Epiphone S-310

I feel kind of guilty because most guys got a regular S-310 and I got a Custom. It's just like a 310 but it has a bridge humbucker,and 2 single coil pickups. With that a tremolo,locking tuners,5-way switch and rosewood fretboard with these cool looking triangular shaped things for inlays.They aren't the trapazoids but something else.Lots of chrome knobs and a beautiful Candy Apple red finish.All of the electronics are the original as are all of the other hardware. I called Gibson on this thing and it was made in 1995 and that was the only year they were made.I figure it was probably made in Asia and my days are limited but for $200 I will not complain.And yes it is like a Strat copy but a copy of a Lonestar Strat.My buddy who has an older Strat ('78 or so) loves how it sounds like his.I bought it used and apparently the guy never played the thing because it was 4 years old and nothing was worn or looked to be.

I played other guitars and this thing amazingly enough fit me very well.I can't beleive how this sounds.I see a cheap axe and buy it and hook it up and bang,can't put it down(thats the way it should be).I play a bluesy,rock with heavy distortion and when I go clean for the blues sound I got it.When I go dirty I can get it too.I use a Marshall VS100 combo and typical of Marshall I get alot of base and I had alot feedback but I adjusted the tone a little on the guitar and got rid of it.I recently bought a Digitech RP2000 and started to use it now and all is well.I used other boxes with it and noticed that for distortion I really had what I needed.The bad part about this axe is it very heavy and the idea of spending a couple of hours gigging is a labor.

Setup was not good on the intonation and I switched to heavy strings(GHS TNT with a set of 13's combined) and I was going nuts with adjusting the stupid thing because Epiphone in all their wisdom made the tension adjustement screw on the tremolo virtually impossible to get to.So now the action is about an inch high.But I did some tool fabricating in my garage and problem solved.The humbucker is a little loose and volume a little jumpy (rises dramatically) but everything else was really good.

The strap buttons fell off after a few days and Elmers wood glue did the trick.I have been beating this thing for 6 months now and stays in tune and keeps going.I am 40 yrs old and have screwed with a few guitars in my day and if I were to go live with this thing I would do so with no worries.I think my shoulder would fall off because this thing is a tank,or at least as heavy as one.Good finish and quality seems okay.

Dealt with GMI once on this thing and was very prompt but not too informative.You got to twist their arms on info.Maybe they're imbarassed of these things.

Overall I would buy another because it was so dang cheap.Been playing since I was 10 and have seen a few and this one makes me wonder why I can't get another guitar this cheap .It is a good sounding axe and it makes me laugh because I'll spend 5 to 10 times the amount I spent on this guitar on another one and get the same sound.It kind of makes you wonder.If it was gone I would be heartbroken like my kid was gone because I'd never find another one like this one.

I have a 98 Korean made S-310. 22 frets, I'm not sure what kind of top. You know how a strat copy is-5-way switching, 1 vol 2 tone, S/S/S pickups, Epiphone stock. I'm not sure what it's made of, it's a pearl white flecked finish, and the head is painted the same. Like I said, it's a strat style body, not sure about the tuners, frets seem like about medium, got a gig bag, strap, picks, cable with it and only paid $150!

I love the sound of a good strat, the warm but bright at the same time neck pickup, the quacky in-between settings, the light bite of the bridge pickup...you know. I compared it to a Fender and it sounded EXACTLY the same, played the same, and weighed less. I play it through a Peavey Bravo 112 amp and use a Zoom 1010 effects pedal sometimes. A very versatile guitar, the tone can get VERY deep without any mud. Perfect if you have a low budget.

The action on this guitar is very good, and plays very comfortably with light strings. The pickups wobble a little, but that's expected. There were 2 small nicks on the back when I bought it, but I don't know if at the factory or store or where. It is fair in tuning-but it slips easily if you play a heavy bending lead or use the whammy bar at all. The plug jack came loose, also, but is easily fixed. Otherwise, everything is very sound.

This guitar takes a beating. I am pretty careless carrying guitars around. It's dropped, I've kicked it once or twice, I've carried it around school, it's fell over, but nothing occured from those beatings. The finish is actually pretty thin, but it seems pretty hard to damage. The strap buttons are very reliable. I would hate to go on stage with only one guitar, since there are so many different tones that I love, but it hasn't given me any trouble yet, so if I had to, I could definitely rely on this guitar on stage.

I actually bought this guitar on vacation while I was in Charleston, SC. That's about 3 hours from where I live, so I can't really say anything good or bad about that shop. I own another Epiphone, and am going to buy a third, so you can tell I think that Epiphone is great. Epiphone is always under a lifetime warranty, but I haven't needed to take it to a shop yet.

I have played for about 2 and a half years and rely solely on Gibson/Epiphone, Peavey, Fender, and Crate, though I will broaden my horizons when I have the money to do so. :) I have a Peavey 112 amp, a Peavey Mystic (I will add a review on that definitely), a Fender/Squier P-Bass, an Epiphone Excellente, a Crate KX-15, (okay so it's a keyboard amp but I use it for my bass) a little tweed Epiphone amp, and a Zoom 1010. If I lost this guitar, I would be very disappointed and would get another immediately, unless I had the money to buy a Fender, though I would consider this one anyway. I love everything about this guitar except that it slips out of tune when you bend the strings or use the whammy bar. My favorite thing is the strat sound. Like I said earlier, I compared this to a Fender Strat, and it sounded and played exactly the same, weighed less, and cost less. I have another friend that has one, it's his first guitar, he loves it, I love my S-310, and I encourage anyone just beginning to play or low on cash to consider this guitar!

Im pretty sure this thing was made in korea about 1995 (?) because its left handed it took ages for it to sell & ultimately found its way into my tender care. 22 frets of the large kind I think its made out of poplar or plywood or something - I cant ever get this sort of info out of anyone. Anyway! Take the strat control layout etc etc etc etc & thats what this came with 3X very weak single coil pickups that were highly appreciated (it was my first electric) but later subbed out for a Diamrzio airzone & and air norton (more on that later) Rather nice flamey sunburst finish though and of course, strat style body. Came with a good case at $ 80 NZ extra which I still use for my nu strat
Loads of features but not often up to specs

This guitar (esp with the retro fitted pickups) could definately handle anything I needed it to do. Over the years Ive run it thru a peavey Rage 158 (the worlds practise amp), A marshall VS 100 combo, and a newly accquired roland DAC 15 solid state amp which I bought for 30 bucks and never fails to impress! Effects? OLD ibanez ochre coloured compressor, DOD g@un%e pedal, DOD buzz box (y'all lovin this one!), Boss ph2 phaser, Reissue fuzz face, DOD classic fuzz (highly overlooked) & an ibanez CS 5 chorus (beyond crappy)
well the original pickups were very flat with a real low output with (h0t) humbucker styles this guitar really screams and does the gibson neck pickup lead tone really well. Initially a very noisey guitar, broke down about 2 or 3 times until I had it worked over thoroughly but now this can do anything from chicken pickin to blues, to metal, retro fuzz tones etc etc etc etc
What I really like about this is that the volume pot is very smooth to turn and not at all stiff like many gibsons/fenders ive known
This axe with an airzone in the neck is the ultimate beast for doing volume swells!!!!

The axe was so badly set up when I bought it I cant even describe its intonaing capacity!
the middle single coil was wobbly
the strings were old and crusty the interior routing is very rough and the components like the bridge and pickup poles were rusting about 3 months after i bought it One thing I will say in its defence though was that it does have a very snug neck joint. The finish is super thick & strong - i havent managed to damage it yet!

Ie gigged this guitar many many times and it never once failed me, I replaced this axe cause the frets wre beginning to burn out & the brigde bagan to get iffy. Excellent tuning stability though!!!!! I could do anything to that trem & it wouldnt detune (it wasnt very ruggedly made though)
It lost its strap buttons very soon so I bought some really tough grade fiberglass filler & they havent mved since - I cant even MAKE them move
I depended totally on this guitar for 4 years.

I chose this guitar because it was the only available left handed one in the city for less than a grand & i was very inexperienced. Yeah I got ripped off by the music store, and to be honest this guitar is shabbily made and not pretty from close up - but from a distance it looks stunning and the dimarzios made it sound really top level - just the right tonal balance between a hotted up strat and a les paul I really enjoyed this guitar and its (modded) tones - they were a unique combination of guitar/ pickup & i would definately recommend it to anyone seeking a dependable axe with not much money
It played really well with a more restraining feel than my new strat but a slicker feel. great for learning to vibrato because of the push back of the strings - again a balance between an SG and a strat (it also has a chunkier neck that many strats and a slight gloss finish.
I think the going price for these is normally about half what I payed, and with a few more dollars spent upgrading it you have a guitar that sonds AS good as any superstrat out there with a sound & feel all of its own

it's a rip off! but it's good

i play nirvana and that sort of thing! it sounds good,especially with solo's i have a bandit 65 and sounds excellent

it's pretty funny! the first time i actually opend the guitar,I was frightened. it's very messy inside and fragile! but i trash it around and it's still good

i trash it and stuff!you know just hit the microfoon stands and leave the guitar on the floor,step on it,things like that it's still good,but the only thing that fucked up was the little switch to change the sound!you have to put it excactly on the right place or else it won't sound!

IT'S GREAT FOR THE PRICE!! YES I WOULD BUY IT AGAIN!

Epiphone S-310, made in 1987 or so. Consider this guitar a strat rip-off, it looks exactly like a black Squier Stratocaster. Tuners are "ok" but are erratic. Pickups are generic fender-style single-coils. Crappy practice amp was included (Peavy Audition 30).

Plays an average to below average blues/rock tone, but don't expect to play much rhythm guitar. I haven't been able to get a good chord sound from it. Still, it's fairly good for leads.

Action is medium-ok. One string is much easier to bend than the others, and there's buzz on the second string. Frets are a bit buzzy, but it's not bad. Electronics have static, and work erratically sometimes, but usually fairly well.

The finish is very solid, it won't come off, its been the same (with one polishing) as it was when I bought it about 10 years ago. The strap buttons are fair to poor, straps have fallen a few times. I've gigged with it once without a backup, but I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, just because it's not a very high-quality guitar.

Gibson was very helpful in helping me identify the date of the guitar, and I always reached a live person. Never had any warranty situations though.

I've been playing seriously for about a year now, though i've been fooling around with guitars for years. If I lost this guitar, I would buy a real Strat or maybe a Les Paul.

I bought the S-310 about two years ago. "S-310" is Epiphone's nice way of saying "Strat rip-off." The features are fairly standard strat-type stuff. It has a bolt on, one piece maple neck, with 22 medium size frets. It has a basic three single-coil set up, 5-blade selector, 2 tone, 1 volume, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea...its basically a strat. With one interesting difference. The headstock is shaped kinda strangely; Epiphone calls it a "batwing" headstock. It doesn't have any string trees--its a straight pull design, and its also angled back a bit, not flat. The headstock is also painted in the same color as the rest of the body, not natural wood tone. Oh, and last but not least, it was made in Korea, as the rather cool neck plate proclaims. It came with a (cheap) gig bag, a prepackaged set of picks, a blow tuner, and a nylon strap.

This guitar has some good points to it. It is easily the loudest electric guitar I've heard when played unplugged. The guy at the shop I bought it from commented on that himself. The Epiphone has a pretty decent sound to it plugged in as well. The blues is my first love to play with rock coming in a close second. It works well for this; the neck and middle pickup have a sweet midrange to them if you set the tone knobs from about 4 to 6 and play slightly distorted clean tones. I only crank the tones up to 10 if I'm playing with heavy distortion--they lose definition and become muddy otherwise. The neck and middle are also harsh as acid with tone on 10 playing clean. I don't use the bridge pickup because of the same reason--makes my teeth sting whenever I switch to it, no matter what setting my amp is on. The pickups are a little noisy, part of that is single coil nature, and part is the grounding on it--a little unstable. It feedsback (what guitar doesn't at some point) but it is a challenge to use that feedback in solos. Most of the time its a piercing high frequency howl, but with practice, I've learned to control the beast.

The guitar was not set up well by the factory. The intonation was waaaay off, so off that even with my best tuning efforts barre chords were...out of tune. Or maybe one chord sounded good and the others sucked. The action gave me fret buzz from hell, unless I strummed delicately. Not my cup of tea. I did my best to fix these irritations, and the sound improved greatly. I became really irritated with the tone and volume knobs; they were wobbly and loose in their sockets. Fixed those. I broke half a pack of strings tuning the guitar for the second time (which was partially my fault, nobody ever told me about blocking the tremolo bridge when tuning...) because the bridge wouldn't stay in one position. When I decided to fix this problem by lowering the twin screws on the tremolo plate, their heads stripped out. The X's are more squares now. Then, the entire bridge started to rise off the surface of the guitar as the metal anchors for the twin screws forgot how to do their job: keep the damn screws in place! Oh, and if I choose to use the tremolo at all, I can expect a string to break in the very near future. A few months after I bought it, the pickup selector would cut out on me while I was playing, nearly blowing my amp speaker twice with a thunderous POP noise if I chose to touch the selector. Fixed that. In summation, the main thing I gained from this guitar was how to fix a million little things that went wrong.

The guitar is solid. It would take about thirty minutes to smash onstage, fifteen with help. Once I debugged it, its become very reliable. Most of the hardware is solid, although the bridge is showing little flecks of rust now and three of the saddle screws are rusted to hell. I'm not so certain about the electronic hardware...but time will truly tell. The finish is incredible. Mine is Candy Apple Red, and I swear that the paint and sealer and laquers are about two millimeters thick. It did not chip until I kicked the guitar (out of frustration at band members) into a wall. So the upper bout has a dent where I can look at the wood and my stupidity. I replaced the strap buttons; the old ones were too small. I like guitar tricks, playing with my teeth, behind the back, behind my head; Hendrix and SRV stuff. Everytime I'd try one and get back to my regular playing position, my strap would drop. I would use this guitar live without a backup, but with strings close by...

These guy get a two, but only because they actually picked up the phone. Otherwise, a 1. I bought this guitar because it was an excellent deal (came with an 15 w. amp, and a few cheap goodies) and because I was led to believe it had a solid alder body. I actually wrote Epiphone and asked for a brochure so I could check on that fact. I've got the brochure and it says "Alder" on the specs list. When I finally got the guitar home, (before I began to realize I'd need to fix it up) I opened the back panel for the tremolo and lo and behold, the wood on the inside looked like the Grand Canyon. Laminate God- knows-what type of wood. I called the customer support line, partly to see if I could get a solid alder body, and partly to let them know what their Korean factory was doing. I explained everything, and was promptly blown off. In fact, I was told that it had a better tone because it was a laminate, "probably close to a mahogany quality" I was dumbfounded. It took me about six months to get over the injustice but I kept the guitar, and, for all its irritations, it has served me well. The warranty lasts for a year (but I lost the registration card I was supposed to mail in!).

I do care about this guitar. It is my first electric, and ever since I began playing (about four years ago), I've wanted a red Strat. This seemed like the easiest way to go, since it came with a little practice amp as a part of the package deal I got, and I didn't think I'd be in a band at the time. The part of it I love best is the neck itself. Its a C-shape, and fat. Has a beautiful grain pattern in the fretboard. I mainly wish that Epiphone had been more straight-up with me in their advertising and been less patronizing in their customer support. If I were to go back in time, I think I would have chosen another guitar, though. This one has been a lot of trouble. A word of suggestion to buyers: Epiphone (personality flaws aside) makes excellent, low budget Gibson type guitars, particularly their Les Pauls and SG's. I would highly recommend buying one of those. I'e encountered a few of these owned by friends and was shocked to find that quality from Epiphone, especially in light of my own experiences. But as far as their obligatory copies of other brands (like their strat and tele rip-offs) they fall short of the mark. If I wasn't a hellbent strat lover, I would have gotten a SG, and I don't think I would have had a problem at all.