fender Blues JR N.O.S. The guitar is perfect with any of these amps. I've never used a solid state amp so I wouldn't know about that. My effects are few. Boss TU-2 tuner then a Boss SD-1 overdrive and then a Boss DD-3 delay. I get anything I want. I like everything about this guitar.

I don't remember the factory setup. My guitars go straight to my tech before I even get them home. I immediately took this guitar to my tech and he installed Duncan '59 pickups, a Gibson selector switch and a bone nut. We left the tuners alone. They were fine. I threw away the pickgard and took it work. I had been playing solid bodiy guitars so it took a little while to get used to the Epidot.

I've played over a thousand shows with this guitar. It's awsome.

Never called them.

I've been playing professionally for 40 years. I own many guitars including Gibson Les Paul Standard, Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster, 1960 Gibson Les paul JR. With the above mentioned mods, none of my other guitars even come close to the feel, sound and playablility. This is hands down the most dependable guitar I own.

2007
22
laminated top
2 volume,2 tone controls
2 humbucking pickups
stock alnico humbuckers
laminated maple
cherry coloered
semi hollow body style
tune-o-matic bridge
grover tuners
came with a low quality guitar cable

I think it will sound good once I upgrade the electronics,or at least this is my hope

various amps,marhsall model1987 half stack,roland micro cube mainly right now

not really noisey at all

muddy sounding right now,again I believe it is due to the poor pickups it comes stock with

I am hopeful it will be fairly versitile in sounds when I am done upgrading electronics

dislike the cheap electronics
like the appearance.looks great,action seems good out of box

set up was actually ok right out of the box

pickups were down all the way

top looks great,bridge looks ok

no visible flaws whatsoever,really this thing looks sweet

I think this guitar should hold up well under care and common sense

hardware is less quality than I am used to but I right now think it will be ok

finish is outstanding

strap buttons seem solid

I think I will be able to depend on it after electronics are changed.The pickup selector switch is also junk,but thats a minor fix

I would not gig without a backup no matter what guitar was my main guitar

I emailed Gibson customwer service numerous times in the past with questions.They most of the time have always replied to me,often with a very generic answer

no warranty servicing needed so far

Been playing since 1979

I researched pretty good before buying this guitar.consensus is basically poor pickups and electronics,but other than that after these are replaced it is very good deal

I would get one again if it were stolen.I am not stupid enough to lose it

The finish is awsome,thing looks sweet.the electronics suck,muddy pickups with no character,pickup selector switch often shorts out,and I can tell the volume and tone controls are poor as well

I tried comparing this guitar to a Gibson ES-335,but reALIZED YOU REALLY CAN'T.The Gibson is just that much better,but I am going to try and make this thing work to get as close as I can

wish it had better electronics

I am hopeful this guitar will be a good deal in the end after all the electronics have been changed.Other than that ,it seems solid and no flaws or major complaints

I imported my Dot from Germany in March 2007. The rose wood neck sports 22 frets, has a maple-ply body. The translucent cherry-red paint is augmented with white binding on the guitar body.
There are tone and volume pots for each humbucker PU and a three-way selector switch. The PUs are passive '57 repro manufactured by Epiphone.
The Dot has a stop-bar bridge and Grover tuners and standard frets.
Purchase did not include a hard case as it was left-handed.

I like to play funk, rock and blues generally. I use a Cornford Harlequin(a low-wattage valve amplifier)with a Maxon OD-9 and JD Wah pedal.
I found the stock pick-ups to be dull and unresponsive with limited tonal range. I replaced them with Gibson 500T and 498 humbuckers. I little hot for some, but certainly improved the range and feel.

The action required slight tightening to the truss-rod and leveling at the 14th fret to achieve clean string bending. The intonation was fine, as were the electronics. The bridge and tuners also immaculately assembled.

Only a year old, the jack socket has required tightening from time to time, but so does the one on my LP standard. The selector switch feels a bit feeble, but no problems have arisen yet.
The instrument feels well built and should stand the test of time.

I have been playing for thirty years. I played a 70s Strat for many of those. I current have a Gibson LP Standard and Taylor acoustic.
For the money, I feel the Dot is great value in terms of playability and build. It only falls over on poor quality PUs.
I was puzzled as to the lack of hard case as these are supplied with right-paw models. There is no difference in body shape.

2 Humbuckers, tone and vlume for each, 3 way selector toggle switch. Nothing fancy, but everything practical. Just wish everything was tightened and maybe higher quality.

This guitar sounds amazing. This is my go to guitar. I hvae heard, not played, the gibson 335 and like the epi just about as much. I will eventualy upgrade the pickups to gibson '57 classic, but for now it is just a great sounding instrument, especially for its price. I tried some of the other hollow body guitars before purchasing and found the epi dot to have the deepest and most plaesant tone than the rest.

The action was good for me. My biggest issue was the loose pots and especially the input jack being loose. The finish was very good, but could be smoothed around the edges of the binding strip a littel in some spots. Otherwise it looks amazng.
Oh yeah, I didn't like the little pitchfork E on the pick gaurd so I removed it. Luckily it came off pretty easy, in fact it just about fell off. Its a good thing i didn't want it on or I may have been diasapointed.

Again the electronics issue. I feel that i should not have had to work on a brand new guitar, as far as the pots and jackgo.

I eventualy called Gibson for the warranty on the issue I was having with the electronics and they set me up with someone near by so it worked out well.

If your looking to play any kind of hollow body this is very affordable, pleasant to play, great to listen to, and nice to look at. If you are a collector with lots of extra cash, than go with a Gibson for resale value. I never plan on selling mine, so for me the name brand is no big deal when I get such wonderful tone.

Came with standard neck and bridge pickups, 3-way selector, 2 tone and 2 volume switches, etc.

for the kind of music that I like, which is pretty much classic rock, from the Beatles to Oasis, this guitar seems perfect. lots of people seem to be complaining about the stock pickups, but to me they sound just fine- can achieve pretty much any sound you want, and an infinity of combinations with the pots. i would happily put this guitar up against it's gibson counterpart. fantastic, really.

had to get the action adjusted when i bought it, but after that, perfect.

seems solid enough

absolutely love it- amazing guitar from epi.

In the very first band I was ever in, back in the mid '70s, the guitarist had an Aria copy of an ES-335 in red and I was just fasinated by the great crunch and controlled feedback he could get out of that hollow body. That same year I saw Ted Nugent live and decided I had to have a semi-hollow body!

Well, other things got in the way and it just never happened... until the Dot.

Mines the gloss cherry finish. Bought it stock brand new. Came with the guitar, a chord and a use & care guide in a cardboard box. Bought it over the net. No issues with the condition it arrived in - factory sealed. No a whole lot of features - semi-acoustic with asian made pickups and a 3 postion selector switch. It is what it is - a ES-335 like electric guitar. I didn't expect any more or any less.

This guitar does have good tone and sound when the tone knobs are set to at least 1/2 way or more in the treble range. Any less and the sound gets muddy, and all the way into the bass range gives an almost muffled sound. Could be that higher value caps on the tone pots would help. If there is a weakness with this guitar, its the pickups. Mine are marked "HOTCH(G) LP Bridge OR Neck BHC" on the back and I point this out because I've found different designations marked on other Dot pups while searching the web. Maybe Epiphone uses different suppliers, I don't know. As I said, these are capable of producing the sound that I was looking for, it's just that I would like a wider range of sounds to go along with it. I have heard other ES-335s and they don't suffer from this issue.

The toggle switch also does not work all that well as you have to "jiggle" it sometimes to get both pckups to work in the middle position. I thought maybe this was gunk in the switch and would go away with time but it hasn't

All the controls were loose when I got it but that's what you get when you buy mailorder on a product from China. No big deal as a couple minutes with a wrench had them tightened up. I thought at first that the frets were rough and a couple almost seemed marred and I chalked it up to a cheap guitar but at the first string change I cleaned the fretboard with 0000 steel wool and then some lemon oil and no more rough anything. Again, no big deal.

The fit and finish is very good for this price range - I have no really complaints there. I could not find any flaws. One small nag is that the side edges of the fretboard could have used a little more dressing on the one or two fret ends. A few seconds with a fine file fixed that. Very minor though. I have to remind myself how low cost this guitar is when I pick at such things.

The bridge was too high out of the box and a couple minutes with a steel ruler and a screwdrive easily fix that. Probably knocked out while on the water in shipping. Intonation was about spot on. The neck as it should be. Very nice actually.

A little better QC on the cleanup by Epiphone would solve all these.

This seems solidly build. Nothing loose or badly put together. If not for the suspect toggle switch, I don't think there would be any trouble ahead.

I like this guitar and I would buy another if it were stolen. I bought it to play and can't justify the price tag on a real ES-335. I think the Dot is a really good value and - remember the price point here - is well put together and finished.



NOTE: After owning the Dot for 5-6 months, I recently broke down and replaced the pickups with a pair of Seymour Duncan '59s and replaced the toggle switch and pots. Now it does give me a wide range of tones and sounds. Really makes me glad I bought this - but remember it did cost me another $200 to get it to where I wanted/needed it (now it sound reminds me of a '60s era ES-335... just about perfect). -- I didn't include these mods as part of my ratings.

The Finish is a beautiful blonde natural color. i got it at First Quality Music Supply today. the body is a gibson 335 pretty much. the bridge is great and it doesnt knock it oout of tune. the tuners are awesome looking/working Grovers. the neck is flawless. it comes with a chord and manual you will need a case. you can pull out Rich Robinson/ Keith Richards tones to Clapton to BB King tones. its amazing. the body is laminated maple i beleive. 2 volume, 2 tone. 2 awesome humbuckers. it has an awesome mahogany neck too.

PERFECT. i can get an eric clapton Cream sound perfectly. i can get a good Keith Richards sound too. and Rich Robinson stuff too. has a thick bluesy rock n roll tone. on clean, its a Chuck Berry/Beatles guitar sound. its deep and soulful sounding. and sometimes bright. doesnt get too much feedback. i use a Peavey Valveking 112 and an Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, and the go together like a dream. has a good acoustic sound too.

Flawless clear finish, the adjustment is great. its glossy and pretty. no flaws at all! absolutley perfect.

this thing should last forever.

buy it. you will love it for blues/rock.

regular korean 2001 bouoght in 2001 - cherry' two humbuckers.

the sound of the guitar is good, the unfortunate downside is the intonation. perhaps i got a defective guitar, but even with the octaves set up properly, the guitar doesnt seem to be in tune across the neck, which makes it upractiacl and unplayable. Also, even with a new nut and grover tuners inslald, it doesnt stay in tune.

i give it a 3 coz i can hear that it actualy can be a nice sounding guitar, but with the intonation so awfull, its unplayable.

I had the guitar brought over from canada (im not from over there), bought new at long and mcquade toronto. unfortunatly, the person who got it for me isnt a guitar player, so we relied on the salesperson. unfortunatly i got a guitar poorly set up and buzzing, badly intonated - maybe because of the flight, or again, maybe coz i got a defective guitar, or maybe coz its just a bad guitar.

solid guitar, but unplayable because of the poor intonation i mentioned. i give it a generous 4 coz its actualt built well.

n/a

if you are thinking about buying one, make sure its playable - tune it, play bar chords across the neck and listen if it sounds and FEELS in tune. pull strings, be very suspicious about this guitar. mine is a complete dissapointment, i never enjoyed it and its just in its bag waiting to be sold to another poor felow.

2006 Chinese Dot...Sunburst finish with the usual controls. Grover tuners. Purchased new from ebay. Not used or factory second.

Delivered the hollow body tone I was looking for... playing it through a Vox AD50VT or Fender M80.

I read many reviews before opting to purchase and it arrived in the condition anticipated. All pots, the switch, and input jack were flopping loose and the control knobs had not been fully set on the pot stems. Perhaps they purposely do this to account for changes in the wood during shipping(or the guy in China who assembles them goes for coffee and forgets to tighten them...who knows...a quick bit of work with a socket and they are good to go. The three way feels quite cheesy and I'm betting it will be the first component to fail. Pickups were screwed down tight and required adjustment...action was set to specs and trussrod adjusted appropriately. Uneven 13th fret required leveling. The fretboard was rough in the high registers and needed a wet sand to allow string bends. Tuners are actually pretty good. Plastic nut must be replaced.

With the exception of the three way switch it all seems solid. Rumor has it the electronics are dodgy so...we shall see...

Playing for 30 years now and no longer doing it for $. Own 2 strats, a tele, and a Dano 12 string. Can't justify the extra bux for a Gibson and not willing to risk off-brands to get the hollow body experience. I have refinished and rewired several guitars but I will not attempt to replace any of the components on this unless they blow up. If you have big enough hands to play the fat neck on this bitch you surely can't get your fingers in the f hole to work on it. In spite of the tweaking needed, it is still good value for the price and even if you don't win the fight they do have an office you can phone and scream at if something goes wrong.

This Dot was natural finish, grover tuners, probably 2006-2007.

I think this guitar really needs to be played through a nice tube amp. With a low gain rhythm setup, you get a VERY unbalanced sound. Very absent on the lower-mid and low end, the upper mids and highs are OK. When you kick in the boost for a lead line (here's where your amp comes into play), this guitar shows it's stuff. Specially on the neck pickup. It sings with lots of sustain and a fairly good tone. I preferred the mix setting next, then the bridge alone last.

Clean - very different sounds based on pickup selection. Pretty distinct and good sound in the middle "both" position. Got a little twang and nice treble bite. This is my preferred position for clean, then neck, then bridge.

Overall these pickups are not very good at all. With the right tube amp, you can get a nice lead out of them, but they leave a lot to be desired.

This particular guitar was supposed to be new from our mail order musical friend, but it arrived with the fretboard covered with grime, big cosmetic scratches over two frets, and two pots that were so loose that you couldn't actually turn them. (the WHOLE POT rotated in the body instead.) I cleaned it up and tightened down enough to give this a solid test over a week.

Action was fairly high, but that was easy to dial down at the bridge. Intonation was a tad off (yes before the action change).

The fretboard was a mess. Poorly filed fret wire gave it a very rough grinding feel. Just felt cheap. I'll ignore the scrapes which probably happened post-production.

The natural finish looked pretty decent, no real complaints about the body. Sloppy work around the F-holes, but not enough to send it back for.

The pots and 3-way switch will need replaced fairly quickly. They are complete crap. Scratchy and loose.

Grover Tuners are probably OK, but know this. THIS IS IMPORTANT... Many complain about the inability to tune this guitar. This is correct that's it's very hard to keep it in tune or even get it in tune. But, this is the fault of the cheapest nut I have ever seen in my life. I think it's made by Fisher Price. The NUT is the reason for the tuning instability, not the tuners themselves. The grovers feel very solid and do not have any play, so I imagine with a simple nut replacement, tuning issues would be fixed.

You could try some graphite (pencil lead) in the nut slots, but I think replacement is in order.

na

Player of 23 years and have some pretty good musical skills. I own an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Cherry Flame as my main guitar, pickups replaced with SD JB and Jazz. Amp is a Traynor YCV-80 (all tube). I play rock (classic/modern) as well as blues. Influences are Hendrix, Page, Clapton, David Gilmore, Buddy Guy, BB King, and SRV. (yes I've got a strat too :-)

I bought this guitar because I could get it for $300, which is a great price. I played it and tested it for a week solid, many times directly comparing to the Epi Les Paul. Not that I want it to BE a LP, but with the same setup it was a good way to reference what I was hearing.

What this guitar did best for me was a neck pickup lead tone. It actually sounded very similar to my Paul bridge lead (and the Paul has Seymour Duncans in it). But the rest was cheap, plain, and unbalanced.

After a week, I debated long and hard if a Sheraton was a better route than a Dot with upgrades. Lets face it, this Dot needed some work if I was going to hang onto it. I went out to the store to test a Sheraton and wow, NIGHT AND DAY...

I knew the Sheraton II would be better, but I was surprised how much better. The Sheraton was much more in line with my LP Custom in terms of quality, what I had expected from Epiphone in the first place. Yes it has things like binding and inlays that were completely absent from the Dot, but it also has much better hardware, looks gorgeous, and has pickups that sound so much better than the Dot. They are much more balanced and offer good tone all around. There is not a rough grind from poor fret wire like the Dot. The Sheraton is smooth and easy to play. Sings with a lead tone and sustain. Clean is very nice and balanced, it actually HAS low end unlike the Dot.

I think that it's the Dot that is far below what it should be rather than the Sheraton is far above what it should be. From comparison to my Epiphone LP, the Sheraton is on par there and what I expect.

Here's what it all comes down to. I would rather have a STOCK Sheraton II than a Dot which has had it's pots, switches, nut, and even pickups replaced. How's that for putting it in perspective.

If you are learning to play, I think this would be a good guitar for you. If you like the semi-hollow style, you can't beat the price. I forgot to say that the wide neck makes it very easy to play, almost like an acoustic. You can pound out full cords and have some fun.

If you are a musician, don't waste your time. It's only a good deal if it's a good guitar. For the extra money, a Sheraton II is a no brainer after my research and testing.

I like Epiphone a lot and am disappointed in them for the Dot. I am very very happy with my Les Paul as described above.

The Dot has been returned and a Sheraton II is in my future.

I won't go over the top on features as it's all been mentioned before. My 'Dot' is a 2007, made in China, cherry red with USA designed pick-ups and Grover machine heads. The feature that made me buy this particular model was the inclusion of a hard shell case.In my opinion it's 2 weaknesses are the cheap and nasty looking translucent amber control knobs and the black, plastic nut.

I play semi-pro rock/punk/blues in a function band all over the UK and mainland Europe and the 'Dot' suits the music I play perfectly.
My set up is:- Fender Deluxe - Marshall 2x12 - Marshall GV2 - Behringer UF100 Ultra Flanger - Boss SD1 - guitar. Played cleanly this guitar offers such a wide range of tonefull, usable sounds that go from jazz to rock and roll to blues to country to rockabilly and back again. When overdrive is added the Dot really changes character. The sound is huge, ballsy and bassy. Compared to my Gibson SG Standard the Dot is much louder and fuller but lacks the complexity and smoothness of the Gibbo. The controls are reasonably sensitive and the switch feels remarkably solid.

Out of the case this guitar was very playable, the strings were clean and not overly nasty feeling and the action was medium-low, fully intonated and relatively buzz free.
The pickups were set a tad high for my taste but 10 seconds and a small, phillips screwdriver sorted that.
The finish is stunning for a guitar of this price tag. Very glossy lacquer and neat routing, hardware fit and binding all add to the 'quality' feel of this instrument.
The only flaws were that horrid plastic nut - it's not a great fit, a slightly chipped fretboard edge on the bass side of the first fret and evidence of a fairly heavy sanding re-shape where the neck meets the body. The re-shape is actually a good thing in my opinion as it shows that the guitar has not been 100% machine produced.

It's a great live guitar. The 'big' sound really jumps out and the pick-ups deliver a fantastic amount of tone. Controlled feedback is so easy with this design and the sustain is superb.
The hardware is in need of a tighten ( I've had the guitar 2 weeks and used it a lot!) but that's not unusual for any Gibson/Epiphone in my experience. Things loosen naturally when you start using the thing.
I think that the finish will age quite nicely, it's not overly thick so I may have a convincing 'relic' on my hans before too long.
The strap buttons went on day one to be replaced by Schaller strap locks.
The dependabiliy of this guitar initially feels extremely good. The tuning stability is superb. Only time will tell if the electrics are up to the job but it does generally feel extremely solid.
I never gig without a back-up. This guitar will generally be my back-up (when the 'new guitar' novelty dies down)

Never uset them so "no comment" !

I've been playing for 20 years and have bought and sold lots of decent guitars guitars over the years. I currently have a 2005 Gibson SG Standard, a Fender Classic '60's 'relic' Telecaster, the 'Dot' and a Washburn EA10 electro-acoustic. My amp is a '96 USA Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and I use a few run of the mill stomp boxes.
I was originally after a Sheraton due to the tone the guy out of Kings Of Leon gets but was frightened by the mellow pick-ups so I saved ??100 and got a Dot.
If lost or stolen I'd get another one, and pray it was as nice as this one.
I love the case, I'ts essential for any archtop electric and fantastic at the price. The general feel of the guitar is fantastic, it really sings ,even un-amplified and it looks the business . . . . . . . . nearly!
I aint sure about the headstock size, it seems massive.
I wish it had a bigsby. It'll probably end up with a bigsby - more expense!!
Seriously, if you like the sound of a semi - feedback/growl/blues-tone; just buy one. ??339.99 - the best value for this quality I've seen for a long time. It aint a Gibson, but it aint ??2000, and it sounds and looks like one.

Gloss Natural finish, Semi Hollowbody, F holes, Non Locking Tuners, Standard Neck(feels wider than a strat) No Accessories Included, 2007 Chinese, Solid top, Two tone controls two volume controls, HH config.

I like a variety of music. This guitar, well it has an absolutely different sound than my strat knock off yamaha. I love the sound of this guitar. I practice with my guitar through a smokie amp, with headphones. When i use it like this i hear a buzz. Playing with the volume/tone controls i can get a bright sound with depth and a heavy richer sound. I have an affects pedal and a cheap randall amp.

Guitar was set up pretty good from the get go. Pickups were set up fine. Bookmatched fine brige routered well. This is supposed to be a blem. But i could find no major . really no minor ones either. The closest thing to flaw is that the F holes are not round at either end.

I expected a soft light guitar. I got a hefty peice of musical instument. I think the gloss finish will be dainty, but this guitar can take some punishment.(not that i will give it any) I dont gig so i dont have a backup (not sure my yamaha is even in the same class as this intrument)

N/A

I been playing for about 20 years. I own an Alvarez R20 Accoustic, A Martin 15E-000C, and a yamaha 312( something 12) I have a multiple affects pedal, Randall 25 Watt amp, and a smokie amp. I would purchase this guitar again. I was going to get a Dot studio and took a chance on this guitar. If this was stolen I would replace it with the same or similar one. My yamaha is like a toy beside this. I wanted a unique guitar that gave me better sound than my yamaha. If there are more updates, I will let ya know. I purchased this from musicians friend after ordering a studio twice and waiting almost a month and not getting one.

This is a Cherry Red ES-335 copy, you know all the features, made in China...

24.75" neck scale, humbuckers, 3 way switch, 2 volume, 2 tone, blah blah blah...

I give it an 8 because it has the features you need, and they work.

Full, rich, clear sound. Sure, it's not as responsive as an actual ES-335, but it's also at least $1600 less. And, let's be real, in a rock band, while having the dynamic range and versatility of an actual es-335 would be nice, the Dot does quite nicely.

Pickups could be better, but they sound like humbuckers. Because the body and neck are maple, the Dot sounds brighter than the es-335, but I prefer that myself.

Here is what freaked me out a bunch. The action, fit and finish on every Dot I played, felt roughly the same, pretty good, needs some tweaks. I think Epiphone has improved a lot over the last 5 years. Bot my Korean made Casino, and Chinese Dot played pretty good, right off the wall.

The actual ES-335's I compared it too didn't. Some had horrible set ups, all had some issue with the jack, or the pots. All the Dots had everything screwed in tight and working, the Gibsons were missing knobs, had bad jacks, or loose pots that were falling into the bodies, or some combination of the above. What's up with that?

This guitar feels solid and totally dependable. Sure the tuners could be better, but whatever, these work. In a few years of heavy use I'll see how it all holds up!

This guitar feels just as solid and sturdy as the es-335's and it actually seems put together better than some of the 335's I played at a few shops.

No idea, I can fix the guitar myself, or send it to my luthier.

I've been playing since the 6th grade (1980)... I have many rickenbackers, an Epiphone Casino (the cheap korean one, quite a great guitar IMO), and some others.

I would buy it again if it were lost or stolen. One thing I can say is that all the Dots I played, felt pretty identical. In a good way.

I love the headstock shape, much cooler than the gibson shape.

I wish the neck was slimmer, like the ES-335's. I may have my luthier reshape it.

The lowly DOT compared quite favorably to the ES 335, sure, the 335 is a nicer guitar, and I would consider it a great value at like, $1000 - $1200. But at $2000 - $2600?!?!?!?! NO WAY! It's not that much nicer!

It is ridiculous too that these 2 grand and up guitars all had various flaws where the $400 cheapy was spot on. I don't get that at all.

Yeah, someday a 335 would be nice to have, but the Epiphone Dot does 75% - 90% of what the ES-335 does. For a boatload less cash.

I've read revues saying how much better the 335 is, and they are right, but they are missing the point here. The Epiphone Dot is a great guitar and value, that with just a few minor tweaks, is awesome.

This is a good, well-apointed ES-335 clone (VERY surprising, since it was made in China). Two Alnico humbickers, 2 volume & 2 tone pots, 3-way toggle pickup selector, grover tuners (VERY smooth, accurate action on these tuners), laminated maple top back and sides, center block, f-holes, tune-o-matic brige (good quality, not a cheapo), chrome hardware. I believe the strings are Gibson brite-wires 10-46 ga. It is advertised as having a maple neck; mine came with a mahogany neck. I prefer a maple neck for stability, so it loses a point for that, and loses one more point for the cheap knobs,pickguard, and incorrect truss rod adjustment. But, what do you expect for $400? The binding, finish, etc. are all beautiful: I got the natural maple finish. The toggle switch and tone pots are very quiet. ALL IN ALL A WELL MADE ES-335 COPY, WELL WORTH THE PRICE. I'D PAY $600 to replace it, actually.
**NOTE: This guitar came set up with perfect intonation; HOWEVER, there was a very nasty twist and dip in the neck between the nut and 5th fret. A simple adjustment (loosening the truss rod) corrected the problem, but it SHOULD have been caught AND CORRECTED at the factory). The frets are slightly larger than Fender Medium-Jumbos, but not as large as Ibanez Jumbos. The fret edges need a little re-dressing when you get the guitar (no biggie: a little 220 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper and then buff with 0000# steel wool).

THIS IS A VERY GOOD ROCK AND ROLL AND BLUES GUITAR. IT IS NOT INTENDED FOR HEAVY METAL OR THRASH. I play blues, 60's & EARLY '70s classic rock, jazz rock, Santana, and late-60's early 70's Psychedelic. My amp is a Crate V-15, with a JAN GE 5751 preamp tube (V1), a Penta 12AX7C tube in the reverb driver V2), an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7A in the Phase-Splitter (V3), and Electro-Harmonix EL-84's in the power section. The amp is tubed for a clean, chunky, fat rhythm with gain settings 4 and under, Rolling Stones to Cream overdrive for gain settings 5-6, and Billy Gibbons, Leslie West, and Carlos Santa overdrive at gain settings 7 and above.

This Epiphone Dot has very quiet controls (pots and toggles) with no scratching or other unwanted noises. It comes with 2 Alnico humbuckers. Don't kid yourself into thinking you are going to get original spec '57 PAF's at this price. But SURPRISINGLY, they sound very close to the original; not quite as smooth, and a little bit brighter on the top end than the original '57 PAF's. These 'buckers are VERY good for the price of this guitar (I SEE NO NEED TO UPGRADE THEM). If you want super-clean jazz tones, clean but chunky '60's rhythms, mild Stones crunch, Clapton style woman tone or Leslie West style woman tone, as well as Santana's searing smooth overdrive, they are all in there. You just have to twiddle with the controls to find them (I have marked my settings with a Magic Marker).

The bridge pickup will give you a dark to medium clean or crunch tone. This is the first guitar I have played where I can attain the dark snarl that Hilton Valentine of the Animals got with his ES-335. The bridge pickup will also give you a slight Fenderish out-of-phase tone (but not the full-blown Strat Quack) with the tone control set around 3-4.

I prefer to use both pickups for my rhythms, and then toggle to the bridge or neck pickup (depending on whether I want a dark crunch or a smooth overdrive) for my leads. The two pickups together give you lower gain than using one pickup at a time, so if you like clean to chunky rhythms with overdriven leads, this guitar can do it in spades!.

The tone pots are smooth, but not very effective in the 6-10 range; most of the boost or roll-off occurs in the 1-5 range, so I have used a magic marker to make it easier for me to find my settings quickly.
THIS IS NOT A GUITAR ONE SHOULD BUY IF YOU INTEND TO DO A LOT OF MODIFICATIONS. THIS GUITAR SOUNDS FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS.

For the most part, the cosmetics are flawless. The wood is beautiful. As discussed above, I was not expecting a mahogany neck (prefer the stability of rock maple). And the neck needed a truss rod adjustment (nothing major). The pickups are set up well and evenly balanced (no major volume changes or surprizes when you switch toggle settings). The strings were set VERY low (4/64"), so I had to raise them a tad. The fret wire needs a minor dressing (nothing major, just a little rough on the edges). Tone pots are pretty good, but I have seen much better. The Grover tuners are great, with very smooth action (was not expecting that on a guitar in this price range).

All fittings, strap buttons, pots, input jack, toggle were tight and of good quality. The plastic knobs and pickguard are a little cheezy, but Epiphone has to cut costs somewhere to sell this axe at this price (the major $ savings are the use of Chinese labor).
I played professionally for 20 years. Now I play for relaxation, and sit in on an occasional gig. This guitar, once set up properly, will withstand the rigors of the road, and no back-up is needed (unless of course you want to get a Fender sound, then you'll need a Strat or Tele as well).
** REMEMBER, this is a $400 axe, not a $2,000+ axe. As long as you treat it with the respect any guitar deserves, it should hold up a long time. IT IS A GOOD, SEMI-PRO GUITAR. People that play major gigs will not be shopping in this price range, to begin with.

Unknown. Never had to deal with Epiphone.

I have been playing for 40+ years. I own an original '62 Strat, a Squier Vintage '51 (set up for playing slide), and a 1980's Yamaha Acoustic Country Jumbo. (I have owned various Les Pauls, LP Juniors, Melody Makers, Fender JazzMaster & Teles over the years). My amps are an original '65 Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb, '67 Silverface Princeton Reverb, and a Crate V-15 all-tube 112 combo. I use a Behringer Multi-FX (great chorus, delay and tremelo; the tremelo is actually better than the Fender tube-driven tremelo).
THE EPIPHONE DOT IS A GREAT MID-PRICED ROCK 'N ROLL GUITAR; DOES A PRETTY GOOD JOB ON BLUES AND JAZZ. I compared it to the Gretsch G5120 (wonderful guitar, but not as useful for rock 'n roll as the dot; the Gretsch is more of a Rocka-billy and Jazz box), Several Ibanez semi-hollow bodies (all crap - bad tuners, nasty ceramic humbuckers).
The one thing I wish this Epiphone Dot has is a Bigsby Vibrato Tailpiece. Other than that, this guitar is an excellent value for $. I WOULD RECOMMEND IT TO ANYONE LOOKING FOR A GOOD MID-PRICED ROCK AND ROLL AND BLUES GUITAR. AND YES, IF LOST OR STOLEN, I WOULD REPLACE IT WITH THE EXACT SAME MODEL AND FEATURES.

Look...I am writing this to make a specific point about the Epi Dot. As far as the guitar is concerned it is a good semi-pro to pro guitar. A pro guitar does not have to cost over $1000 to say the least. As for the Dot, either you like it or you don't. Let's face it, if we could afford a Gibson ES 335 we would opt for one rather than a Dot...be honest now, huh? When I was a younger player I could afford Gibson Doves, 335's and Les Paul Customs...hell, I onced owned a 1952 Fender Esquire back in '70. Nowadays I cannot afford to buy these guitars so I am relegated to the Dot and guitars of that ilk...with one exception...I own a Godin Multiac Classical that now sells for $1300....so I do own a pricey guitar but other than that....most of my 6 or 7 guitars are in the range of The Dot.

Now, on to my point...I would have bought a Dot years ago if for not one "flaw": they never got (Korean versions) the body profile just right. The upper bouts were too large and the body waist too wide. It was a clubby guitar with fat MICKEY MOUSE-LIKE EARS.

Even non-Gibson makes were getting it right but Epi Korea just kept missing the point. Now I know that even Gibson issues varied SLIGHTLY over the years...but these discrepancies or variations were never as blatantly off keel as the Korean issues. But glad to say that is no longer the issue...at least not with the Chinese versions of late. They finally got the body contours right on. The newer ones match up very close to the 60's and 70's profiles by Gibson and Epiphone (Casinos, Rivieras and Sheratons). And that makes all the difference when having to settle for a "budget" version of a guitar...at least get the basic shape correct for Crying Out Loud.....
to offer us some hastily assembled facsimile is adding insult to injury....
But hey...they finally got it right....
now if this does not matter to you....skip this....but if it does....then know that they pulled back on the insults.......

and if you cannot afford a Gibson ES 335...you might want to take a look at the New Dots....
peace

I've had mine many years now and have replaced all the hardware from Chrome to Gold. Mines a cherry color that has held up well.

Sound is pretty good. The bridge wore out and needed replacement. The pickups were replaced also with very hot GHS ones. It gave the guitar a darker ES335 sound. I may eventually replace these again with something like TV jones pickups to give it more of a jangally sound. The guitar came with 12s on it with a wrapped 3rd. I think it plays best with 10s or 11s. 9s are too light and you dont get a good sound. You can get a nice santanalike sustain out of this guitar with the right volume level and tone settings.

The Tuners had to be replaced because the screws inside eventually loosend up and it was a bitch to tune. The bridge rotted out too. You know how brass is. I was able to get a direct replacement in Gold metric. Looks much better in gold hardware. I replaced the nut with a Black Earvana nut. This made a real big improvement in intonation. In replacing the pickups I did see some separation of the top Cap (soundboard) from the plank that runs through the body. I reglued this and clamped it to prevent further separation. So far so good. I think refretting will be the next item for this one. I wear the hell out of them. Luckily I do my own refretting and this will be an easy job because the neck is unbound. This also has a wide neck and may not be suitable for all kinds of playing styles.

I've had no major problems with this one live or otherwise. Stays in tune and has a predictable sound. Blends well with other guitars soundwise and sounds good in the upper registers. Because the body is large getting to the volume is a reach, so is the selector. One thing I do is string it a littel different. I put the strings through the tailpiece backwards and then fold the strings over the tailpiece. This lifts the ends of the strings up, Puts ledd pressure on the bridge, And adds some length to the strings past the bridge. It adds some more harmonics for my style of playing. Overall its held up well to my playing style.

na

I prefer a Casino with the frequensator and mini humbuckers. This one doesnt sound all that unique. I've actually built better guitars myself. But it is durable and decent sounding for the price which is the key. I had and original 60s Casino as my second Real Guitar as a kid a Vox hollowbody being my first. $50 back then used. It would be worth a mint now. anyway if you cad deal with the huge neck on it and plan on upgrading components in it its worth the money for the neck & body alone.

Cherry Epiphone Dot, thinline semi-hollow body with center block, made in Korea, stamped "2nd" on the back of the headstock. "2nd" is generally indicating a finish flaw, this guitar is structurally sound. I bought this used on Ebay.
Otherwise it's a standard Gibson setup, but knockoff style (the parts pretty much resemble Gibson parts, but nothing is interchangeable without some modification). Pretty much all the parts are crappy, but some you can live with longer than others. Try and get a korean made one, they seem to be made better than the Chinese ones. The Chinese ones do have a fatter, deeper neck though.
Basically, if you're planning on gigging with this guitar as a serious player, replace the nut, tuners, posts, and pickups. Give a good fret levelling/dressing too.
I've swapped the stock pickups for some Duncan '59 models. The originals were just bad sounding.
These are fine guitars, but mainly for the body, not any of the hardware.
I'm giving it a 4 for the quality of the parts, but this is a cheap guitar and it will get you by as is if you're playing at home mostly.

I own an actual Gibson ES-335 Dot, so it's fun to compare them. It sounds alot different than my Gibson, even with changed pickups. It's brighter, more jangle, more top end. The Epi Dots have a maple neck (instead of mahogany, which darkens the tone) and poly finish, so it is a little bit more brittle sounding, but fine in it's own right.
It's not overly noisy with the Duncans, but the stock pickups were a bit.
I play shoegaze (radiohead, slowdive, cure)with alot of delay and reverb, lots of effects, 2 amps in stereo, so I'm not really concerned with any kind of pure vintage tone, just a good strong well balanced tone.
You can play anything on this guitar, it's up to you.

Epi factory setups tend to suck, as do most factory setups from any major manufacturer. No major flaws other than cutting corners on cheap parts, but that's what makes these guitars fun and affordable. Get a bone nut with the proper string spacing, new pickups (GIbson, DUncan, Frlalin), new pots and wiring (stock wiring WILL crap out on you), and some new tuners (altough the Chinese Grovers are okay, I'm not a Grover fan).

This is a great workhorse guitar once you upgrade the necessary parts. I've kept the bridge and tailpiece on mine, mainly because it's hard to find a bridge that will match those mounting holes. You need to pull out the mounting studs, fill the holes, and re-drill. It's worth doing though, alot of tone gets sucked up by the stock pot-metal dridge and tailpiece.
I would not gig with guitar without upgrading the vital parts, especially the pots. These get scratchy and cut out almost immediately. PIckups are a matter of personal preference.

Never dealt with customer support for Epi. I'm sure it's a hassle.

Overall it's a great guitar for the intermediate musicians if you leave it stock, and a great gigging player guitar once you upgrade some parts, mainly the wiring. I bought this guitar as a project with the intention of upgrading the nut, pickups, tuners, hardware, wiring, everything really. I use this as a back for my Gibson ES-335 Dot so I wanted it to be in the ball park of that guitar tone and feel-wise. I'd get another if it was stolen or whatever, I'd do the same things to it also. I really like 335's. The only thing I hate about this guitar is the massive headstock, inches longer than a Gibson headstock.
So if you're on the fence, buy one and have fun with it!

Dot ES335 Vintage Sunburt,Thinline Semi-acoustic,Made in China 2006 normal layout for this type of guitar,Epiphone USA designed hummbuckers and includes Grover Rotomatic Tuners not bad for a guitar at this price.(Includes Epiphone Hard Case)

The acoustic sound is quite full and rounded with decent sustain,plugged in to my Vox AD100 Valvetronix, boutique clean setting a pinch of reverb on the neck pup with treble rolled off Pure Blues, add a touch of gain WOW it will sustain for ages.This is a serious tone machine set the vox to UK Modern (Marshall) with a touch of gain the bridge pup will scream and howl, controlled feedback is a sinch. This is not a Gibson ES335 but it's a lot of guitar and PLEASURE to play and has'nt got the price tag of the Gibson.

Factory set up was a little high for my liking, It did'nt take long to sort,intonation is good,Frets are all well finished, The bridge is cut ok the nut is only plastic but it's cut correctly.The PUPS are ok for hight and the balance between them is good. There are NO floors in the finish or any problem with the selector switch or input jack, neither are there any problems with scratchy pots.(Yet early days)

I'm a bit heavy handed with my guitars but i can't see any problems using it live. The finish looks quite durable apart from the e sticker on the scratchplate

Never used them, The do give a "Limited Lifetime Warranty" but that is only if you register the instrument with proof of purchase ie receipt, and is only applicable to the purchaser. So if you bought it used it aint worth diddly.

I have been trying learn guitar since 1970 when my Uncle gave me his old Vox guitar.If it was stolen or lost I would almost certainly replace it. I now own a Gibson Les Paul Standard LE, a Fender USA Standard Strat, a Fender Player Deluxe Strat,a Tokai Les Paul,A Epiphone Les Paul 56 Gold Top, and an Ibanez Artcore AF85 VLS. Amplifiers Vox Valvetronix AD100VT 2X12,a Marshall MG50DFX,Carlsbro Kickstart 25

Epiphone Dot ES 335 type. Used 2003 issue (made in Korea at Unsung), Cherry Red, Double humbuckers. good condition. The guitar has a volume knob and tone knob for each pickup, and one switch with three positions.

The guitar illicits a nice warm earthy tone. You can manipulate the pickups and adjust this guitar for many styles of music. Used well for rock, reggae, funk. I was interested in buying a Les Paul, but now I'm satisfied with the punch this guitar has.

I bought it used, and it needed some work from a shop to make it playable. the action is low, and very user friendly. All the hardware is in good shape, but the pickup switch cuts out from time to time, which I guess these Epiphone's are known for.

Nice solid, playable guitar, that has style and class.

Cherry red. Purchased new in 1997 from Guitar Center in Chicago while on the road with my band. Typical 335-style features: Semi-hollow laminated maple body, set and unbound maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, 22 jumbo frets, 2 Samsung humbuckers with chrome covers, tune-o-matic bridge/stop tailpiece, 3-way switch, 2 volume 2 tone, black pickguard, sealed tuners of unknown origin (Ping, maybe?). Made in merry old Korea.

The 335-style guitar is remarkably versatile. It works well for so many types of music. So well, that I feel every serious electric guitar player should own one. Unfortunately, most mortals can't afford a real Gibson ES-335 (present company included), so enter the Dot.

Out of the box, the Dot is a decent sounding guitar. It has a nice acoustic shimmer and complexity unplugged, which is always a good sign. Late night practicing is quite enjoyable with the Dot. The biggest departure from the ES-335 is the maple neck, which gives the Dot a brighter voice than its mahogany-necked cousin.

The magic ends when you plug it in. The weakest part of the guitar is the electronics. First off, the pickups are dull and lifeless. Replace them. I gigged with the stock pickups for a week before I installed Duncan '59s. What a difference! Like taking cotton out of your ears (tired cliche, but very accurate). High quality pickups are a good investment for the Dot because they will better translate the guitar's excellent unplugged voice. I chose the Duncan '59s because they were affordable, but there are many excellent choices out there. Also, the switch is a joke. It crapped out on me on its maiden voyage. The same can be said about the output jack. Junk. The pots have held up pretty well over the years. I've heard that quality CTS pots are a slight improvement, but I've never felt compelled to try them.

In general, the 335-style guitar combines the jangle of a Tele with the fullness of a Les Paul into a sound all its own. The lower notes give a little more than a Tele or Les Paul, but that's the point. Big warm jangle, snarly lead tones, and smokey jazz textures with the tone pot rolled off. It's tone is not as centered as a solid body. Rather, it is a big more spread out and 3D.

My Dot sounds big and smooth. The neck pickup is warm and responsive, with a nice woman-like voice. The middle position has a nice sparkle and jangle. The bridge pickup has a really cool snotty bark that is accentuated nicely by the semi-hollow body.

Rating is for the stock Dot. With new pickups and electronics: 9.5

I bought the Dot as a road beater, so my expectations were already low. Fit and finish were on par with a $350 Guitar Center guitar--lousy. For starters, it died on stage the first day I bought it (bad switch). Gui-Target promptly replaced it with another one, which died on stage the following night (also bad swich)! Defeated, I took it to my tech when I got home from the tour and told him to "make it right".

Man, did he ever!
My tech at the time was the late, great Tom Everitt of Indianapolis, IN. (We miss you Tom!) He replaced the nut with a Graph Tech unit, installed Duncan '59s, replaced the switch and output jack with Switchcraft units, adjusted the neck and intonation, and dressed the frets. Yes, I spent a pretty penny: but what I got in return was a really excellent 335-style guitar for a fraction of what the comparible Gibson, Heritage, or Ibanez instruments were going for at the time. These mods were done in 1997 and as of this writing (2006) I still love playing it. Money well spent in my book.

Rating is for the stock Dot. With mods: 8.5

The Dot is a reliable gig guitar only if you address its shortcomings. In its stock form, it is a totally unreliable piece of junk. Sorry folks, but it's the truth. It is a price-point instrument made with cheap electronics and a finish that will eventually flake off in some areas (around the f-holes and the back of the headstock, for example). Don't even think about taking it on stage before sending it to your local tech for a once-over. You'll be sorry if you don't.

However, if you are willing to spend the extra cash to make it right, you will be rewarded with an excellent playing, great sounding, cool looking, solid gig guitar that you won't worry about getting dinged up and smokey.

I've owned this guitar for 9 years now and have played hundreds of shows with it. It has been banged around in a trailer from coast to coast in all kinds of weather. It's seen every thing from beer-soaked punk clubs and sandy outdoor frat beach parties, to posh theaters and huge outdoor venues. Since the mods, it has been incredibly solid, only needing regular adjustments to the neck. It did receive another fret dressing in 2002, but that was due to regular (ab)use.

It started to sound thin and ugly around 2004, so I stuck it in the case (in a fit of laziness) and left it there until last month (11/06), when I considered letting it go on Ebay. I took it to my fabulous new tech (Donnie Basham!) for a quick set up before the auction; as it was virtually unplayable at this point. I picked it up from Donnie's workshop and took it straight to the club for one last show with the old girl. When I opened the case, the damn thing looked brand new, just like the day I bought it. Hmmm? I plugged it in, the drummer counted off, and HOLY FRIJOLES it sounded huge and played great! I couldn't believe it. I'm so glad I didn't sell it. Thanks, Donnie!

As it turned out, all it needed was a good cleaning and an overdue neck adjustment. Beer and second-hand nicotine had caked the electronics, causing the thin, buzzy sound.

The rating is for the stock Dot. With the mods: 8

As stated above, my first Dot was replaced by Gui-Target under warranty the day after I bought it. The following night, the switch crapped out on me again. I was on the road and didn't know where to go, so I called Epiphone. They directed me to the nearest repair center--somewhere outside of Cincinnati, OH--and I was taken care of for the week. I promptly had my tech make right when I got home.

Overall, I love my little cheese-log Dot! In it's modified form, it is truely an excellent instrument. It doesn't have the presence of the higher priced 335-style guitars--but what it does have is the Devil-may-care attitude that makes you want to play it. A lot. My favorite thing about the Dot is that I don't worry about it. I don't think twice about taking it into smokey club and bashing it around; or loaning it to a buddy for a while. Who cares, it's just the Dot?

Anyone considering buying a Dot must figure in an extra $200-300 in parts and labor to make it right. I kind of feel like a goon saying this, but it is the truth. I get tons of compliments on the sound, especially from guitar snobs who would otherwise turn their noses up at Epiphones. A few players have bought Dots and modded them after playing mine.

I've been playing for around 20 years--professionally until 2003, when I decided to buy a house and get a day job. Now I'm just a weekend warrior with time to practice. I also double on bass guitar, so I must have two rigs ready to go at all times. I had many instruments stolen from my house in 2005 (they passed over the Dot!), so now I own the following instruments along with the Dot:
Les Paul Standard (cherry sunburst, WOW!) Les Paul Faded DC (TV yellow w/Bigsby), American Standard Telecaster (natural/maple neck/Duncan '59 in neck/Rio Grand Muy Grande Bridge), Music Man Stingray (sunburst/rosewood), Fender American Jazz (sunburst/maple), '74 Fender Precision (natural/maple).

For small gigs or rehearsals, I use a Fender Blues Jr. For larger shows, I use a fantastic 1967 Fender Bassman head with matching 2x12 cab that I've had as long as the Dot. The Bassman/Dot combination is really, really nice.

My current pedal board is a Pedaltrain: EB Volume Pedal-->Boss tuner-->Dunlop 535Q wah-->Fulltone OCD-->Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe-->Fulltone Supa Trem-->Boss DD-5 Delay.

Hope this helps you out.

Typical Gibson control lay out. The only unusual item is that there is no binding on the neck.

Since I have purchased Epiphones in the past, I thought it would be a crap-shoot in terms of sound and playability. To my surprise just about all the Dots I played sounded pretty similar. The differences in output seemed to be related to pickup height. Like Gibsons, Epi's need to have the bridge PU pretty close to the strings for good balance.

In the store the action was horrendous, the intonation was way off and the neck was bowed. The finish is beautiful Natural Blonde with some very minor imperfections. The f-holes are huge, much bigger than a standard 335. It was the only blond in the store and even though some of the others played better, I took a chance. When I got it home I did a complete set-up on this thing and then let it settle out for a few hours and then did some minor tweaks. When I came back to check it out I was astonished at how well it played. It has a fat neck which I personally love and with the nice tight action and it set up for 10's it plays like a dream. Other than the usual set up issues everything was perfect. Nice hardware, everything tight no issues.

One of the worries I had was this guitar staying in tune. In the store it was all over the place contsantly slipping out of tune, especially on the g string. All it took was a number 2 pencil in the grooves of the nut and now it stays in tune. I am a Strat player so normally I play pretty hard. This guitar can take hard playing and stay in tune. It even stays in tune overnite.

Who knows?

Here is the bet part of this story. I bought a Gibson ES-335 in '96 because I always wanted one. I had that guitar for 9 years and could not get along with it. The tone was weak, lacked resonance and was uncomfortable to play. I finally sold it in a fit of anger last year and was happy to see it go. I replaced it with a Gretsch so I didn't have any money for another 335.

I started looking around at Epi Dots about 2 months ago and the conclusions I have drawn may get some Gibson folks angry. I have 9 Gibson guitars all of varying quality. The new ones are fairly low quality instruments. They are nowhere near the quality of Fender, Gretsch, Ricks or some of my older Gibsons. Out of the box Gibson does not know how to set up a guitar. I honestly believe that this cheapo $399 guitar is as good as any regular production 335. I'm not sure if this says Epis are great or Gibsons suck but I think it is the latter.

I have been playing for over 40 years and have about 30 guitars. The Epi is one of my favorites but I have always had a thing about making cheap guitars play.

90's Korean-made, natural finish. Maple-ply body, rosewood fretboard. Pickups upgraded to Duncan Alnico Pro II. All pots, switches, etc. changed to USA parts. I don't know what happened to my pickguard, but it looks better without it anyway.

When I got this guitar, it sounded good without an amp - if you don't know, that's how you figure out if you've got a decent plank of wood on your electric. Plugged in, it was muddy in the neck and thin in the bridge. Just bad pickups - I also have an Epiphone Les Paul, so I know the importance of changing the pickups on Epiphones. I would rate the sound at a 5 with the stock pickups. But...

...once I put some decent pickups in there, the guitar really started to sing! Fat, smooth tone with the ability to give some good crunch. Sounds really great through my Fender Blues Jr. This is a semi-hollow, so it will produce feedback, but it's pretty controlable. You can play with overdrive, but certainly no metal distortion. Honestly, you're looking at the wrong guitar if you're a shredder. Go buy something pointy with a Floyd.

I don't know about the factory setup (I bought this from a friend), but I don't think it was set up before I got it. It was fine. One screw that adjusted the neck pickup height was stripped - probably not from the factory, but it was like that when I got it. Anyway, I never adjusted the action on this and it play just wonderfully! So far as I know, it's only been intonated. I use .012's on this guitar, and it still plays fast.

There are two reasons that Epiphones are so affordable. One, they're imports. Two, they use the crappiest electronics they can find. Nothing went completely bad on mine, but when I changed the pickups, I also changed all the other electronic components. Three of the pots were scratchy, so I figured that I'd just do everything. If you didn't already guess, it's a total pain to work on these guitars due to the limited amount of space in the wood - it'll cost a few bucks to have a tech fix up the guitar's electronics.

The tuners keep you in tune just fine. I thought about upgrading to Grovers, but there's really no need.

The strap buttons are very good - I did not install straplocks on this guitar because the buttons are big enough to hold the strap. Unless you're throwing the guitar around, of course.

Never gig without a backup - but that's just in case you break a string. This guitar isn't going to let you down.

Never dealt with them.

I've played for over 10 years, and I use this guitar a lot. It fits a wide variety of styles very well - rock, blues, jazz, and everything in between. If someone stole this guitar, I would definitely try to find another.

1997 Cherryburst, with open faced pickups. Rest has been covered.

I dumped this guitar after I couldn't handle the pickups any longer. They were just so lifeless and dull. I loved the look of the guitar, but once you plugged it in, it just screamed cheap guitar. The pups were very dark and fairly muffled. I thought about changing the pickups, but A) I suck a soldering and B) because it's a semi-hollow, access is extremely difficult, and thus quite expensive. It was more worth it to me to get rid of the guitar than to replace all of the electronics, which would have been necessary.

I sold it and picked up a Michael Kelly Patriot Phoenix, which is a Les Paul-type guitar that has an incredible sound. I'm thinking of picking up one of their hollowbodies.

The quality control for Epiphone is quite infamous for being sketchy. I picked up this guitar used, and it was beautiful, except for some finish issues around the f-holes.

Took it to the best shop in town for setup and they couldn't get the buzzing out of the top frets without having the action pretty high. Maybe a new nut? But, that's just more for the money pit.

The electronics are junk. The pots kill all of the high end below 9, and the switch only worked intermittently.

Never tried to call them.

Let's just say I would never buy one again. They are really nice to look at, but not very nice to play.

This is a 2006 Qingdao model in Natural; 22 frets, laminated glossy maple top, back and sides; glossy maple neck, unfinished rosewood dot markered fingerboard. We all know the electronic controls setup.

The chrome covered, fully wax saturated pickups in the 2006 models are now made in the Qingdao factory or by EMG (EMG overseas, I would presume). The pickups in this Dot are supposedly designed after Gibson 57 Classic but have Alnico V magnets.

The body shape is your standard ES-335 type.

Bridge is a tunomatic derivation; tailpiece is a stop. Comes OEM now with Grovers.

No accessories other than the truss rod wrench came with the guitar.

I play late 60s and early 70s Rock and Blues.

I generally use very small tube amps as I can't blast where I live.

The guitar isn't noisy at all.

The neck pickup would be really great for a Jazz player as with both the volume and tone pots on 10, it sounds like a stifled Clapton's "Woman Tone". In other words, bassy, very bassy.

The bridge pickup sounds, how you say, "Eh"? It'll get you into the vintage sounding ball park but only in the nose-bleed section of the bleachers.

Both pickups on together are like a decent, quiet Tele with a bit more power.

If you haven't figured it out yet, these pickups gotta go!

The finish and construction of the guitar itself are primo. CNC machines are a beautiful thing!

I didn't even pay attention to the factory setup. The strings were off it even before it got played 5 minutes. My tech knows how I like it and guaranteed, NO guitar maker's factory setup will please me.

The frets still had the file marks in them from when they were factory levelled. In other words, they ground them but they didn't polish them. My tech squared this away for me. He also noted that the 3rd and 16th frets were outright high and levelled them too. Also, the board appeared a bit dry. My tech also took care of that after the fret work was done.

As you all probably know by now, Chinese hardware ain't the greatest. Until it craps out (which shouldn't be many years down the road), it's functional and does its job. The chrome has already started blistering on the bridge saddles.

The Grover heads suck. I don't feel they are any better or worse than the rest of the hardware. I wish Epiphone still used the Pings.

The nut and saddle cuts are fine.

Mechanically, believe it or not, the toggle switch when placed in the middle position rattles when I hit an open A string. The pots and the output jack all had to be tightened. I'd be amazed if they didn't start crapping out real soon.

The guitar is solid and roadworthy but I'd say the total OEM electronic package would have to be replaced before even entertaining the idea of extensive gigging with this guitar.

As stated above, the hardware isn't quite garbage but I'd keep an eye on it.

The finish is really tough and durable.

Everyone knows gigging = straplocks.

Once all the above is upgraded, I'd say it was very dependable. FWIW, it does stay in tune and the intonation is right on the money.

I've dealt with Gibson many a time and it depends on who you get. Some are great, some are politely waiting for you to get off the phone.

Gibson is pretty good with warranty stuff again, provided you get the right person.

I've been playing 39 years. I own the Dot and a little Kustom 12W tube hybrid amp with an 8" Celestion and believe it or not, that's all folks! I'm going through some tough times financially and was forced to sell everything else which was the high end stuff.

I'm satisfied with the Dot because I knew exactly what I was getting for the $400. I asked all the relevant questions and there were no surprises.

If it were stolen or lost, I'd be foked because I could not afford another anything. Yes, I'd like another one if we parted company.

What I love about it is that it plays and sounds better than some of the real 330s and 335s I've owned over the years. I hate the inferior hardware/electronics. My favorite features are the beautiful wood grain and the (now) ease of playing - Nice, low action!

I chose this one because of the looks, price and the fact that Gibson runs the Qingdao factory from within with brand new, state of the art CNC machines. It's like you're guitar's been constructed by a "Super Luthier".

Everything I wish it had, I already mentioned.

This truly is a nice guitar to have and little by little, I'll get it up to exactly where I'd like it to be. In terms of the "big picture", I truly recommend it.

What can I say, it is a $399 semi hollow body that plays like a $2000 semi hollow body.

This is a very versital guitar, more so than my USA Strat! I can't get over the different sounds that come out of this thing. Play it clean, it is sooo sweet, add some overdriven tube to it and it gets nice and dirty the way a ood guitar should, throw some distortion and relive your Punk rock days! Hey, this is one versital guitar, I an digging it.

I bought this off the rack at a big 'ol guitar superstore, it has it's scars. I played many Dots, and an Aleycat or two to see waht I wanted, both ewere great, but for the $$$, the Dot was a clear winner. Plays real nice, easy to adjust the setup to your liking. It looks like a $2000 guitar!

So far so good, but time will tell. I think it will hold up just fine, with proper care and maintenance. Seems like a well built instrument.

Haven't had the need, and I hope I never will.

For $325? Can't find a better guitar, period. I had to sell my American Strat due to hard times, and now I am kinda glad I did! It gave me the chance to get this Epi Dot! There will always be another Strat out there, but I am thinking "why", this Epi does it all for a LOT less!

Paid $460.00 USD. I bought this guitar for use as a Bar/Road guitar. I own a Heritage 535 now, but would never take it out on a gig. If something happens to this Epiphone I'm not out that much. For the price you can't beat it. Let's face it Guys who has the money to throw down on a Gibson ES-335?. Like I said before I wouldn't take it out on a gig anyway. As far as features go, it plays like a champ! The only thing I plan on doing to it is change the pickups. I knew that going into the deal. but I figure it's a small price to pay for bringing this up to the standards of the higher end stuff. My rig consists of my Epiphone, Blues Deville 4x10, Boss CE-5 Chorus, DOD Chorus, Turbo Rat, Boss Blues Driver, Crybaby, Ernie Ball volume pedal and my Lexicon MPX 200.

As I said before, the pickups are the only real concern for me right now. soon to be replaced. I give it a 6 just for that matter. Other than that this guitar sounds excellent

I bought it used. It's not a Gibson or a Heritage but I wasn't buying it for that. As far as workmanship goes I don't have any complaints for something like this coming out of Korea. Nice smooth finish. Good tight tuners. nice case. fits like a glove! They did a good on this one!

This and my Mex Strat are my new Gig Guitars. There's absolutely no reason you should think that this guitar won't cut it on the road.

Haven't had to deal with them yet

I've been playing for 36yrs. I buy guitars like these for the fact that if it's ever lost or damaged I'm not out to much. And yes I would buy another Import Epiphone. If you want a good working man's guitar this is the one! I say jump on it, you won't be disappointed.

Made in China in 2004.
The standard features are as described in other reviews, semi-hollow body, 2 Epiphone 57 pups, two tone and two volume controls. I'm giving it a 9 as these are standard features on similar guitars.

I have heavily modified my Dot. The grover tuners are the only original hardware still on it. Having said that, I'll do this review in two parts: before and after my fiddling.

Stock standard: Overall the stock Dot sounded good. I found the pups, particularly the neck position, to be muddy, but overall I was happy with the sound and feel of the guitar. It is very quiet and was able to produce a variety of sounds. I tend to play clean with slap back echo or reverb as the only effects. The Dot handled this sound well, but as noted lacked definition and tended to sound a little muddy.

Mods: The first mod I made to the dot was replacing the crappy plastic epiphone nut with a Tusq nut. The difference in tone was nothing short of amazing. The muddiness was gone, the sound was now crisp and defined. The individual strings ring out and articulate clearly on all settings. The Tusq nut also brightened the sound. I would rate this as the single most important mod to improve tone.

I next replaced the Epi pups with Gibson classic 57 and 57+ in the neck position. I had ordered the prior to installing the Tusq nut (the Oz supplier was out of stock so they arrived and were fitted months later). After hearing the differnce in tone made by the Tusq nut I quite liked the sound of the Epi pickups and hoped I would hear a discernable difference from the Gibson pups - to justify the expense. I needn't have worried, the Gibson 57s are sensational. The tone is much richer and more complex than the Epi pups. The combination of the Tusq nut and Gibson pups has brought the Dot alive and it really sings.

I play a lot of Rockabilly and the dot sounds great. it also has a throaty roar when using distortion. Suits rock, brit pop jazz and Blues. Pretty much any music.

I rate the stock Dot sound as 8 and the modified sound as 10.

The original set up was poor. The action was so low that two stings were lying on the fretboard. Also the stock strings were of poor quality. Both easy fixes.

The overall quality of the finish is very good. The only flaws are a rough patch on the binding which appears to have missed sanding/poishing (you can feel this but its not visible). And a couple of chips at the base of the fret board where it meets the neck pickup ring. For a cheap guitar I was impressed with quality of the finish. I replaced the ugly amber knobs which appear to be a standard featur on Epis.

I have replaced the electonics with switchcraft switch and jack and CTS pots. The Epi switch fell apart (literally) while being removed. The pots on the other hand were alphas which is an improvement on the componets previously used by Epiphone.

The Epi hardware appears solid and i believe it would last. I fitted a Bigsby trem and wilkinson roller bridge so, as noted, earlier all hardware has been replaced other then the tuners. With the exception of the nut there were no problems with the other hardware.

I believe the Dot is robust enough to gig with and a guitar you could depend on. I would still take a backup, but I'd do that regardless of what guitar i was using.

Tuning stability ia good.

The original strap buttons seemed solid, though I replaced them with strap locks which i have on most of my guitars.

No idea - never dealt with Epiphone.

I have been playing for over thirty years and own a number of guitars including Fenders (USA telecaster and USA deluxe strat) and a Gibson L6s. I bought the Dot because I wanted a cheap semi. I was impressed by the Dot and have spent the equivalent of its purchase price on modification.

The result is that I now have a professional quality guitar with an awesome feel and tone. I recently played a Gibson ES 335 in a music store. The feel and tone were almost identical to my Dot. In Australia, the difference in price between my Dot (with mods) and a Gibson ES335 is approximately $4000. Is the diffence in tone between the gibson and my Dot worth $4k? The answer is no.

I love my Dot. I play it more than any of my other guitars. It has killer tone, is well made and well setup. The stock Dot is a well made guitar. It just needs improved electronics and a better nut etc to bring out its true potential.

If my Dot was damaged i would buy another one and transfer the Mods to it. If it were stolen I would by buy another one.

Overall the Dot is well made but is let down by the poor quality nut and electorics.

Made in 2005 in Korea. 22 frets. 2 volume, 2 tone, 3-way selector switch for 2 PAF-type covered passive Epiphone humbbuckers. Tobacco finish, ES-335 style semihollow body with f-holes, tune-o-matic bridge with stopbar tailpiece. Set neck with Grover tuners.

Awesome sound for classic rock, country, jazz, and blues. Not suited for shredding. Good, solid, full sound. Since it is hollw, it can feed back if too close to the amp, so get a long chord. Very responsive pots reduce excess electronic noise.

Action is right for me, since I like low action. Pickups adjusted at the sweet spot (close enough for power, far enough away to avoid being muddy). Bridge adjusted properly to maintain correct tuning for the length of the neck.

Good sturdy construction for a hollow body. I would use it without a backup, but I would be a little less active on stage than if I was using a good solid body. Strap buttons are secure.

I have dealt with the company as I own more than one Epi. They were very helpful, and I would continue to use Epis.

I have been playing for over 30 years. I own Les Paul, a Morgan Monroe acoustic, and a bass. I use a Behringer guitar amp and a Fender bass amp. I would replace it if lost or stolen. I love the quality and the sound. I compared with other guitars such as Ibanez, Washburn, and Guild. It played and sounded better. It's not as good as a Gibson ES-335, but I paid about 1/6 of the price for about 90% of the quality.

I think everyone knows the features on this guitar. Dual Epiphone humbuckers that are supposed to be their version of the 57 classics. Volume and tone for each. I was suprised that it had Grover tuners on it like my Gibson Standard Double Cut Les Paul. As afr as features you get wwhat youexpect if you are Looking for a good sonding hollowbody guitar.

I play a lot of staright forward Christian rock and Praise and worship. I was looking for a hollowbody guitar for the fat, round clean sound that had good sustain, and a guitar that had some beef when using it with overdrive. Well I was suprised when I playedthis guitar at my local Guitar Center. It was almost exactly the sound I was looking for. It has that fat, round tone to it that I love.

I am primarily using this through my Mesa Boogie DC-3. This guitar really warmed up that amp. It sounds much less harsh now because of this great sounding Epi. I also really like the sound of it running through my Marshall TSL 100 and 1960 TV cab with Greenbacks.

Overall I have really been impressed with this guitars sound.

This guitar seems like it is well put together. I told myself I would never buy and Epi because I am kind of anal about my guitars being American made, but this little thing seems to be top notch. The imput jack seems to be a little less than perfect because it really likes to hold on to your cables like they are a life raft or something.

When I got the guitar it had a set of 9's on it. They were ok but it made the intonation pretty bad. So i put some 10's on it and that helped a lot. I will soon be taking it to a great tech and having him set it up so it will be perfect. I will also have him lower the action just a bit because it is just a little high to my taste.

Overall this thing seems to be great quality. It feels substantial when you hold it and play it. I am very pleased with it.

As far as I can tell this thing seems like it will hold up with the best of them. I haven't gigged with it but once so I am not for sure how durable it is. Anything will last a long time if you take care of it and don't abuse it.

I haven't needed any customer support yet.

If this guitar were lost or stolen I would definitely buy another. I have been very pleased with my purchase.

Features are as listed below. Mine was made maybe in 2003, in Korea. It's cherry red, an oh boy, does it look beautiful or what! I really love the feel of it. After playing it Les Pauls and Strats feel like toys. It doesn't slide away from you while playing. The really fat neck may feel wierd after strats thin neck, but after playing Dots neck for few years it almost hurts to crab a strat.
The pickups aren't that great, but you can make it with them. Nothing ruins such an amazing guitar!

I play just about anything, from flamenco to Randy Rhoads' stuff. I don't play flamenco too much with this guitar because I don't want to ruin my nails doing rasguedo. [rrrrrramm]

If you love the fat sound of Les Pauls, go for Dot! Dot has even more kick n' punch, it's a Big guitar with a Big sound. It's great, you can beat the bass player and the other guitar player on stage.

About the stock pickups, they aren't that great. For the prize they're really good, but if you really want to hear THE sound, chance 'em. I went for Seymour Duncans Alnico II Pro PU's, and I can't recommend them enough! What a sweet full rich sound, now I know what the Dot is made of! Slash has a pair of them in about all of his dozens of Les Pauls, and I think those fit ES-335s even better. I also had DiMarzios Super Distortion in the neck position for a while and it sucked. Randy Rhoads had a great tone with 'em, but he also had tons of crap between his guitar and amp. I don't like to use even distortion pedals, and these Alnico II Pro's cover a huge variety of sounds. I think I get better sounds from my guitar that Randy got from his on his records.

Of course it suits for blues, jazz, pop, and harder rock than you wound think. Talking about the wall of sound, this guitar if some guitar has the punchy bass sound. I just love the "woman tone" on neck pickup with the tone rolled down. It's so beautiful you'll forget it's a guitar sound and you just drown in emotions. Some delay, and you can play the most touching solo EVER. On bridge position you'll find really tight kick ass sound, great for hard rock riffing and super fast soloing. The sustain is just amazing.

I've been using only Crate 15w solid state amp and a Roland Microcube, but I'm planning to buy a Vox Valvetronix to get the most out of my hot guitar. The Dot has sounded great on every amp I've ever tried it on. A really cheap amp doesn't show the whole character.

No flaws, but a few little paintless spots in the inner side finish of the f-holes. It was set-up great, no need to chance anything. This guitar is real deluxe to play. I chanced the ugly colored knobs for Gibson style black speed knobs, which look genuine. I also removed the pickguard, it didn't look cool for my taste. As I said the fat neck is really comfortable. The nut is black plastic, but it works well, no need to chance. The Dot is just a piece of art to look at.

I haven't really played it live too much, but it's a real hard piece, though it's semiacoustic. I depend 335% on this guitar! I would absolutely gig with it without a backup. (well maybe with a backup of six strings) Electronics have worked really well. No need to chanche any pots or anything.

I haven't dealt with them, I'm not even sure how to make a contact, cause I ordered the guitar from Austria. I don't know about any warranties.

I just love it. I wouldn't chance anything in it (but the pickups and knobs, which I did). I recommend this guitar with all my heart, you will not be disappointed! If it were stolen I'd send the mafia after the guy. Just kidding, I would absolutely buy it again!

Mine is a 2003 model, made in Korea at the Saein Factory. Features are as listed below. Mine comes in a purple flame top. A case was provided in the cost.

Seems like people have all sorts of opinions on this guitar vs. a Gibson ES-335. It is Gibson's B line but that doesn't mean a good one can't be found. I tried many before settling on this one, and it is a gem. Pickups are "designed by Gibson" and undoubtedly made in Korea. Doesn't matter tho. They sound great. Very quiet and full sounding. In time I might consider swapping but don't feel I have to just yet. I did my first gig with it the other night and it was very sweet sounding.

They are no flaws that I could tell. Finish is exeptional. I can't stand the nitro finish on Gibsons so I'm glad this has the poly.

n/a

n/a

I'm semi retired from professional playing now. This is my only electric and all I need. I play it thru a little Behringer amp as I don't do big gigs anymore. I play everything from jazz to blues, country to pop. This guitar can cover it all. I've been around so I know my sound. I can get it from any guitar that can tune well and plays easy. I don't get into the comparison crap anymore. Very negative. I bought this to be an all round instrument, and it handles that. No other comment needed.

Well, everybody knows the deal with these. It's the poor man's Gibson 335. The basic dilemma is whether to try to save cash and get the real McCoy, or get one of these to sort of cure your fix for a 335 (at least temporarily). Read below whether it will cure the fix permanently!!

As you can see from these reviews, typically everybody gets one of these, swaps out the pickups, maybe changes some hardware, and calls it a damn good 335 clone. It just so happens that I had a spare set of Gibson 57 classics lying around, that I took out of a 61 SG reissue so I could load that one with Iommi's (my Sabbath axe). So, in they went, and at the same time I had that pesky selector switch replaced with a Switchcraft. to be honest with you, I didn't really think the stock PU's sounded that bad...I read Samsung makes them, hey they make good TV's right? But I digress. After the PU swap,
I'll tell you, it sounds damn good. Maybe my ears are fried from decades of decibel abuse, but i'd be hard pressed to hear the difference between this one and a real 335. Especially thru a Marshall, which is how i'm running it.

It's a gorgeous cherry finish. I wish it had nitro instead of poly, maybe that's another sonic factor. The guy that re-finished some of my axes won't touch these things, says they're too difficult. Of course, i'm judging this as a $400 axe, not a $3000 one. For the money it's an incredible guitar.

As everyone else stated, the hardware is really not up to snuff and should be replaced. The Grovers seem OK though. Don't step on it, and it should be fine.

None.

For the bang for the buck factor, you just can't argue with it. I completely satisfied with it now that I put in the 57 classics and replaced the switch. Hell, after I did that, I played nothing but Ten Years After for a week and made believe I was Alvin Lee. Then I had to check out those Cream gigs when Clapton was playing one. Every collection needs a 335 type axe, and your choices are this, maybe a Heritage (maybe I should of gotten one of those...), or the real deal. Of course you must understand these have no resale value, so buy one, play the hell out of it, then use it for firewood when you get the Gibson.

Features the same as any Epi Dot. Cherry Red, Made in Korea in June 2005.
2 alnico humbuckers "designed in Epiphone USA," whatever that means.
Stop-tail tailpiece, tune-o-matic bridge
Stock Grover tuners (that actually aren't all that great)
No case included.

My style is classic and alternative rock. Anything from Beatles to Green Day. I'm using it primarily with a Vox Valvetronix. The humbuckers make the guitar dead silent, which is a welcome change from my noisy Fenders. I tried this out with several models on the Valvetronix, and it works well with all of them. The pickups are fairly powerful and will push amps to overdrive sooner than a single coil. I thought I would have to change the pickups, but they are pretty good for a mid-priced guitar.

This guitar was fairly well set-up out of the box. The salesperson at the store tweaked the intonation a bit. What I'm noticing is that the volume from neck to the bridge pickup drops off noticeably. I'm experimenting with raising and lowering the pickups.

The big flaw that I noticed is that the 20th fret has worn down. I noticed it buzzing yesterday (about 3 weeks into owning and playing the guitar) and today I noticed that the fret is entirely worn down so that the high E string will not fret at that note. Big thumbs down for this.

The black plastic nut is also noticeably cheap. Fender uses a reasonable plastic facsimile that at least looks like bone.

Well, I will take the guitar into the shop to see if I can get the fret redressed. However, as I do not do much wheedly-wheedly-wee on the high frets, this is not an immediate problem for me. Epiphone has a reputation for bad electronics, but so far, the hardware seems very solid. The strap buttons hold on my Planet Waves strap VERY tightly, much more so than my Fenders. The polyurethane finish is great. Even though it's a semihollow, this guitar is good for live playing. It is durable, and doesn't feedback (unless you really want it to).

I have free setups for life from the store I bought it from. No contact with Epiphone itself.

I've been playing for 10 years. I own a Fender Highway 1 Tele and a Mexican Classic '50s Strat. The biggest complaint I have about this guitar is that it is so freaking heavy and bulky. This is easily the heaviest guitar I've ever owned, and possibly even played (except for that weird Lucite BC Rich in Guitar Center). It looks like a big awkward retarded cousin sitting next to my Fenders.

What I love about it is the tone. I had thought about changing the pickups, but they are actually very good. You also get the best of both hollow- and solidbody with the Dot. It sounds very lively, but you don't get uncontrollable feedback.

I compared this to an Ibanez Artcore. The Epi felt more solid. Possibly because it was much heavier. The Ibanez didn't hold tuning as well, and the pickups sounded thin and weak. The Bigbsy felt like it was going to snap the guitar in half. Plus, the Epi was bought from a store that had better customer service.

In spite of this, I think I will not keep this guitar past next spring. It is just too awkward for me to play. I will be replacing it with either an SG or a Casino.

This is a review of stock Dot, nothing added unfortunately. It was used but as new condition and very nice natural finish. The stock elec switches and pots are/were pure junk. I can only assume Epiphone loves selling guitars that will soon become defective due to crap switches/pots....guys, why not spend a few more bucks on better switches/pots is beyond good sense. Anyway, it is not a bad lower end guitar, neck is decent, pickups are loud, but slightly muddy(more later).

First their stock pu's are not great, but fair. They seem to be very loud like humbuckers should. However, the differnece between a dot and a real gibson 335 is like night and day. The sound is so much richer with the real 335 classic pu's.

The neck and setup are reasonable like most modern mass produced stuff is now days. The bridge/saddles and tuners are again cheap of the cheapest, but they work. Some buzzing still present after 2 professional setups, but could have been my playing style though.

As previously expressed you can expect problems with some of the cheaper components, all else was pretty nice and works. I replaced the pu switch that was kapult, and a cheap plastic nut that decided to break off at the low E slot.

??

In closing if you need a semi-hollow 335 type for non-professional bed room stuff a Dot will play, but it will not stand in comparison to a 335. I recently heard a nice 335 played through a vibro King for a couple hours recently, sweetest tone ever! Next band used a Dot on one song(fortunately) through the same amp and it was like night and day. Both guys were equal players but I told the 335 guy he made my day tone wise!

Same features as above. I have the natural finish one with the cream binding. Two volume/Two Tone/Two Epiphone Humbuckers, Tunamatic Bridge, Grover tuners. I am giving it a 9 because it gets the job done for what this guitar was meant to do. How many features could you ask for on a guitar? We aren't talking friggin cars here. I never understood rating a guitar in this category. It is an electric guitar, and has everything a semi-hollow body should.

I play slide. Raunchy blues/rock slide. Everything from Elmore James and Muddy Waters to George Thorogood, The Rolling Stones, etc. I have a very simple rig. I run it straight into a 50 Watt Laney Solid State Combo With a 2x12 Celestion louded cab. I use a Digitech Bad Monkey or Danolectro Daddy'O to give the Laney a little more tube punch. The first thing I will tell you about this guitar is that it has great pickups. This is the only guitar that I will never modify. I bought it stock, and it will stay stock. The bridge pickup is very punchy and bright with ALOT of output. The neck pickup is clear and thick with good midrange attack. They sound incredible together in the mid position. On clean this guitar can give you a crisp trebly sound, or a nice full acoustic like sound. With overdrive this thing has a ton of bite. Very thick, very full tone. I keep it in Open G, and it sings with a slide. I couldn't ask for better, and I am really surprised it came out of a stock Epiphone.

I am surprised to say that I bought this guitar from Guitar Center on Labor Day and it was setup perfectly. The action was incredible, and it has one of the nicest necks I have ever played. It is a pretty beefy neck, but feels incredible solid. The natural finish on the guitar is great. I have a small knot in the wood grain right under the bridge and it gives it a lot of character. The chrome/nickel hardware is well built, and everything was attached. The tuners are great. I instantly raised the action and put 11s and the guitar responded perfectly. I only had to tweak the rod a little bit for a precaution. Everything was solid on this guitar and it sounded great right out of the store.

This thing is a tank. I have never owned a hollowbody before, but I played 9 different brands in GC before purchasing this one. It killed everything else. It is big, light, and extremely sturdy. It feels like you are actually holding onto something solid with a degree of quality when you play it. I put some straplocks on it, but I would play it without backup, and I would definitely gig with it. The hardware looks like it will last, but hardware is cheap anyway.The only thing I noticed was that the truss rod cover screws could be stripped easilly. They had to cut corners somewhere.

I have dealt with Epiphone before and they have been very informative. They market their guitars with a lifetime warranty now which covers damn near everything with the exception of an act of God. I would say that that is worthy of a 9 at least.

I have been playing about 6 years on and off, but I recently discovered my love of blues slide guitar a couple of years ago. I recently rekindled my love of playing after taking a break in college and I have been at it every night since. I own a Fender Deluxe Players strat, and an Oscar Schmidt Les Paul replica, and I love them both dearly. This guitar instantly became my number 1 the moment I picked it up in the soundbooth at GC. It is big, light, dependable, backed by great support, and sounds absolutely amazing for what I play. The Dot Studio isn't bad, but I prefer two volume and two tone controls. It is worth the extra money to me. You cannot beat this guitar for the price. Only it's Gibson cousin could be better, and with this kind of quality for $349, I prefer the Epi Dot.

I'm not going to get into features they standard Gibson features 2 humbuckers 3 way toggle 4 knbs 2 vol 2 tone 22 fret neck:
Recently traded up a 1986 Ibanez as 80 for a 2003 dot. The playability of the dot is much better, however the PU's compared to the Ibanez are lacking. Overall, like the dot better. It is much lighter and plays much easier. It is hard to believe that Gibson can produce such a high quality guitar in a Korean factory for 400.00. They really did a good job bringing a classic guitar to common guitar player. The one I got is natual...I like this look alot, it reminds me of John Lennons Casino in later years. I does not have a pick guard, and I think this look s really cool this way. Anywho features are standard.

The sound is good, of course the cheaper PU that are stock in Epiphone and lacking compared to standard Gibsons. I am playing mine through a Fender 4X10 Blues deville and it sounds great. I also use alot of delay all kinds, U2 to indie sounds. I use a Rat 2 for dirt and it sounds great (this pedal would any guitar sond great) The Dot is pretty versatile. And unlike other hollow bodies it is easy to control how it feeds back. Overall I like the sound , however I am considering upgrading the pickups to Possibley P-90 or classic 57' maybe even pearly gates who knows.

The action is ths guitar is stellar, I think it plays almost...almost, as good as my rickenbacker 480, the ric has suprior playability to any guitar I have ever touched Gretsh, Hofner, Gibson, forget...so in this respect the Dot will never truley live up to being the ultiamte guitar. As I have stated earlier it is amazing for a 400.00 korean guitar..I plays like more expensive guitar...Not as stiff as a real es-335 more fluid. can't find a flaw with it other than who ever had it before me decided wrap the strings a round the stop bar...it is not wrap bar I know what those look like. Anyway I guess what it comes down to is that for the money, you can't beat it!

Havent had it for more than 2 weeks but I have gig with it twice and have sort of worked in as my main guitar...sort of alternating between it and my ric. Right now I guess I'm just trying to settle in with this...Learning all it CAN do. I could easily make this my main stay...and I have all intentions on recording with ths on our next record (maybe if I upgrade the Pu'S) i don't know yet. The guitar is great quaility even if it was an 800.00 guitar I would feel the same way...the binding looks great not cheap the tuners are groover and excellent...alothough I may put shallers white buttons on it for a vintage look. Bottom line the guitar is great...again for the cost you would be a fool not to get one.

n/a

Although not everything about this guitar is a 10 collectivley it is...once again for the money. This is my first Epiphone and not i have intentions on picking up other. Epiphon several cool modles that gibson doesn't...I'd like to pick up a casino, or a shearton, maybe a zephyr...got to hand it to epiphone they make great guitars at a great price.

I bought this guitar new in 1999. It was manufactured the same year. I wanted a semi-hollow for looks and sound, but I walked into the music store that day with an open mind and tried a ton of guitars. I was about to leave without one until I saw an epi dot sitting in the consignment corner. I played it and was hooked. I ordered a new one on the spot. It's a standard dot, with 2 epi humbuckers, the old-style tune-o-matic (I believe epi has a new, smaller bridge on current dots), standard tuning keys. Laminated maple body and center block, with a maple neck (FYI, gibson 335s and epi elitist 335s have mahagony 1 piece necks). The neck has a scarf joing near the headstock. Don't listen to "gurus" who claim to know better. I can't tell the difference between the 1-piece and 2-piece necks...and the 2-piece wastes less wood and is stronger. I didn't buy this guitar hoping for a Gibson ES-335 (I'll buy one later), I bought it because I liked the guitar I played in the store. My dot is cherry red.

Okay, let me say this again. You'll read over and over how someone bought an epi dot and it sounds just like a Gibson, especially after some hardware swaps. It may sound like a Gibson to them, it may not to you (and vice versa). Just go out and get the guitar you want that's within your budget. Otherwise, you'll never be satisfied with it.

My epi dot has a nice, woody midrange sound to it. The midrange notes are really accentuated on this guitar. The bridge pickup is veyr dark and I prefer to play single notes rather than chords with it (the bass is too much). The bridge pickup is very aggressive when strummed hard but also has a sweet (albeit bright) sound when strummed lightly. My only gripe sound wise is that the neck pickup is much louder than the bridge (despite pickup height) but that is to be expected.

I play my guitar without amplification or with a home-built amp. It's a two channel (one fender deluxe, one hot-rodded JCM800) tube amp with a single EL84 pushing put 5 watts into a 1X12 combo. With this guitar both amp channels sound fantastic. I occasionally use a Danelectro Pastrami Overdrive or Grilled Cheese to get some cheesy effects.

This guitar is very versatile and will work in a lot of situations. It was exactly what I was looking for, so I'm going to give it a 10.

The dot I took home is the second one my dealer ordered. The first had a messed up neck, so they sent it back for a better one before I even saw it (try that at your local guitar megamart!). The neck has a good feel in my hand, I never get tired playing. The guitar plays very well and the action was set up at the store to my liking. One problem with the guitar out of the box was the action was a litte off. The store I bought it at filed down the high E saddle way too low, so now I have to replace that (I'm swapping out the whole bridge).

The neck pickup "chrome" started to peel off at one corner. A quick coat of clear nail polish stopped any further peeling (it's been 6 years now). I was annoyed at first but I rarely see it any more. I'm planning on swapping out the pickups for some PAF clones (toss up between Stew-mac's Golden Age and Gibson's '57 Classic), just to experiment. I like the stock pickups and I figure if I don't like the new ones better I can always sell them on eBay for 90% of the original price.

The finish was nice. Not perfect, but for a $600 guitar it's fine for me. I love the cherry look.

It's six years old now, and no real issues. A common complaint is the selector switch. Mine started to go out on me but I looked inside and saw a big piece of dust caught between two contacts. A puff of air later and the switch is as good as new. I replaced the tuners with Grover Rotomatics and the guitar stays in tune better. I may replace the nut but it's been 6 years so why mess with it?

The tone control on the neck pickup doesn't work. I suspect it was never wired, but I've never bothered to check it out (I rarely use the bridge tone control, and then usually to take the knob down to "9").

I don't play live and I take care of my stuff, so my guitars tend to last.

I've never dealt with Epiphone, so I can't comment. The music store from which I bought the guitar were great (even though they messed up my saddles!) and my current guitar store techs really know their stuff. Be careful: a lot of "pro" techs have no idea what they're doing. Get a book, read up on it yourself, so if you can't do it you'll be sure that they can.

I didn't buy this guitar as a poor man's Gibson ES-335. If you want the Gibson, save up for it. I love my dot and I think it's a great guitar as is. To be fair, I am planning on buying a Gibson ES-335 in the next year or two, but that's because I want a different guitar, not a better dot. One of the nice things about the epi dot (other than the sound, which is tops) is that you can swap out some hardware to experiment...something you might not do on a $2500-3500 guitar. One caveat is that you have to play them in the store, the variability on ANY guitar means you're taking a risk buying one without playing it.

hey now,, this is my first reveiw for this site. lets start by saying
dont belive everything you read .and dont forget that these reveiws are only opinions.. and also take into account whoose opinion your reading.. i have read a lot of reveiws on this and many other websites including the opinions of pro and semi pro muscians that i talked to personally about the intrument in question.. first off lets just say that i value everyones opinion...but i would put more stock in the opinion of a more seasoned musician with experiance in the game than say someone who is new to the scene.. there seem to be more quality reveiws on this site than most of the others out there. but beware there are also a lot of BS reveiws out there, by people who claim to be knowlegable and are really full of sht. i know a few of them that claim to be more than they are and even though their reveiws seem intellingent they wouldnt know the difference between a dimond and a dogshit. im saying this to try to set the record straight for the people who may spend the time to read this.. what i seem to come across a mostly are the reviewers that will claim that that their 300 dollar guitar blows away the 3000 dollar model... basically this is unbelivable, and mostly represents the opinion of disgruntled people who probobly cant really afford the 2000 dollar model and are venting their frustrations in the only place they can... its like comparing a new jaguar to a new kia.. you can save a lot of money.. and if you put a jaguar moter in the car it will go as fast, but does that make it a jaguar? most of them seem to think that the guitar produces the sound when really most of the sound comes from the amp, combined with the pickups. the amp is the key factor!!! you can put a 59 les paul through a cheap amp and it will sound close to the same as a cheap epiphone.. through the same amp... if you put the same two guitars through a quality amp (fender, boogie, marshal among others) the difference in aparent.. also build quality is another factor.. the less expensive korean, mexican, asian guitars that are built these days are much better than in the past, but does that make them the same as a hand built collectors piece? come on do people really think that something built for the cheapest price on an assembly line that produces 1000 guitars a day can be the same as something hand built for weeks or months with loving care by someone who has been at the craft for 10, 20, 30 years be the same? if that was the case than why bother with benedtto, custom shops, or even prs..we could all just buy a 300 to 500 dollar import guitar with different body shapes and that would be that. the reality is play what you can afford and sounds good to you.. but lets not mistake a 57 tele rented for the day from a high end studio to an 04 mexican at guitar center for 400 bucks. even though they may be compatable they are not comparable... im sure this reveiw will spark many heated comparisons and probobly piss some people off.., im sure if they had the "real thing" they would not be so quick to dis it... im sure there are many crappy gibsons and fenders out there that will help prove their point but then--dont buy them!! call them what they are..
a good guitar is a good guitar!!! even ibanez has a high end line and custom shop.. that builds stuff that can and does blow most of the american stuff away, but a toyota is not a cadolac! and never will be! ..anyway whatever you play, play it with your heart and soul-- and that will ALLWAYS be heard !!!rock on brothers and sisters!! now heres the reveiw......
2002 epiphone dot 335 copy.
i bought this new for 400.
i didnt want to spend another 2000 for a gibson
cherry red, gibson designed pickups, volume, tone pots,, you know the deal. grover tuners, nice guitar, decent fret job, looks like "the real thing" (gibson 335) two humbuckers..bla bla bla its the same as the rest..

the sound is ok. i wanted an archtop for blues and jazz,, but the sound really doesnt compare with the higher priced gibsons. if it did do you think gibson could get 1700-3000 for their model.
yeah if you put 57 classic gibson pickups in it it will sound the same as a real 335 but come on, is it really the same?
for the money its great and with the gibson pickups it will sound the same. if you really want a 335 but cant afford it this is great but its still not a real 335. not even close.....

as with most factory setups it was playable.. but with a little tweeking it was ok. setting up a guitar is not that hard a little common sense and a screwdriver is usually all that is needed. most people are just afraid of screwing things up. spend 15 dollars on a guitar book instead of the (LOL) "professional" (lol) "guitar tech" and you can do the same setup yourself...

the guitar is as solid as most of the others out there.
unless you really get a piece of crap most guitars made these days are about the same. a lot of them are even made in the same factorys with just different names on the headstock to make the difference.
as long as the guitar stays in tune of course it is gig worthy..
the finish is good..but what does that have to do with gig reliability??? without a compensating nut half of the open chords are not really right.. but that is true for most under 1000 dollar guitars...so it depends on what your playing and the sensitivity of your ear..

unless the guitar falls apart they arent going to do much for you..
that is really all the warrenty covers.. even then youll have to prove you didnt break it..

over all.. this is a good guitar you can compare it to anything and it will hold up, the build quality is good, sound quality is ok, with certain modifications it can even be great. i have been playing for 24 years ive had a few other epiphones some good some great. overall this is a good buy for the money it all depends on your personal choice and buget.. if you try to sell it youll be lucky to get 200 for it so its definatly not a good investment.. just buy it, play it,
and love it.....

2004 Korean-made, 24-fret, laminated top with natural finish. Very classy looking. 3-way pickup selector, 2 volume and 2 tone knobs. Two humbuckers, made by Epiphone I believe. Body is mahogany, neck is maple, I think - the Epiphone website is not terribly helpful when it comes to details like these. Tuners are Grovers, which stay in tune pretty well - requires minor retuning maybe once or twice throughout the course of a gig. Neck has nice thick feel to it but is very playable. Rosewood board.

This is really perfectly suited for my playing style - classic funk (not like the shredding going on in modern funk), soul-jazz, afrobeat, etc. I've been a strat guy for the better part of 15 years, and this is really a better fit for me. You can get strat-like tones out of the middle and bridge positions, and it's incredible for single-note lines. I use it through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp, with an EH Small Stone and Budda Bud-Wah - don't like too many effects on the sound. Nice full, warm, mellow sound - others may not like the stock Epi pickups but they're staying in for now. May eventually put in a Duncan Phat Cat in the bridge but that's further on down the road. Believe it or not, you CAN get beautiful, jangly chords out of this with character and articulation. As you can imagine, sustain is great.

Guitar was purchased brand new from Guitar Center and was set up very well. Just raised the action a tad to my liking. There were a couple other Dots there that were in terrible condition, so be sure to shop around. The neck is in great condition, very straight, frets are set very nicely. Tone/volume knobs are in good shape; one of them is a bit uneven but doesn't affect use at all. The pickup selector feels a bit loose, but works fine for now. The "E" on the pickguard will slide off easily if you peel it, but no matter, I took the pickguard off anyways before this even happened. Aesthetically, it's really a beautiful instrument. Only workmanship flaw is on the headstock - the black finish on the front smudged a bit. Besides this, in really excellent condition. The guitar feels very solid and is feeling better by the minute.

I have been and will continue to gig without a backup - don't have the scratch for that yet. Seems very sturdy, although being a semi-hollowbody, I take good care of it. Finish seems good. Chrome hardware which I like better than gold.

Haven't used them yet.

Overall, it's really a great value. I am very quickly getting over the fact that this is Korean-made. Really, who cares about that if it feels good to you and sounds good to you. I was looking at this and the Sheraton II, and honestly, I didn't care for the extra cosmetics on the Sheraton II - the gold hardware, fancy headstock inlay, neck inlays, neck binding - the Dot just looks more no frills and a bit more badass if you ask me. Also knocks down the price a couple hundo which never hurts.

2004 Epiphone Dot in the natural finish with a mildly quilted maple top for the front of it.
22 Fret neck in the Classic Gibson style but with the slightly more elongated classic Epiphone headstock to it.
2 Epiphone USA Humbuckers (probably actually made in Korea with the rest of the guitar, but at least they use Alnico Magnets).
IT COMES WITH ORIGINAL GROVER TUNERS!!!! Result!! I just wish more middle of the range guitar manufacturers would use Grovers as they are so damn good. Suprise, suprise it stays in tune.
Cheap Epiphone hardcase included. It does the job, but may I suggest ditching it in favour of a decent hardcase if you're going to do any serious work with this guitar.

How many wanabee Indie/Thrash/Metal players are out there buying this guitar and slagging it off?? Have you muppets no idea what this guitar is for?? Ever heard of the Blues? Its the music that your distorted sh*te evolved from. The pickups on this guitar are not weak, they're bluesy. Sheeesh!!
There is a reason why Gibsons and ALL other top end guitars use Alnico magnets, and there's a reason why all you metal-heads put sh*tty high output ceramic pickups in your guitars. If you want to play overdone, high output, distorted, talentless cr*p why on Earth did you buy this guitar?
**************Rant Over*****************
I've played this through my live rig (PA with a Boss GT6 effects processor) alongside my Tele, and my Gibson Historic 58 and it held up well. OK so it's not going to beat their sound, but it only cost #400 rather than #2000+. Its another sound to add to my instrument collection and gives me something that my Les Paul, my Tele, or my acoustic can't give me.
Leave the pickups in and just enjoy playing the thing.

I had it tweaked by the shop that I brought it from, but only to lower the action to one more favourable to me. The intonation was spot on.
I always say that if an electric guitar can sound good unplugged it'll be a good guitar. A good acoustic sound is a good sign of high quality woods; if the electrics turn out to be dire you can always change them. This instrument is no breaker of that law.
The high quality of the wood is visible straight away in the lovely piece of quilt maple used for the front of the guitar. It looks great, is finished great, and plays great.

It's been solid as a rock so far. No complaints.

I NEVER gig with a backup, and I do gigs on my own with just my voice and my guitar. No band, no drum machine, no backing tracks. Live music with no safety net. If you break a string..............hey........at least it proves you're live! And if you can't change a string in under two minutes you shouldn't be allowed to play live!!
By the time you've picked up a 'backup' guitar, checked the tuning, and got it plugged into the rig you could have got at least halfway through changing a string.
The finish seems to be holding up well to the rigours of live performance, no blemishes to speak of yet.

N/A

I've been playing ten years now, and am a big lover of classic rock and the Blues from which it sprung from. From Robert Johnston, to Led Zeppelin, through to Guns N Roses I love the sound of a good bluesy riff.
As I'm primarily an acoustic artist (I love my Takamines) I play directly through a Phonic Powerpod powered PA mixer. This powers a pair of Peavey Pro12 speakers which give a wonderful richness to my sound when playing live. Into this mix is added my Boss GT6 pedal for electric overdriven sounds. It's no tube amp, but at the lower volumes I play at it works beautifully.
This Epiphone is a lovely guitar, and the best thing I can say about it is that I don't think it'll end up as so many of my guitars have, and be sold to make way for something else! Unless someone offered me a Gibson ES335 for a good price!!

Bought this Dot last year for AU$900 with a Gator hardcase. I think I got one of the first Chinese Dots to land in Australia, all the others I'd seen before had been Korean. At first I was concerned, but then I figured they'd be pretty careful with the specs because it's a big company with a reputation to protect (you reading this, Exxon?). Why should I think the Chinese sweat shoppers should be more inept than the Korean sweat shoppers? I shouldn't. Epiphone, I never want to find out to run sweat shops, orright mate?
Do a speed read of the other posts for the features of the Epi Dot, though I should confess mine came with set of BB King trousers, which I now use as a sleeping bag.

I only play blues with the Dot. I'm in a working blues band and all my guitars get a thorough workout. I was happily wanging away on a '95 US Tele when I picked up a mate's Dot one day and diddled away an afternoon. I'd never really played with humbuckers before and decided I had to change tack. I haven't regretted it, and the Dot fits my bill perfectly. The other guitarist in the band now uses my old Tele on stage, so I need not weep about that poor blonde child feeling inadequate and hating me.
I run it through an old Twin that looks like it's been dragged by a goat through the bush for 20 miles; it's really a spongy old thing and the Dot sounds nice and oily through that. It sure can't cut and slice the way the Tele can (or the Strat, which I use for all my slide stuff), but I don't really want it to. I occasionally step on an old Boss OD2 for some ginger, or a wah to make the women dance better, but other than that it's usually a straight signal which suits me fine.
The sound is the main reason I bought the Dot, the second main reason being the price was within my grasp.

Mouldy coconuts here. I got the Dot a bit cheaper and with the case virtually thrown in because I was dicked around a fair bit by the retailer. The Dot had arrived from Asia, presumably, in need of a good rest and a visit to the chiropractor and this clearly had not been done. I'm not scared of doing set ups myself, but I don't expect to if I'm buying a brand new guitar. In short, the neck was twisted like an old guy's wanger and the neck pup would not communicate with the rest of the guitar. This was all fixed once I'd left the shop for the last time (with a frown but with a few extra pesos in the pocket thanks to the crappo service), and other than that I've had no real dramas. I've since spent about $100 on getting the tuners replaced with some GTs (factory ones a little sloppy for mine) because I'm a fairly physical player and where we play it's always hot and humid.
That reminds me to say that if you sweat a lot (I do), the cherry finish will really show the tracks of those salty rivers winding on down to the bridge. It's worse under stage lights, which is what makes me sweat in the first place, because you can really see where my arm's been smudging all the . Sorry, I'm not going to elaborate on this.

I've played the Dot in well and truly and it's already picked up some good dings from collisions with the mike stand, some cymbals and some blues fans with granite heads (we play on some small stages here). It's been reliable and now stays pretty much in tune most of the time. I've had no dramas with the selector, and I think some of you other people didn't make the right animal sacrifices before you bought the guitar, or you'd have no worries.
Really, I've got a choice of other guitars - '69 Strat and a the Tele - which are much tougher but I choose to use this one because I like the sound of it right now. Guitars are tools and they get a bit knocked about - especially in some of the pubs I play in - and this one was good value and still is. If it stays in good playing condition, I don't see why I can't keep playing it. I recommend always having a backup wife; don't worry about the guitars so much.

The original set up problems were handled by the retail guys, as they should have been. Australia may as well be in outer space when it comes to getting any attention from multinational monsters, unless they want to mine our uranium, so I don't expect to have Mr and Mrs Epiphone round for a beer and a game of cards any time soon. The Dot is cheap enough for me to feel comfy doing my own mods anyway and if the sander or drill goes a bit crooked and gouges a channel somewhere, well that's sad but so long as it plays well I'm happy as a pig squelching around in its own mischief.

I've been playing for about 25 years. All my gear is bought for the road, and the Dot is the first "cheap" guitar I've owned, and I continue to be impressed. I haven't got time to do AB tests or comparisons with other Gibsons or Epis or anything like that. It just sounds good to me and I certainly haven't noticed any punters taking a dive for the exit because the sound is horrible. On the contrary, I think the Epi delivers a very warm and human tone. On top of that, it's a very *physical* guitar - big and heavy in your arms so it feels like you're flinging a woman around up there. I like that sensation and it pulls tone out of me, I'm tellin' ya.

This is a Cherry finish Dot from 2003. All the usual features.

This guitar sounds VERY Good.
Let me give you some backround on myself and on my feeling on this guitar.
For a number of years I played Bass Professionally. I recorded for RCA Records in the early 70's and played thru out the country. First of all, I have to get this off my chest.....I ALWAYS laugh whenever I read you idiots on this site say.....
"never gig without a backup"......
Let me tell you, I NEVER had a "Backup" nor did either of the 2 guitarists in my band EVER have "backups". On a rare occassion one of them might break a string (which I never did on the Bass), BUT SO WHAT! Just play around it and change the string later. What, is the neck going to fall off???? But I digress.....
I own a Dot, as well as several other guitars, my good friend owns a number of guitars too. The other night we did a little comparison using some of the guitars we own and a Marshall AVT 20 amp. The guitars were:
PRS Custom 24 Brazillian, Gibson Les Paul Supreme, Gibson Les Paul Studio, Music Man Axis, Gibson Les Paul DC Standard, Fender 50th Anniversary Strat and a Godin LG SP90. A pretty good selection I would think.
Now all these guitars sound and play differently, BUT you know what, this Epiphone Dot really held it's own. I'm not saying it's better than any of these other instruments, but it really does sound good.It was NOT embarassed by any of these other guitars.
Once again, I have to laugh at those who say the pickups on the Dot ar "shit". I can only surmise that people who feel that way do not have a f'ing clue!
The Dot is a budget instrument and while it does actually look and play pretty well, it's certainly no PRS or Gibson, but then again it doesn't cost $2000 plus either.

Looks Good and the neck feels nice

I'd use most ANYTHING without an F'ING BACKUP!
And stop using the word "GIG", you sound like a complete IDIOT saying "Gig", that's another thing we never did back in the day and we ALWAYS LAUGHED at anyone who used that term.

A very nice inexpensive guitar, well worth your time and money

Classic ES-335 body shape with longer vintage Epiphone headstock. Very cool... Mine is the natural finish, which wasn't what I set out to buy, but I'm glad I did. A friend of mine has an old Casino (identical body/finish) which has aged beautifully, despite the bulletproof lacquer. Standard Grover tuners (big plus for me), 22 fret (small) neck, nice medium chunky feel to it, fairly crappy hard case thrown in.

Well, like so many of the people who buy these things, I love the vibe of the ES-335 but don't have that kind of money to spend on yet another guitar. The Dot is well constructed, sounds great acoustically and.... completely sucks when plugged in. I play a lot of different stuff, but mainly blues and jazz. There are some fairly good jazz tones to be had, but the p'ups are oh so WEAK!! I play through a Laney Class A with THD hotplate and BOSS compressor, and can get some awesome sounds out of my Strat (SCN p'ups) and old Les Paul Custom, and I guess in comparison to those, this was always going to lose out. So.... a matched pair of Bare Knuckle Crawlers have, after much cursing and swearing, replaced the laughably named Epiphone Classic '57s, and now this guitar really screams. You can get what you want out of her, I've even got some vaguely Strat-esque quack things going on with the coil splits! But with the output tubes just nudging into break-up, both humbuckers selected and a little tone rolled off, it is the sweetest sound you have ever heard. OK, so the BK p'ups if new would be almost worth as much as the Dot, but for my outlay of around #425 it's a steal! If you have a Dot get the Bare Knuckles! 11 with the new p'ups, 6 without.

The body is great, no issues at all. The action was a little high, but no problem to drop it slightly. The neck is straight and feels good, except for two things - first there is some kind of stain, presumably to make it look like a dark rosewood; this comes off onto your fingers every time you play. I guess it will wear off eventually. Second, the grain of the fingerboard is a little rough and scratchy. One of my many poor techniques is the way I sometimes play vibrato moving just my finger rather than from the wrist as you're supposed to - this means that my nail scrapes across the fingerboard, and on this guitar it snags on the rough surface. Which doesn't feel good. OK, my fault for the stupid way I play, but I haven't ever come across this problem on any other guitar I've played. Anyway, it's smoothing off already, so not a big deal. Other than that, beautiful. Makes my hugely more expensive Gibson look like crap in comparison.

I will use it live, no worries. The headstock/neck join looks a little fragile though - I wouldn't want to put that to the test. The great thing about it is that if it breaks, just whip out the p'ups and start again.

dunno, too soon to say.

Overall rating, for the money, has to be 10. Even if it came without any p'ups at all it is still good value. We'll see if the rest of the electrics are as unreliable as others claim. So far so good... I'm in love with this baby - if I could only keep one of my three electrics, this would be it. I guess the Bare Knuckles would sound great in most guitars, but the quality of construction of the Dot coupled with the sounds I can now get and the fabulous vibe means that I won't be saving up for an ES-335 any time soon. Now where's that Larry Carlton tab...

2003 ebony with chrome 2nd

This thing sounds great. Lots of midrange, which I like, usually play the neck pup, which has a nice mellow tone. The other guitarist I play with likes the middle position, and is constantly begging me to bring it to practice(he puts down his Les Paul Custom for this).

This was a second. Neck pickup was on backwards, I don't know how they could even do that because it was hitting the strings, easy enough to fix. There is a small drip in the paint on the back, virtually unnoticable. Wood showing through around f hole. With about an hour of work it was usable.

This seems well put together, although I haven't seen anyone mention the lack of kerfing inside the body, I am worried about that. Hardware is presumably second rate and I would expect to have a problem with the selector switch. My strap buttons have not come loose! I'd say this would be fine for gigs with a backup.

don't know although I will keep stock so if ......

This is a way cool guitar with the right sound, It is well worth the money. I've played for 30 yrs although a lot of bass lately. I have a 73 fender telecaster deluxe that I'm saving now as collectable. A homemade walnut tele thinline with squier neck. A couple of basses and acoustics.
If it were stolen I'd buy another just like it! I wish it had neck binding.

I've always wanted a Gibson ES-355 or -335, but since I don't have 2-3,000 bucks, I settled for an Epi. I bought this in mid-2004 brand new, so I assume it was made in 2004. It was built in Korea, and is the standard Epi Dot, 2 stock humbuckers, 4 knobs, pikcup selector, etc. Mine is in a cherry red finish with body binding that is really nice...you can really see the grain of the wood through the finish. Mine came standard with the Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop bar tailpiece, which I have since replaced with a Bigsby...this guitar looks HOT! It did NOT come with a case, which pissed me off, although I was able to buy the proper Epi hardshell case for 50 bucks.

I've been playing guitar for 15 years and have veered from playing Zeppelin/Who/Cream/Hendrix style hard rock towards more textured playing in the vein of the Beatles/Blur/Suede/Radiohead/etc, although I play both styles still constantly. I got this guitar because I'm already maxed out on solid bodys (USA Strat, USA '52 Tele, Gibson Les Paul Standard, Gibson SG) and I was craving that Bernard Butler sound and saw he plays Gibson ES-355's and 335's almost exclusively. This guitar doesn't sound just like it's Gibson cousin, but it comes damn close. I string all my guitars with Rotosound strings, and I play through a Vox AC30 or a VOX Pathfinder with a Vox Wah-Wah, MXR Stereo Chorus, Ibanzez TS-9, Dunlop TS-1, DUnlop Univibe, MXR Blue Box, and an MXR dyna-comp. I can get that rich, full, "tubey" sound I want from the Butler/Suede albums all the way to nasty late-60's tones and everything in between. I've found as long as I'm willing to fiddle with the amp, efects, and the tone and volume on the axe, I can get almost anything I want....a total bargain for the buck!

The guitar came set up with the action too low with lots of fret-buzz, but tat was easy enough to fix. The pickups seemed alright and the details that are usually lacking in lower-end axes (fret height, etc) were all done well. The binding also contained minimal showing of the cherry finish, certainly a lot less than I've seen on other Epis. The input jack is perpetually loose, and the pickup selector is kind of cruddy, but overall for the money, it ain't bad.

I'm pretty sure this guitar will withstand live playing, although I'm a pretty aggressive onstage guitarist, I certainly take care of my axes.The hardware and finish seem fine. The strap buttons are fine so far, althouh I've seen on here they have a tendency to loosen up prettyy easily. I never use ANY guitar at a gig without a back-up...even a 2000 dollar Les Paul breaks strings....however, I would use this without hesitiation.

N/A, although I know I am no longer under warranty since I slapped the Bigsby on this guitar.

I've been playing for 15 years, as I said above, and mentioned all of my gear previously. This axe stands up there with everything else I own...it's quality and sounds great. I would definitely replace this if need be. My next two purchases will be Rickenbackers, a 360 and a 360/12, and I know I'll still pull this axe out for that creamy semi-hollow sound, especially for soloing.

Epiphone Dot, Made In Korea. Hollow body archtop guitar with a rosewood neck (22 frets), twin humbuckers, 3 way switch and 4 pots (2 volume and 2 tone controls). Great look...

Considering the price this guitar sounds really good. I play mainly folk-rock music (Beatles, Wilco, Elliott Smith...) and this guitar is a perfect fit. I was looking for a warm tone for rich rythm guitar and this Epiphone gave it to me. Its sounds fat (not thin as my strat) but not to muddy. I really like to way it resonate.

I use a little peavy classic 30 and it sounds great. I must say that through my performer 1000 (transistors) it sounded a bit more thin...

i wouldn't use it for funk or heavier stuff (anyway who would want to play heavy metal with a guitar that look like this!).

i bought it used. It was in mint condition. The previous owner had put grovers keys and strap lock on it. The action was good. I just changed the saddles since strings were always breaking (even though i'm using 0.13 strings). The "7" is for the saddle problem...

It has survive 1 year and about 25 concerts, and is still in good condition. I don't plan changing in for the next 5 years...

NA

I've been playing for 13 years, mostly with a strat and for the past year with this guitar. Even if I didn't think I would trade my strat for another one, I did! I really think it fits my style of playing. The dot offer a great warm sound perfect for folk tunes.

The Dot is the Epiphone version of the Gibson 335. It has a semi-hollow body with dual f-holes. 22 frets, dual humbuckers, 2 volumes, 2 tones, 3 way pickup selector, tune-o-matic bridge. I could go into more detail, but you can just look it up...you're here for the review so i'll cut to the chase.

To be honest when i first bought this guitar I was buying it because it is beautiful instrument...well you shouldn't judge a guitar by its appearance because this thing sounds WAY BETTER it looks, which is hard to believe seeing how great it looks. I was absolutely blown away by range of sounds that come out of this thing. I run it straight through a Fender Deluxe 90 and play anything from jazz to rock to punk. I know that this statement has become kind of a cliche here, but it handles all styles with ease. The tone on the neck pickup is beautifully warm (and sounds particularly good with a hint of overdrive) and the bridge pickup can really scream. Huge versatility.

Everything was pretty well setup from the factory. there were the mandatory intonation modifications but since then I havnen't touched it. The action is more typical of an archtop than a strat, but it was perfect when it arrived and I havne't had to change it at all. Like I said before, this is a beautiful instrument. Mine is in natural finish with chrome hardware. The pick-guard is in the Epiphone shape and to be honest (and I'm not being a Gibson hater here) I like it way better than the Gibson 335 pick-guard. All in all, it looks amazing, which is almost as good as it sounds.

So far so good! I have gigged this guitar about 10 times already and it has held up to everything I can dish out. The stock tuning machines keep the thing singing on key throughout the set and I have yet to notice any wear on any of the hardware. Finish looks pretty heavy so I'm not at all concerned about wear. Very reliable guitar.

No need so far.

I think that for the price this is one of the best guitars out there. It sounds great, looks amazing, and is extremely reliable. The only thing worth noting is that its pretty heavy. This doesn't affect anything about the guitar, but you'll feel it after an hour and a half of jumping around on stage! The guitar is amazing and I really commend Epiphone for creating such a stellar guitar :)

I bought mine about 5 months ago, so I'm thinking mine was made in 2003/4. Usual Epi fare - 2 Humbuckers with volume and tone controls for each, Grover non-locking tuners, tune-o-matic bridge with stop tail piece, etc. Neck feels more substanial than my previous 2 guitars (a Squier Strat and an Epiphone Les Paul).

My Dot comes in a lovely looking tobacco sunburst, which I had to ask the shop I got it from to get from their other branch, as all they had were cherry ones. Comes with a hard case too. which my Epi Les Paul (Bought from the same shop 3 years before) didn't.

This guitar sounds great. I've never played a gibson, so I don't know how much difference there is. I'm currently using a Marshall MG30DFX, and an Electro-Harmonix USA Bug Muff Pi (Soon to be replaced by a RAT). I'm currently a bedroom guitarist, but the kind of music I like to play ranges from Britpop (I can do a good version of the solo from Blur's "This is a Low", which Graham Coxon played an ES335 on), to Manic Street Preachers, to Smashing Pumpkins. It's a versatile guitar, but probably not for the more extreme metal sounds. Having said that, why would a metal guitarist even be lookng at semi-acoustic guitars like this??

Perfectly playable out of the case, nothing to fault here.

This guitar certainly feels durable and feels like it will last. But let's be honest here why wouldn't a decent guitar like this last, unless your name is Pete Townsend?

There are a couple of minor problems to mention here:

The strap buttons did work loose after a few weeks, however, I took the guitar back to the shop I got it from, and they sorted this out for me.

Also, the toogle switch is the usual epi piece of crap, It's not totally screwed yet, but I've had very occasional problems with it, and it feels loose, so I'm going to get that sorted out.

Never dealt with Epiphone in relation to this or my Les Paul. Because I bought this in the UK, I think my Warranty is with the shop, not Epiphone themselves (Correct me if I'm wrong here), but the shop I bought it from - Gamlins' music centre in Cardiff, have been very helpful to me whenever I've asked them.

I've been playing guitar for almost 7 Years, and this is the best guitar I've played. I've never played any Gibsons, and don't intend to. Besides the guy who sold me my Dot said he doesn't feel there is that much of a difference for the price.

If I want a better sounding guitar, I'm goint to consider changing the Pickups and Pots first. A few hundred isn't much when you consider that a significantly better guitar will proably cost a hell of a lot more than one of these and new pick ups.

Taken as it is though I am happy woth it, but I am going to get a new switch fitted asap. that's the only thing stopping it from getting a 10 (and nothing is perfect is it? thought this is close).

I have a 2002 Dot in Natural finish. You all know what the Dot comes with. Bought mine used, didn't come with a pickguard for some reason. I might put a Gibson-style pickguard on it, since the Epi ones are kinda ugly. Also, this is nitpicking, but I wouldn't mind having a bone nut, instead of the ugly black plastic one they got on their. Just for aesthetics' sake. Neck binding would have also been nice. The tuners also kinda suck.

This sucker sounds awesome. A lot of people complain about the stock Epi pups, but they sound decent to my ears. It's plugged into a 15W Ibanez Toneblaster, and it sound fantastic. The only style I wouldn't used this for is high-gain distored metal. With the gain turned up, the pups don't sound all that great. But for Yer Blues and hard rock, the Dot kicks ass.

Action was fine. The finish is flawless. You can see the screw holes where the pickguard is supposed to go, but that is hardly Gibson/Epiphone's fault. Chrome hardware is holding up nicely.

I would definitely gig with this guitar (with a backup, in case you pop a string or something). This sucker has the tone to impress the folks that might come to your live show. I can tell they built these things to last. I don't exactly treat my guitars as well as I should, but it still looks and works as good as they day I bought it.

I haven't had to deal with them yet. Since it was used, the warranty was void.

I love my Dot. It's the only guitar I'll need till I can afford a real 335, which is not in the forseeable future. The Dot is all about tone, tone, tone. If it were stolen, I would save up towards that 335, and just mess around on my crappy Strat copy.

2004 Made in China. Beautiful cherry finish. Dual humbuckers. This model has been well discribed in past posts.

This guitar is a huge step up from the Squire Strat that I started out with. Sounds good unplugged, even sounds good through my little 10 watt practice amp. (I rented a blues junior and it sounded amazing through it.) Suitable for almost any style.(I play rock, blues, country, ect) I changed the strings out right away and this helped it to sound even better.

The set-up was good from the factory. The action needed to be lowered a touch but no big deal. I've taken it under advisement that the nut and the switch should be changed out ASAP but I haven't had any difficulties with either. The guitar looks mighty fine, if I do say so myself.

I haven't been playing for all that long, so I don't play live (unless you count the wife, kids, and the bunny), but this guitar seems very sturdy. Being a semi-hollow body I wouldn't be chucking it around though.

This is something that I'm very happy to say that I have no opinion on whatsoever.

I've been playing for about a year and a half, and I'm very happy that I purchased this guitar. I also own a squire strat and a cheap 10 watt amp. I played alot of guitars in the shop, as well as researching on this and other websites before I made any decisions, and I can say that I found the guitar that suits me perfectly. If this guitar were to be stolen, I would rush down to the shop and purchase this model again.(Elite maybe?) If I were to lose it, I would rush down to the local bar and drown my sorrows for being such a tool. It's a great guitar, no excuses needed.

Epiphone Dot Studio, colour black with body binding in cream, made in China, 22 Frets on rosewood neck(Gibson standard), laminated top, 1 volume control and 1 tone control, togle swich pickup selector, 2 uncovered Gibson type Alnico Humbucker Pickups, black grover toners and black hardware(which are looking really great!). I just fell in love with that black in black look of the Dot.

It fits perfect for my kind of music, that moves between Pop (Beatles like), Rock (no nu metal stuff!)and a little bit of Jazz. I use this guitar for homerecording with a korg ampworks guitar modeler and a small crate glx 65. The sound is very warm, bright and full when I play it without any effect. When I use distortion it sounds very fat and powerfull. I chose the Dot Studio becuase of the more agressive tone of the bridge pickup, that sounds even hotter than that one of the normal ES 335 Dot. So you can play this axe also with harder rock stuff. Really impressing good sound!!

I tested 10 Dots (Dot Studios and ES 335 Dots as well) and this one was fitting perfect! It fullfills my needs in every single way! Playability, finishing, sound ... everything really works out fine!

First of all I dearly care about my instruments, but I think the Dot Studio is built in a very solid way and it will please me for many years. As I said before I use the Epi in my homerecording studio but if the stuff will come out on stage it will also workout fine.

I play guitar and bass since 1978. I owned an Ibanez Guitar(don't know the type), a Fender Strat, a Fender Dreadnought Acoustic, a Hofner 501 Bass, a Rickenbacker 4001 Bass, an Ibanez Musician 924 Fretless Bass ans an Alembic Stanley Clarke Signature Bass. Actually only the Fender Acoustic, the Alembic and the Epiphone Dot Studio have "survived". All other equipment moved away through ebay. But I never would give my Dot away! I always wanted an archtop and was looking for one with a good price-value level. And then the Epiphone passed my way. I just love this guitar. Look, shape, sound and feel are great. For that price you couldn't make a better deal. I definetly would buy another one if this one would get lost or stolen. But I take good care of my baby!

Keep in mind as you read this review that this is a factory refurbished (to factory specs) guitar....

Features:
-Semi-hollowbody Archtop
-Two Gibson designed humbuckers with Alnico magnets,
-Chrome hardware..Grover tuners,
-24.75" neck scale
-Nut width 1.58"
-Set maple neck
-Laminated maple body
-Stopbar tailpiece
-two volume and two tone controls,
-3 way selector switch
-Rosewood fretboard
-Pickguard

I am very pleasantly surprised by how well this guitar sounds and plays. I own three other guitars at the moment ('69 and '72 Tele Thinline reissues, Hwy1 Strat) which are all Fenders. This is my second Epiphone.

I play mostly blues, R&B, soul, funk and some disco stuff in the band I'm in now (http://emerge.home.att.net). Will this guitar suit all of those styles? Probably. I can't see doing without the Strat on all stuff. I played the '72 Tele Thinline reissue for a long time in the same band and it has two humbuckers, so I certainly could get by with the Epi if needed.

When I bought the guitar from Musicians Friend, I had in mind that the Dot would deliver a big fat sound. I wasn't dissapointed there! It sounds huge through my Bassman. I also have a Line6 Spider II 112 and it was a little more difficult to dial in a great sound there. I got the bridge pup just right, but it was a little too muddy when both pups were selected. With the Bassman both pups sounded good together. Will have to do a little more experimenting with the Line6. I've read some complaints of reviewers about the pups, but the sound you get really does depend on your amp and the settings you use..no complaints about the sound here. It sounds as good to my ears as the Ibanez Artcore archtop I once owned.

The guitar is very resonant and a joy to play even without an amplifier.

Again...heep in mind that this is a factory referbished guitar.
Factory setup is excellent and the action is as good as any guitar I've owned. Very playable. Both pickups seem to be adjusted properly. One little flaw is a little worn paint on one of the f-hole edges...no problem there. That could have happened in shipping. Paint seems to be flawless as is everything else on the guitar other than the worn paint mentioned.

It seems to be built like a tank. One concern is the selector switch...feels cheap. Other reviewers have identified this as a problem as well.

I emailed Gibson shortly after ordering the guitar. The string gauges weren't listed and I wanted to know. They were very prompt in their reply...so customer service is very good.

I'm 48 and have been playing since the age of 13. As mentioned above, I own three Fender guitars, a Line6 Spider II 112, a 59 Bassman, Tweed Deluxe, and a Peavey Delta Blues 210.

It's going to take a little time to get used to the larger physical size of the guitar vs. that of my Strat or Tele's. But I can see myself really enjoying this guitar on stage. It's not often you see anyone playing an Archtop. Ought to be a good conversation piece.

It plays like butter simply put. Very nice action and feel to the neck for my hands. Big sound, high quality for the money spent. I'm a happy camper.

No need to repeat the features other than semi-hollow, 2 humbuckers, and gibson-style controls (2 vol, 2 tone, 3 way selector switch). These can be great guitars if you're willing to put a little work into them....new nut, new pickups, new wiring, err...everything but the wood! But I don't mean that in a bad way actually, I like doing that kind of stuff so it seems worth it to me. What's the alternative? $2500+ for a gibson 335?

The sound from the stock pickups is a little thin and bright compared to gibson stock or any other replacements. It depends on the amp, really, Or what kind of sound you're going for. Not every guitar has to sound like a reproduction of 60's british blues or american acid rock. I use alot of effects (reverb,delay , chorus, etc,) to get a washy sound. I like the guitar to not always sound like a guitar..depends on what the song needs.

I've owned 2 of these and they both had a decent setup when I got them. I'm a guitar repairman and always setup my guitars anyway...I remember the intonation being a little funky and the nut being a generic plastic one with improper string spacing.

The electronics on Epiphones tend to crap out, especially the selector switches, so be prepared-hopefully it will happen in practice! The bridges are made of a softer metal and tend to develop burrs and ruts pretty easily so string breakage can be a problem. Those burrs can be filed out or you could just replace the bridge. I changed out the tuners on mine to Schaller Gibson style green ones more for looks than anything.

I fix all my own guitars so I've never dealt with them. If you're electronics go bad within a month or so you should be able to take it back under warranty.

I've been playing for about 12 years, gigged, toured, recorded, repaired, built, bought, sold, and played almost every guitar out there. I think I have gear ADD. I've built guitars and basses (amps next!) and work at music store as a repairman. I've seen just about every guitar come into our store. So basically-- Epiphone= electronics bad, hardware decent, looks shiny! They can be great if you want to finish the job for them.

I purchased the guitar at the 'Guitar, Amp and Keyboard Centre' in Brighton. It was made in Korea, and has a mapel back, sides, top and neck. Mine was produced in 2002. All of the parts function. I'm not going to give the guitar 10/10 in this catagory because of the Epiphone head but apart from that minor fault, everything else is good. 22 frets. 2 tone and 2 volume. Lovely neck and body shape.

This is going to be a honest review.

I like to play blues/rock, and this guitar suits my style perfectly. It has a lovely raucus Gibson tone that's great for Rythmn and lead. I'm starting to flirt more with semi-accustics now than ever before. I use the guitar with a Marshall MG30 and I think this electronic device is only used to it's full potentional when played with Marshall equipment (Gibson + Marshall=Umm). It is easy to moderate the volume using the knobs, this also applies for tone. To apply emotion to a song, just select the rythmn pick-up and for some exciting Rock soloing, the treble pick-up is perfect. The guitar has a mellow sound and it can be quite haunting if you use reverb.
It has a unique sound, this is great but unfortunately this means that if you want a 'Les Paul' or 'Telecaster' sound you have to buy another guitar. Personally, I love the sound.

The set-up, when I purchased the guitar, was OK. I had to grind down the frets and adjust the height of the pick-ups. Fortunately I had no serious problems. The finish is spectacular, Ilove it and I think that anyone who likes to have a rich and glossy finish on their guitars will love it to. The pots are fine and the pick-up selector is also fully functional. Bridge and tail-piece are good. The machine heads are of a very high standard for such a well priced guitar, #315.

I have owned this guitar for about 7 months now and I have never had any problems. Nothing has broken and the hardware I think is going to remain working for years to come.The strap buttons are good. The finish looks very durable indeed. I can confidently perform live without worry

I have not had to use customer service so i am content with that.

I started playing 10 years ago and I that time I have owned a Gibson SG, a Fender Strat, an Epiphone Les Paul, a home-made guitar and the 335. The Epiphone 335 is definitely my favorite. I would like to know how they can manufacture this guitare and then sell it for such a good price. If it was stolen I would immediatly buy another. I would never lose it because I treasure it. I love the sound, it's wonderful and it suits all styles. I have difficulty thinking of things that I hate about it because a good guitar from every aspect. I compared this guitar with many guitars before I purchased it but at the time i felt that purchasing another guitar would leave me forever wondering if i made the right decision. It's a marvellous guitar for a beginner, an expert, or someone who just wants to sample a melodic Gibson tone. Don't spend #1000-#2000 on a Gibson when you can buy this guitar because when you buy the Gibson you're only buying the label.

2002 Natural finish Korean madeDot purchased new. Maple back, sides, top, and neck, Mahogany center block. Top is much plainer than Gibson version, but really nice for the price. All stock except for that ugly Epi pickguard, which I modified to a more attractive shape. I will probably replace with a Gibson version. Controls are standard 2 vol, 2 tone, with 3-way selector. Nice thick but not too thick late fifties Gibson type neck, 22 frets.

Real good thick Gibson type tone, cuts through a little more with the maple neck. Clean tones are nice and airy, not flat at all, really sings through a Fender Deluxe Reverb 2. Fantastic crunch for AC/DC-type rock through Spider 2 amp on the Boogie setting. Great B.B., early Clapton tones on neck pickup. Sounds good on old Sabbath tunes, too. Not very good for modern metal, but who the heck buys a big semi-hollow for that, that's what Jacksons are for!! Bridge pickup was a little flat until I bent the mounting screw tabs so the pickup was parallel to the strings, much better now. Might replace with a Duncan or a Burstbucker 2. Neck pickup is really sweet, and it isn't going anywhere,

Factory set-up was o.k., action was typically a little high so it wouldn't buzz at all in the store. Had to do a little fret polishing to get a good buzz-free low action. Stock strings were garbage. Bridge pickup was mounted with the screw polepiece side a good 1/8th" further from the strings than the "slug pole" resulting in a flat tone. After bending pickup mounting tabs, pickup now rests parallel to strings, much better tone.
The tuners work just fine, some of the best stock units I have used. The bridge and talipiece are good quality, but will probably be replaced with Tone-pros units.
One major gripe, the lead volume pot crapped out less than a month after purchase. Fortunatley I always have a bunch of spares, but still, come on!! Also, the selector switch does not always work, and you have to wiggle it some to get it to function. All the pots and switches need to be replaced, but I'm too lazy to do it. I gather this is a common problem with Epi guitars.
All the wood parts of the guitar are fine. The finish over the natural wood is as flawless as can be and seems to be holding up to hard playing just fine. While it doesn't in any way look like an old laquer finish, the clear coat is aging quite nicely and the guitar is taking on a nice pleasing warm look to it. Not the same as a '58 Gibson original, but very pleasing for an under $500 guitar.
The one thing I cannot stand is that ugly-ass stock Epi pickguard. They need to use one more like the Gibson.

Had the guitar for nearly 2 years now, and no major problems except the above stated electronic problem. The finish is as tough as can be. It stays in tune very well. I have not had to adjust the neck since I first bought it. The bridge has held it's adjustment well and seems to be resisting wear fine. Although I never gig with one guitar, it would be fine so long as I didn't have to switch pickups in the middle of a song. That would be rectified with an electronics swap-out.

Have tried to get in touch with Gibson several times on issues not related to this guitar, not too easy to deal with. They used to be really helpful in the late '80s, early '90s, now not so much.

All in all a very nice sounding easy to play attractive guitar, desptite ugly pickguard and annoying electronic issues. I may very well buy another just because ( it's a sickness).

2003 Made In Korea. Features the usual twin humbucker 3 way switch 4 pot layout. Mine's a gorgeous Cherry finish, one of it's best features. Nice easy neck to play. Came stung with .010's which are OK for me. Body and neck are laminated maple etc, etc.....Grover tuners which are OK for stability. Tune-O-Matic with a stop tailpiece. 2 Gibson humbuckers with chrome covers. Essentially a Gibson ES-335 with no neck binding and lesser grade materials. But all in all, pretty remarkable workmanship for such an "inexpensive" guitar.

Well, I really like the sound of this guitar with the Gibson HB's. I play a lot of melodic guitar pop (Beatles especially) and although I own and love an SG, I like having a semi-hollow axe for certain kinds of tasks. No noise, that's for sure! Range is cool...from nice and bright (but full) to deep and mellow. This guitar is great for pop, rock, blues and most points in-between. Well, ya can't shred on it but it's not made for that. I'll keep the pickups as is for the time being. They sound great thru a Fender Blackface tube amp. This guitar also records very well and I just plain like to listen to it!

The guitar's set up is, as usual for Epiphone, dodgy, at best. Intonation is goofy and the selector switch on mine is, for the time being, OK. But The finish is very pretty although it has Black paint runoff on the f-holes. The creme binding is nice but there is a slight "cherry" tint to it. The action is real easy and I didn't have to reset that at all. Just a few minor things, relatively easy to fix myself.

Strap buttons are real solid. I'm sure it'll serve well live. Depend on it? We'll soon find out! Never gig without a backup quoth the Raven....

Epiphone is very nice to me and I endorse their products. Still, their "limited lifetime warranty" is ridiculous since modification of their stuff is almost always necessary and that "voids" the warranty. Neat trick.

Been playing 40 years and have owned vintage Gibson and Epi semi-hollow guitars. I currently own a Epiphone G-400 SG (which I love), Fender Jimmie Vaughn Stratocaster, Rickenbacker 12-String, several Danelectros and an SG doubleneck. This one compares favorably. It's chief quality is that it gives you great bang for the buck at this price point. A great choice if you don't want to waste $2000-3000 on a Gibson which, as far as the new ones go, don't sound that much different than this baby does. I do like this guitar and I'd certainly get another DOT if I had the opportunity.

Made in Korea? 2004 gibson paf humbuckers I believe it's lamenated?

This Guitar sounds great.I play it thru vox and fender amps.Love the sound of this guitar.Sounds as nice as my gibson les paul.When i first bought it i was getting a humming noise i noticed every time i ran my fingers across the pickguard it was like a static sound.I almost took it back for a refund but decided to take the pickgaurd off.The static sound disappered and it suited my playing style better . i tend to wrap my pinky finger under the bridge pickup on all my electrics while playing lead parts and with the way the pickguard was positioned i was unable to so.after the mode it sounds fantastic.I am playing the dot more than any other guitar in my arsenal with the excepion of my hummingbird.

My dot was set up perfect. i have played many epiphones in the store that sounded like junk along with some gibsons.So play several before you buy.The wood looks wonderful i bought a natural finished one.Looks ,sounds and play's like a dream. I am playing this much more than my gibson les paul at the moment.

Epiphone makes great instruments.play several before you buy! i also own a epi viola bass that i giged with for the past 10 years and it never gave me a problem so im shure my dot will do the same

been playing since 1974. i own a gibson les paul,gibson hummingbird,
martin d15,washburn 12 string,epiphone viola bass,guild pilot bass, rickenbacker bass,sg classic p90.vox and fender amps.The epi is a great guitar and certainally holds it's own with any guitar in my arsenal.Don't be discuraged of buing one because it's not a gibson or made in the usa.It's an epiphone! and a great guitar.Just be picky and play a few before you buy and beware of lemons with any guitar.except maybe an olsen!

Epiphone Dot sunburst finish, stop tail piece, two pick-ups with individual tone controls for each. Chrome tuners and hardware. Fast smooth neck, great finish. Came with an Epiphone hard case.

I bought the guitar off a private seller on Ebay and he had changed the pick-ups out and installed Classic Gibson PAF '57 pick-ups. So the sound out of these pick-ups is outstanding. They work for blues, jazz, pop. Nice full sound, through my Fender Princeton 210. No effects used.

Got the guitar the action was a little low, after I raised the action it played great. Pick-ups were after market and are nickle covered so they dull pretty fast while the rest of the guitar stays nice and shinny. The tuners are chrome and not as smooth as Grovers but they keep the guitar in tune, Everything else about the guitar is functional and straight forward. I tightened all the parts so nothing was loose or rattling around. The Epiphone company really does a fine job making these guitars.

This guitar was made to play live, it easily covers almost everything. I have a G&L ASAT for everything else. Guitar really is a quality instrument. No flaws and very affordable. Epiphone does a great job with their guitars. I use Dunlap strap locks again an after market addition but then again my strap doesn't fall off.

I have talked to the Gibson company in Nashville about their Epiphone line and they were very helpful. So I'll give them a 10. The pick-ups were changed before I bought the Guitar so I don't think the warranty applies. Again the folks at Gibson were very helpful.

Overall this guitar is a 8 when compared to say the Gibson ES335, or the Heritage 575 or a Guild but overall the guitar is rock solid and hard to beat at this price point. The stock pick-ups sound excellent, they were changed out before I bought the guitar so the guitar sounds like it has PAFs in it. I've been playing for over thirty years and when I started there were only Gibsons, Fender and Rickenbacher's. This guitar has that "Gibson" sound. I'd buy another on of these Dots again. Overall it is a solid performer. Epiphone really does do a fantastic job on all their guitars. I use an old Fender Princeton Solid state 210 amp and the tone is outstanding.
I also have a G&L ASAT and an old Martin acoustic.

ist bekannt! meine ist 2 jahre alt, gut in schuss, quasi neuwertig. cherry. und schon....... die toogleswitches machen mir bei epiphone sorgen, meine erfahrung zeigt, die halten ne zeit ( 2-5 jahre ) dann leiern die aus und es gibt schwierigkeiten.

ich habe in den letzten 12 monaten ca. 10 335-modelle besessen. tanglewood as 35, sheraton (ne alte, gut 12 jahre alt), johnson, aria pro2 ta 70, harley benton, coxx deluxe 3-35....
gekauft und wieder verkauft (dank ebay). und es hat ausser den ersten einsatz (es war die coxx) nix gekostet, da ich immer mit gewinn verkauft habe. und mein fazit aus dieser reichhaltigen vergleichserfahrung? die epi ist es! sie ist am nachsten am orginal, klingt mit den gibsondisgned hb doch sehr gut, haindling und bespielbarkeit uberzeugt, recht solide elektrik (im vergleich zu den anderen!). aria war zu! fett und neigte zur mikrophonie, coxx kommt protzig daher, ist alles in allem aber doch ne billigklampfe, harley benton ist ne gute alternative, wenns geld knapp ist (echt!!), die sheraton war wirklich schlecht verarbeitet, wie hingerotzt, aber ist auch ne alte aus den 90ern gewesen, vielleicht ist es nu besser. de epi klingt schon, warm, satt, fett, brilliant, sustainreich, wie man es grad braucht....

bis auf mangel in der elektrik alles in butter.....

tja, elektrik, du versaust die 10, oder die 9.....der rest macht mir keine sorgen und wirkt gut und solide....

keine ahnung

im vergleich und in der preisklasse: top! naja, die tanglewood und die harley benton sind wirklich gute gitarren! und kosten weniger! aber die epi ist n tacken besser. aber hier entscheidet nicht nur geld, sondern auch gefuhl. die tanglewood klingt wirklich gut, wirkte aber irgendwie billig, fast wie spielzeug. aber sie klingt! die harley benton klingt auch sehr gut, aber ich wurde nicht warm mit ihr. wie gesagt, das gefuhl spielt eine grosse rolle. vieleicht bin ich auch nur der epi verfallen, weil sie mehr dem orginal gleicht als die anderen, aber nun mal ehrlich: sie ist solide von guter qualitat und gutem sound. wenn man etwas mehr anlegen kann, dann ist man mit der epi auf der sicheren seite. vor allem auch in sachen verarbeitung, da lag sie echt vorne.... hat eigentlich jemand erfahrung mit der epi es 335 dot studio??????

My Epi Dot was made in 2003 in Korea. I paid $378.00 out the door with an extra cable and a strap. It's all stock, so what everyone else said applies to mine. One thing i will say is that i love the finish... its a semi transparent red, you can see the grain of the wood through it... its beautiful. All my friends commented on that when i first got it. I call them elitist... those people who rag on Epiphone electronics. I dont plan on changing anything except the selector switch and perhaps at a later date, the nut. I got this guitar from Marshall Music in Lansing, MI, drove it home, plugged in and played with zero adjustments necessary. (Sorry Elderly, you guys dont want to know people like me with limited money to spend.)

I have been playing religiously for about 6 years. Most of that time was playing acoustic. I looked at a variety of electrics for close to a year before purchasing my Dot. My style is something along the blues, classic rock vein. I'm trying to learn some jazz. I love the tone of this guitar. If nothing else it is very versatile. Play clean and it can get just a bit jangly, adjust the knobs a bit and you can get a slight twang. It can go from light distortion to the boomiest dirtiest distortion. you've ever heard. If i have one complaint about this guitar its that, to me, and maybe this is the way i play... it can get overly bassy. But i have a feeling thats me more than anything. I play it through a Marshall AVT 50 (some like them, some dont. Personally i love this amp.) I'm not much for effects really, but i bought a Crybaby 95q a few months ago, and although my playing sucks when i use it... my friend Chris can make that set up sing.

The only thing that i will comment on in terms of fit and finish is that the Epi "E" logo on the pick guard fell off within a week of ownership. And like i said above, i got this guitar home, plugged it in and played. Apparently the selector switch in these is not well made... mine also cuts out very seldomly when switching between pickups, but to me its not a big deal, but it will get replaced.

This is a durable semi hollow body. Would it stand live playing? Absolutely.
Will the hardware last? i think so, but hell... this is my first real electric.
the finish? love it, durable, high quality, no noticable flaws.
Would i gig with it without a backup? I have and will continue to... mostly because i dont have a backup. But i dont worry about it at all.

No experience here.

Like i said above... I've been playing almost 6 years. I'm very much in the intermediate level. The only other gear i own is a Seagull acoustic with a cheezy little crate practice amp. I was very well informed about what was out there in my price range. I asked everything ad nausium before buying this guitar. NO REGRETS. Would i buy another if lost or stolen? yes.
Im no connaisseur of fine electric guitars, but this one rocks. I dont understand those out there who think you have to go into debt to have a decent set up. The Epi Dot is a versatile, good quality, good sounding guitar

2003 Korean, you know the deal, get the case!

I like the sound. But then again, I had to have the guitar set up when I got it, and I'm not talking the bullsh*t setup like Guitar Center

I bought this from a friend who also owns a small shop. I ran into one of these in a bar in Amarillo and when I got back I told him I had to have one. He ordered it in and it was NOT set up I don't care what the f*ck they say at Samsung. I was about to get pissed but with a little coaxing the damn thing performs like a champ and I should know. Trust me, I abuse guitars on stage.

As I said, I abuse guitars and this thing is tough. Even for a semi-hollow. I used to have nightmares of people smashing one of the hollow sides but I've had drunks throw bottles at me on stage and it didn't crack and my ex-wife threw the case out of her car when she left me. Picked it up, took the guitar out and started to play a sad song. But like everyone here is saying, replace the nut, the selector switch and adjust EVERYTHING and you'll be happy. Yes, you can play it live. No, I don't care if you have the finest guitar made, NEVER play without a backup. But if I had to I guess I could

I've never had to use them but I'm sure I've voided the warranty. ha ha ha

Been playing about 5 years now. I own a 1970 Martin D-18 that I'd never dare to treat this badly. Trust me, this guitar earns her keep. I play through an old Kustom 100 4x10 built in 69 and I'm telling you it sounds freaky. It's just like my ex. Play her soft and she sings so sweet. Spank her and she hollers like a backwoods preacher. Wish it really did come set up from the factory. Wish epi would listen to the customer and fix the selector switch problem. Wish the warranty wasn't so cheezy but what are you going to do. I had a couple people laugh at me when I told them I bought it but when I showed her to 'em and after they tried it out they just looked over at me and said "Damn" There you go.

This is Epiphones copy of the Gibson ES-335. Dual humbucker pickups with volume and tone for both. Laminate Maple top and a stop tail piece. This one has a natural finish on it but the figure of the top isn't that great so getting a colored one isn't a bad idea. I'm giving this a 7 rating because the wood used for the top isn't very nice looking and there was a problem with the pickup selector switch that appears to be pretty common on that years production.

I've used this for everything over the years, from Metal to Jazz, and I worked ok for all of them. The pickups don't have that great a sound, but it's passible. The acoustic sound is pretty muffled, but ok for bedroom practicing.

The guitar was setup fine from the factory and I run 12's on it right now (it has 10's from the factory). There is a slight intonation problem on the fourth string at the fifth fret, but that is probably because of the heavier guage strings. The neck is thin and fast just like the 335 it's copying. The strings are set so low, that I always seem to hit the neck pickup when I play. The finish on the guitar seems to be built very tough. I have banged this guitar around quite a bit over the years and the guitar show's no signs of wear (chips, scratches, etc).

One major anoyance with the guitar the is location of the strap button on the back of the neck. It's located so the guitar wants to tip forward when hanging from the strap. If I was going to actually use a strap for this guitar while playing at shows, I would have the button moved up on the body to prevent this.

Had this guitar for about 6 years and it has held up very well. I wouldn't have any qualms about taking it gigging. The guitar itself is pretty solid. When I bought the guitar, the selector switch for the pickups was already going bad (it would cut out when switching to the bridge pickup). Just needed a good cleaning and it works fine now. Shouldn't need to do that from the factory though.

Never had to deal with customer support.

This is a good practice guitar and a pretty good deal for a 335 copy. With a little money invested (in better pickups) it would be an inexpensive gigging guitar with good sound.

Made in Korea, 22 frets, 2 volume and 2 tone knobs, 3 way selector, two USA-made humbuckers. I think it has a tune-o-matic bridge, but im not sure. Grover tuners. Creme binding. The one I bought was ebony.

I play jazz and contemporary christian stuff. It suits my style well enough. It's mellow and rich sounding, but like everyone else says, it'll never be as good as a real Gibson. I play through a 120 watt crate amp, and it sounds pretty good in my opinion.

Well I can't say that the factory set-up was perfect. The action was a little too high, the tuners were loose, and the little "E" on the pickguard eventually fell off on its own. There was also a questionable amount of fret buzz. The finish is very good though.

The pick-up selector seemed fine the first few days, but eventually the signal started breaking up, so I replaced it. The rest of the hardware is durable. Got orange knobs switched to gibson black knobs so it matches the rest of the guitar. This guitar was well-built, and it can withstand live playing. Just don't do anything crazy.

I've been playing for about 4 years now and I've had this guitar for about 8 months and its still sounding good. I use tremolo and distortion boss effects with this guitar. I also own an ibanez RG deluxe, but for obvious reasons, the epiphone suits my style a lot more. If it were stolen or lost, I would probably save up for a real es-335.

Made in Korea, 2003 a gibson es 335 knock off. usual features apply, grover tuners (is that normal?). The finish is natural letting the maple shine through.

I mainly play punky stuff in the veign of goldfinger and lagwagon, i just wanted a different guitar that isn't really used in this genre and it fits in perfectly, this guitar can sing. i know that this guitar can handle most styles of music but not through my own personal experience. im using the epi through a laney vc30 112 and a line 6 distortion modeller and it seems like a very good combination. My only gripe is (and it is a small one) is the pickups are poorly set up, but with a few minor adjustments you simply can't go wrong for the money.

This is only my personal opinion but the setup was shite, mainly because i like to play with guage 13 strings and this epi came setup for 9s but i soon rectified that. the finish is almost flawless its a little rough around the f-holes but again at the price you'd have to be pretty p*$&*d off at the world to grumble(i.e. in radiohead). If i liked playing with 9s the setup was more than reasonable.

This guitar has withstood numerous hot, sticky and sweaty gigs and looks like it could go another 10 rounds. i could depend on it in any situation but the golden rule still appies never gig with out a backup or you will learn the hard way (trust me i know), thats not nessercarily the guitar at fault but its alot easiar to swap guitars over than change a broken string.

never need it so i dont know even though i have owned numerous epis, but i guess thats a good thing

I have been playing for roughly 8 years and through making my own guitars i know a little bit about the instrument and this is a particulary good specimen but dont kid yourself it aint a gibson and no matter what you do to it it wont sound like one simply because gibsons are made with a great deal of love these babies aren't. currently i own 6 guitars 3 home mades and a 50's tele a epi g400 and of course this epi dot. i dont use the tele that much these days as its getting on a bit so i save it for studio work but my epi dot is the real workhorse she'll take anything i throw at her and for the money i am really impressed go get one, i hope its serves you as well as mine has.

This is a 9/2003 model. Made is Korea, which personally I'm ok with. I think it has 24 frets but I haven't actually looked to tell the truth. Been playing thirty years and have ten guitars, so I just try to get the best sound and technique I can, and try not to worry alot about the details. Maple top, back and sides are laminated, same as the real Gibsons.3 way pick up switch, two volume and tone, same as the real Gibson. Oddly, switching and wiring is backwards from the American counterparts. Two humbuckers that are "Gibson designed" which means that they are basically the same as the Gibson models, but made in Korea I'm sure. I think theseare PAF copies. One big difference is that the neck is maple, as opposed to mahogany, as with the real deal. You might get a little darker sound, should be close. 335 style body. finish on my particular model is really nice. Polyester finish instead of nitro-cellulose as with the American cousin. Bear in mind I have several Gibsons and don't expect a $350 dollar guitar to be the same as a $3000 Gibson or Heritage. Really nice Grover tuners, a real surprise considering when I build a guitar I pay fourty bucks for a set, eleven percent of the cost of the overall product.

OK. The sound is not a Gibson, stock pickups are not the best, I have a spare set of 57 classic plus's I'll probably end up putting in. Iplay through a '64 super reverb, '64 deluxe reverb, '99 tremo verb 412 cab, '03 rectoverb and a shitload of pedals, wahs, etc. Again, for what it is, it ain't bad. I can see wher the pup switch will fail soon, as it feels pretty weak. Switchcraft! I play Blues, Jazz, Rock, Metal if I can get to; great for Blues, Jazz and some styles of rock. Won't work for Metal. Bright sound , not to round though. Thin mids. Might just be 'cause it's new. Poly takes forever to break in because it's just plastic. Not alot of resonance, but it'll be fresh for a long time.

Great factory set-up. Pickups were off, but I fixed that easily. Top's ok, I didn'tbuy this with the intention of getting a showpiece. This guitar's only flaw is that one of the tuners was mounted slightly off,(rotated about a millimeter)but I got it really cheap because it's marked as a factory second. That's OK, 'cause it plays and sounds fine.

hard to predict how long anything will last until you use it alot. should be fine. I NEVER gig without a back-up, usually three or four.

No problems as yet. No experience with Epi. Stay tuned...

I won't go into all my gear, but it's alot. I have spent twenty five of my fourty one years collecting the best I could find. Until this guitar, none cost me less that a thou., many pieces were three to four times that. I bought this guy on a whim. However, if it were stolen or lost I would replace it. The Elitist series might be a consideration, but I have discovered over the years that if you're not in the studio, the drunk in the front row, or the chick eying you in the back really don't care what you're playing. They care about how much of you is put into it. Remember it's about sadness, anger,soul or whatever YOU feel. This piece is good enough for about everything the local level guitarist will run into.

Ebony, Chrome Hardware, Two Humbuckers, Three Way Switch, Grovers

I don't hear a problem with the stock Humbuckers, although I'm playing through a Gallien Krueger 1001RB II full stack (4X10 and 115), so I full control over low end and top end and a Lexicon MPX 100. It has the variations I like for jazz, blues and rock.

Action is great I set it myself. Fit is fine for me. Finish looks very good no flaws.

I've only had it two days. I did a gig 30 minutes after I bought it. No problems.

Very informative. Lifetime warranty......Great.

I love the Dot well worth the money, but if the Dot is this good I'm taking it back and raising the bar to the Sheraton II. Either are great deals.

Cherry finish. 2vol 2tone. stop tail piece. dot inlay. 2 gibson made (not samsung made) pickups. no binding on the neck. ivory binding on body. maple neck. plastic (not bone) nut. chrome (not silver) hardware.

FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!FLIMSY!i play through a line 6 ax2. this guitar dosent really sound that great. even after i changed the stock nut. i also changed the pickups to gibson 57 classics. the WOOD MATERIAL is not good quality. it sounds cheap and toy-like. i only like using the bridge pup, but even that is not that great sounding. the neck dosent feel good when you play it. it feels FLIMSY!

WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!WEAK!
intonation was completley off. action was too high. buzzing at a lot of positions. even after a pro setup, there was still some buzzing. inconsistant (cherry) finish. nasty pick up selector. it started going bad in a week. i replaced it along all the pots.

bad pots, bad nut, bad pickups. you gotta change all that.

come on man! customer support? whatever......

if you're gonna go through all the trouble of changing all those stock parts on an epi dot, why not look for something that comes with better stock part? like maybe a gibson? now i have to sell this one and save up for a guitar that i KNOW will increase its resale value even a hunderd years from now. after i sell this epi dot, i'm gonna save up for a guitar that i KNOW will sound better as it ages

Made in 2002. Korean made. 2 hb pups. volume volume tone tone. 3 way pup selectzor. cherry red.

I bought mine 3 months ago. It actually sounded nice straight out of the box. It had a nice meaty sound. The stock pups are not that bad contrary to what most folks say. Don't waste $110 for gibson 57 classics. The tone will mainly stay the same, the only thing you'll notice is that it make the guitar louder. A buddy of mine put 57s on his dot. I couldnt really tell. This guitar is good for all styles. Use heavier gauge strings. replace the 3 way pup selector (you'll have to anyway).

This is where the dot needs help. No matter what.....you'll have to get it setup. Either by yourself or professionally. The intonation was a mile off. the action was too high. there was a lot of buzzing with the strings. the truss rod needed some tweeking. The finish was very inconsistant. If you see one like this, don't panic, all standard epi dots will have a flaw in their finish. you can go to 10 different shops to search for a dot, but you'll notice the same thing

Quite reliable. But make sure you change the pots!!!!!!!

customer what?

The only thing that i changed on the dot were the pots. This guitar is great. if it were stolen, i would get a casino instead. you're paying 400 bucks, dont expect the quality of a gibson or and american fender. out of all the hollow body/semihollow bosy archtop guitars epi makes.

I don't really know when it was made - bought it used in 1999. I did have to tweak this guitar a bit. The original pickups (which were actually OK) were replaced by a SD 59 in the bridge and a SD Jazz in the neck. The pots are a little scratchy (doesn't bother me) and the 3-way switch is starting to bite it (I'll need to fix that!). You basically know the features.

I wanted this guitar for a back-up/complement/change to the Carvin "strat" I usually use - mostly I use it at home for my own enjoyment. I've only played this guitar live on one occasion for a solo jazz set at a coffee shop - was very tasteful for this setting. There's been several times others have played this live and man does it sound nice! Blew away my friend's Les Paul Studio (sounded brighter and more alive) and a guy played it at a gig I played bass for the other night and it sounded real sweet. I need to put down my strat and give this a shot in front of a crowd this week. I think the beauty of these guitars is that they're not all that common - the jangly yet warm sound is always a nice treat. Great for anything but extreme rock. Used with a wide variety of amps - most amps can handle these types of guitars pretty well since they are not extreme in any way.

Action is nice - I had a tech adjust it for me and I thought it sounded bad - so I raised the action back up and have really gotten used to it. Feels very silky after playing my strat. The finish is OK - some blems on mine but I actually like scratches and dings here and there... My complaint is the pots & switches. Nothing a little patience and a soldering iron can't fix.

The only thing I don't like is that I would think this guitar would be more fragile than a solid piece of wood (duh!) so I get a little nervous. The stupid 3 way can be a problem at times... I probably wouldn't go without a back up.

NA

I really like this guitar and hope others will check it out. It needs some tweaks (pickups, pots & switches) but it is a fun guitar to own. I HATE seeing average players paying for overpriced guitars when relatively inexpensive ones + a little common sense can get the job done just as well. This will do the trick - forget the expensive Gibson version. Unless of course they send you one for free!

Just purchased the Epi Dot this week. It was new so it must be a 2003 and it was made in Korea. I went to Guitar Center to try out some guitars, I was looking for the Epi Sheraton II but they did not have any, and this was sitting right at the front of the store. I instantly fell in love with this guitar. It is cherry red...if you have seen pictures on the internet it does not do this thing justice. Go to the store and look at it. It is amazing looking. Controls seem nice but I think I might change them out for black with chrome tops eventually. Grover tuners so the thing going out of tune has not been much of a problem. PUs are the stock Gibsons. Contrary to popular belief they sound really nice. Nice warm mellow tones, can get muddy but there are so many different tone settings you can avoid this (unless you want a muddy tone).

I had been playing a Fender Telecaster and I noticed my style moving more towards a mellow sound. Picked the Dot up in the store and it was a perfect fit. In the jazz and blues arena, this guitar delivers. I play mostly blues and original jazz/blues pieces and this guitar amazes me every time I pick it up. In the store I played it on some tube amps...and it kicked ass. I brought it home to my small Marshall and it still kicked ass. It did sound a bit warmer with the tube amps, but that was expected. My favorite pickup to use is the neck pickup on around a 5 tone setting. It is very warm and mellow. I haven't played it through much distortion but when I did it seemed to be alright. I did get quite a lot of feedback though. Some of you out there might really desire that. Overall, for the price you can't beat it. Those Gibson freaks out there who say it can't compare don't know what they're talking about. The sound is quite comparable to an ES-335. It's not about how EXPENSIVE your guitar is it's WHAT YOU DO WITH IT that matters. Some of these Gibson fanatics might have $3,000.00 guitars but can't play worth shit. Buy an Epiphone, save money and have those types of people kicking themselves when they hear you play.

The action on my guitar was quite good when I bought it. It doesn't really matter to me though. It seems like the PUs were adjusted correctly. There is one microscopic flaw in the finish but that's it! Other than that it is perfect. No string buzzing, no loose tuning pegs...perfect.

I don't play live, but hope to some day in the future. The Dot seems very reliable. The hardware SEEMS like it will last, but according to many Epi users the switches go bad after a while. Knock on Wood this will not happen to me (I know, wishful thinking)! I would probably bring a backup just in case though. It also seems very durable but I do not wish to find out! I take care of my guitars as if they were my own flesh and blood.

Haven't had to deal with them....hopefully I won't.

I've been playing for about 3 years now. I own a Fender Telecaster and that's it for my "gear". If stolen or lost I couldn't buy another one as I am a student and am therefore very poor. I could only buy this one as my parents gave me $150.00 for an early X-mas present and I had the extra 200 already saved up. I would probably save up for another one though. This guitar is great for jazz and blues and I can attest to that. There is nothing I can find to hate about the Dot.

2003 model, chrome hardware, 2 (stock) Gibson HB pickups, (stock) Grover tuners, 2 volume and tone knobs, 3 way pickup selector switch, (lam.) Maple body with a Natural gloss finish.

The guitar was made in Korea but setup and final inspection done in the USA by Gibson.

I played this guitar through my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp.

The guitar had .10 gauge strings on it when I got it and I replaced them with D'Addario ECG24 "Chromes" (Ribbon Wound) .11 gauge strings. The guitar sounded good with the original strings but I don't like thin gauge strings because I can't keep them in tune (I use .11 and .12 gauge strings).

This guitar sounds great, very close to an actual Gibson ES335. The rhythm picup has a very mellow sound that is full, rich and responsive (essp. after I put the new strings on it). The treble pickup is bright (but not too bright ... what a 335 should sound like).

The finish was very good, very glossy plus the wood has some really nice grain. There were a few small spots were the finish got onto the top of the fretboard (but was easily fixable by picking it off). The "dots" were a moto / mother of pearl material and was set pretty good as well as the epiphone logo on the headstock.

The guitar was setup at the Gibson USA factory and is fantastic. I don't trust alot of the music stores "setups", essp. from someone that can sell a guitar but doesn't even know how to play a guitar much less set one up.

The action was great, it's close to a medium low action ... there is no string buzz, etc. the strings are really easy to play and bend.

I got my guitar straight out of the factory box. This is the only way to get a guitar that will be setup properly, when you have a guitar that everyone has played (in the store) there tends to be problems with switches, nicks, etc. from kids that go in the store and bang on everything and don't care about taking care of an instrument, so I ask for most of my guitars in the box (like this one).

The guitar will probably last as long as it's taken care of. Which I've taken care of all of my gear and use cases when going to gigs.

But with the guitar being semi-hollow you need to be a little extra careful with it.

I haven't delt with them but they have a good website.

I've been playing the guitar for over 10 years and own lots of gear (10+ guitars, 4+ amps, 20+ effect pedals, etc.) and play Gospel, blues, country and classic rock.

This guitar is great for someone that wants a ES335 but can't afford the actual Gibson model and that doesn't want to go with the upper Epiphone models (Sheraton II / Elite models).

The Gibson pickups sound fine and the tuners hold the guitar in tune (you really don't have to use any "locking" tuners if you use a heavier gauge string).

Overall a great guitar for the price.

2003 model, chrome hardware, 2 (stock) Gibson HB pickups, (stock) Grover tuners, 2 volume and tone knobs, 3 way pickup selector switch, (lam.) Maple body with a Natural gloss finish.

The guitar was made in Korea but setup and final inspection done in the USA by Gibson.

I played this guitar through my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp.

The guitar had .10 gauge strings on it when I got it and I replaced them with D'Addario ECG24 "Chromes" (Ribbon Wound) .11 gauge strings. The guitar sounded good with the original strings but I don't like thin gauge strings because I can't keep them in tune (I use .11 and .12 gauge strings).

This guitar sounds great, very close to an actual Gibson ES335. The rhythm picup has a very mellow sound that is full, rich and responsive (essp. after I put the new strings on it). The treble pickup is bright (but not too bright ... what a 335 should sound like).

The finish was very good, very glossy plus the wood has some really nice grain. There were a few small spots were the finish got onto the top of the fretboard (but was easily fixable by picking it off). The "dots" were a moto / mother of pearl material and was set pretty good as well as the epiphone logo on the headstock.

The guitar was setup at the Gibson USA factory and is fantastic. I don't trust alot of the music stores "setups", essp. from someone that can sell a guitar but doesn't even know how to play a guitar much less set one up.

The action was great, it's close to a medium low action ... there is no string buzz, etc. the strings are really easy to play and bend.

I got my guitar straight out of the factory box. This is the only way to get a guitar that will be setup properly, when you have a guitar that everyone has played (in the store) there tends to be problems with switches, nicks, etc. from kids that go in the store and bang on everything and don't care about taking care of an instrument, so I ask for most of my guitars in the box (like this one).

The guitar will probably last as long as it's taken care of. Which I've taken care of all of my gear.

I haven't delt with them but they have a good website.

I've been playing the guitar for over 10 years and own lots of gear (10+ guitars, 4+ amps, 20+ effect pedals, etc.) and play Gospel, blues, country and classic rock.

This guitar is great for someone that wants a ES335 but can't afford the actual Gibson model and that doesn't want to go with the upper Epiphone models (Sheraton II / Elite models).

The Gibson pickups sound fine and the tuners hold the guitar in tune (you really don't have to use any "locking" tuners if you use a heavier gauge string).

Overall a great guitar for the price.

You should know by now.

Can do most sounds you want: rock, folk, pop, jazz, etc.
Pickups Ok. But could be better (mine are the Gibson endorsed ones).
Sounds best through a tube-amp rather than distortion pedals.
It will cope with lots of various tunings (always staying in tune), I usually opt for varitions of Open G or Open C.
The 2nd Strings intonation is pretty poor.

Action was good, especially with 11's strings.
Finish was poor around the f-holes and the headstck.
The first thing to go, within 1 week was the pickup switch.. spend #20 and put a Gibson one in yourself (it's very easy to solder it) now it's totaly reliable.
The volume % tone pots are starting to go after about 2 years.

Will it last? ... I've sold mine.
Why? because I could start spending a few hundred quid on changing pickups, pots, bridge, nut, etc.. But I sold mine for about #300 after 2 years and the few hudred qiud I could have spent means I now have about #500-#600 to spend on a new guitar.

Never used.
Just took it to the shop where I had it from when I neededit set up

Have been playing many years and own many instruments.
If your not bothered about the name on the headstock its fine.
Lets face it, it might be endorsed by Gibson, but it's not a 335 is it. You might only be buying it because you want to think you have a 335.
If like me it was bought on the pretext of: use it; look after it; sell it after a couple of years it's fine.
An instrument is meant to be played. What do you do with your car.. keep it polished & locked in a garage or actually drive it, then in a few years replace it??

OK, Just got mine! It is a 2003 model, and korean Made.
22 frets, your standard Gibson Epi scale. The bonys I guess are Laminated Maple. And your standard volume volume tone tone threeway selector electronics. I have the stock PU configeration no mod's yet!
Mine is in the standard Cherry transparent finish.
I have always liked the 335 Gibson looks. Tuners are stock but plan to change them. The nut is a joke. It has a nice feel from neck to body and everyware else.
Here is my list of things to change:
Tuners, to Sperzel Locking's.
Nut, to a graphite.
Pickups, Duncans.
Sadles, there to sharp or have a burr.
Posibly a Bigsby.

I go for a big yet fuzzy sound, like the Smashing Pumpkins.
So the sound has got to reflect that.
I use a Tech21 Trademark 120 2x12 combo and a stack of pedals.
The guitar stays very clear even under heavy fuzz. I has great feedBack!
I like the cleaner sounds to.
I just want more from it though.

Factory setup was a Joke!
String oh man you have to change those like I read elseware 11's are good. I used GHS TNT Boomers 10-52.
The wood on this one is kind of nice.
And the F holes had Black paint runover on the top of the geetar.

The guitar seems tough! its somewhat heavy.
Hardware looks good. finish is good except for the paint runover.
I changed to Dunlop strap loks rightaway I wont drop a guitar.
Yeah I can depend on it!
I would use it on a gig with a backup. But I never would cause thats just plain dumb!