Epiphone Zephyr Regent

[lawson-stone]

This was an impulse acquisition driven by a good price and the fact that it has mahogany back/sides, and all my ES1x5 type guitars are maple. Clearly the whole 16" archtop thing in my life is out of control and I'll need to sell off some to thin the herd, but I wanted a guitar with a mahogany back/sides and one that I could use to try out pickups, electronics, etc.

The pickup is the stock Epiphone humbucker, 57CH(G) which I can't completely decipher. I figured I'd replace it right from the start, but in fact it sounds pretty good, so I will probably keep it in for the moment until I decide maybe to do something special with it.

So without further ado, here are the pics:

[mr. beaumont]

Nice! Those were really well done, IIRC...it's been years since I've seen one in person.

[BigMikeinNJ]

A Hog Epi !!! WOW !!!!
Nice score !!!

Big

[lawson-stone]

Here's a quick comparison of the tone with my recent Gibson ES175 Figured Sunburst. The Epi hasn't been set up at all; old strings, the works. Played through Fender Superchamp x2 head and 12" Quilter cab, mic'd with SM57. The solo is a Jimmy Raney solo on Rhythm Changes from Vol. 20 of the Aebersold series, played at a pathetically slow tempo...

[TH]

I have one. Put a Duncan in it and it's a sweet professional grade instrument that can outplay many prestigious brothers. Peerless construction, Great design. You got a real find!

David

[lawson-stone]

I have one. Put a Duncan in it and it's a sweet professional grade instrument that can outplay many prestigious brothers. Peerless construction, Great design. You got a real find!

David

I have a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover sitting in a box... maybe this weekend I'll do the transplant!

[Brian B]

I have a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover sitting in a box... maybe this weekend I'll do the transplant!

Sweet score! Sounds good in the vid too.

I'd be very interested in hearing what it sounds like after if you put the Seth in. I've got a matched set of Seths waiting to go into a Matsumoku 1981 Epi Emperor T.

One of them might accidentally fall into my '98 ZepReg...lol




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[va3ux]

Beautiful. Exactly like the one I have.

I've had a couple of different pickups in mine and honestly I didn't hear a huge difference. The stock pickup ain't bad by any means.

[lawson-stone]

Beautiful. Exactly like the one I have.

I've had a couple of different pickups in mine and honestly I didn't hear a huge difference. The stock pickup ain't bad by any means.

True. I plan to compare it to my Epi ES175 with the Gibson 57 Classics. I also have an old MiK/Peerless Epi Broadway that I put a Seymour Duncan Seth Love pickup in. If I can hear a significant difference, I might make the swap.

[skittles]

I prefer the 175 but both sound great. What amp settings are you using?


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[lawson-stone]

I prefer the 175 but both sound great. What amp settings are you using?


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That 175 is what you'd call a totally unfair comparator. I haven't found many guitars that sound better than it does. The Epi was fresh out of the box, no set up, old strings, etc. Amp was a Fender Superchamp x2 Head on channel 1, bass/treble both on about 4. A little reverb, 12" 8 Ohm speaker (Quilter extension cab). Nothing elaborate.

[goldenwave77]

Both sound good....not sure I'd notice much difference blindfolded.

You might consider a single-coil pu....they do have a different vibe...little more sparkle and dynamic (volume) range. The humbucker sized drop-ins are worth considering.

IIRC you have several fairly similar guitars, and remember any music pre-'57 is single coil. I still like Charlie C.'s sound, and Oscar Moore, and Barney K., and early Tal F, and Billy Bauer (check out The Plectrist album, 1956).

[Brian B]

I've got a Gibson P94T in mine. Not overly thrilled with it, but it may be handicapped by an inferior harness behind it. Neither my vol or tone work like they *should*.

High on my list is a new harness with CTS 550K's and a PIO cap....

[skittles]

That 175 is what you'd call a totally unfair comparator. I haven't found many guitars that sound better than it does. The Epi was fresh out of the box, no set up, old strings, etc. Amp was a Fender Superchamp x2 Head on channel 1, bass/treble both on about 4. A little reverb, 12" 8 Ohm speaker (Quilter extension cab). Nothing elaborate.

Thanks for the reply. I have the SC X2 combo hence my curiosity.

Yeah, that 175 sounds fantastic. Congrats on both.

[va3ux]

There is not a lot of difference in tone in that video comparison. 500 bucks vs 2500 bucks - you gotta wonder.

[LtKojak]

To the ones that can't hear a big difference between p'ups, well... I kinda feel sorry for them. They must be really missing a whole lot of what is going around'em due to hearing loss.

Both guitars have a prety nice, kinda thunk-y tonefootprint. The Epi's voice is more vowel-like and has a more masculine assertion. It must be the older, more seasoned tonewood used.

Changing p'ups is a MUST, if you wanna have the guitar to tell the whole story, man. But you need to also change the harness. The leads Epi used for it has THREE TIMES THE CAPACITANCE PER FOOT as vintage braided wire. 120pf/foot vs. 40pf/foot of braided wire. You're losing almost an octave of the resonance peak due to those leads alone, not to mention another 3/4 of an octave lost due to the brass baseplate and cover of the 57CH.

A Seth Lover neck would be an excellent choice for that guitar, although I suggest to use a .0047 cap instead of the usual .0022. You can thank me later!

Yours very truly,

[LtKojak]

The pickup is the stock Epiphone humbucker, 57CH(G) which I can't completely decipher.

It means '57 Classic Humbucker (G) Gold cover. It should measure around 8.39K, AWG #42 Polywire, alnico 5 bar magnet. It's manufactured in Korea with the cheapest chinese-made parts.

HTH,

[Brian B]

To the ones that can't hear a big difference between p'ups, well... I kinda feel sorry for them. They must be really missing a whole lot of what is going around'em due to hearing loss.

Eh? You're gonna have to speak up a bit there...

(I thought it sounded pretty good. That said...)

Both guitars have a prety nice, kinda thunk-y tonefootprint. The Epi's voice is more vowel-like and has a more masculine assertion. It must be the older, more seasoned tonewood used.

Changing p'ups is a MUST, if you wanna have the guitar to tell the whole story, man. But you need to also change the harness. The leads Epi used for it has THREE TIMES THE CAPACITANCE PER FOOT as vintage braided wire. 120pf/foot vs. 40pf/foot of braided wire. You're losing almost an octave of the resonance peak due to those leads alone, not to mention another 3/4 of an octave lost due to the brass baseplate and cover of the 57CH.

A Seth Lover neck would be an excellent choice for that guitar, although I suggest to use a .0047 cap instead of the usual .0022. You can thank me later!

Yours very truly,

Let me see what your thoughts are on this;

My '98 ZepReg currently has a Gibson P94T stuck in it, wired directly (not spliced) to the original Epi pots.

I have a set of Seths, due to get installed in my '81 MIJ Epi Emperor T.

Coming out of it, is an old Seymour Duncan 59B-J (J indicating it was wound by Maricella Juarez, who now runs Seymour's Custom Shop).

Granted, the latter is a bridge pickup, but it sounds pretty good in the neck of that '81.

My plan was to try it in the ZepReg, with new 550K CTS pots and a .047 PIO cap.

Are you familiar with the SD 59B at all? I think it might work well.

I could also put the Seth neck pickup in and get another for the '81...I'm playing the ZepReg far more than the Emperor since I got the former....

Thoughts?

B.


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[LtKojak]

Thoughts?

The '59b has a little bit too much wire for my taste, altough if you put an A3 magnet in it, it should work alright in the neck position, specially with 550K pots.

Get a CTS TVT 550K audio pot for the volume and a normal CTS 500K pot audio for the tone. You can thank me later.

HTH,

[Brian B]

The '59b has a little bit too much wire for my taste, altough if you put an A3 magnet in it, it should work alright in the neck position, specially with 550K pots.

Get a CTS TVT 550K audio pot for the volume and a normal CTS 500K pot audio for the tone. You can thank me later.

HTH,

Been mulling this over while at work today. Think I'm gonna borrow the neck Seth from my rewiring plan for the Emperor. I'll pick up another after the holidays (or sooner if someone has a sale).

The 59b might find a home in my Gibson SG. That 490R/T set in it is one of the most uninspring sets of pickups I've ever encountered...

Sorry for the thread derail Lawson....

B.

[lawson-stone]

No apology needed. I'm happy to bridge over to mods for this guitar that might make it fun.

I did a quick splice to put the SDSL Bridge in the guitar, like it, but I got this guitar to play with (as opposed to just "play") so I'm thinking of upgrading the pots and wires. I mean, it's two knobs, a capacitor, and a pickup. How hard can it be? Right?

Right?

Famous last words!

[Brian B]

Actually, it shouldn't be too hard. Hard part might be fishing the ground wire under the tail piece. The rest is an easy fish thru the pickup hole.

I bought a 100 foot spool of buss wire recently. I plan on running it through the hole in the tail up the the pickup hole, soldering it to the harness, and pulling it back into place with the harness. The extra length I'll cut off and use in a solid body for grounding pot to pot.

[lawson-stone]

I'm torn between two possible pickups. One is a 1990's Benedetto made by Kent Armstrong, a big chunk of polymer encasing a pickup evidently made with no bobbins (?) but I used to have it on an ES175 and it sounded excellent.

I also have a humbucker sized P90 that I got cheap from GFS, it's a "Dream 90" and since I don't have a single guitar with a single-coil pickup, I"m think this Dream 90 might find a home in the EZR.

Decisions Decisions Decisions!

[Brian B]

I've read good things about the GFS Dream 90. Worst case scenario is they're very inexpensive.

[neatomic]

just be aware that the gfs dream 90 is basically a strat pickup in a humbucker shell size...the gfs mean 90 is truer to a p90 in humbucker size


cheers