[Music] [Applause] And the other thing I didn't mention in that beveling bit is the upper

horn; it's not as pointy as it should be. [Music] It's a bit like a

1970s Telecaster disaster when they changed the body shape and then nobody noticed. [Music] This comparison isn't quite as

scientific as it should have been. Oh, and of course, you know, one's got the early single-ply pickguard

and one's got the  '60s-style wing pickguard. I mean, I'd fight anyone that said that that made a sound difference, because

I'm sure it does. I think there's an issue for everyone here, really, to be honest with you.

That's that. Hello everybody, welcome to The Guitaristas. Thanks for joining us today. Very good to see you again.

So today, well, what we're going to do today is we're going to carry on with a bit of an SG

um, loving, I think it's one way I could describe it, I suppose. So we started the year with a

review of this wonderful Epiphone 1961 Les Paul SG just last week. Thank you very much for

all your comments. Um, it's a great guitar; we established that. Lots of questions about the price

because this is pricey—in, you know, what, 900 or something like that. I paid 701 pounds

for mine; got a little bit of a discount on it. But it's quite expensive, but of course it's

got all the, you know, all the Gibson pickups and some really pucker stuff. So a lot of questions on

how it compares to the SG Custom that I reviewed a little while ago and the SG Standard that I reviewed a little

A while ago, both Epiphones inspired by Gibson's, and a lot of questions: why would you buy this, um, rather than a secondhand Gibson? So I thought today we'd have a look at all of those other three options and, um, see if we can decide anything. I don't suppose it would decide anything, to be honest, but we can have a look at them anyway and, uh, at least then we've, you know, we can compare them and, um, see how they stack up. And you can maybe it might help you decide which one to buy or not to buy, or it might just be a little bit of fun, um, as long as it's something we're all good with.

Right, so what we're going to do is we're going to have a closer look, um, look at all the stats again and stuff. I'm not going to take them apart today; we've already done that, certainly with the three Epiphones. There's a thorough review of each of those, so we'll put the links in the description box. So, is anything I'm missing that you want to know? You'll probably find it in the individual reviews, so check those out. But what we'll do is we'll, yeah, we'll have a good close-up look at all of these four guitars. We'll compare the necks and the measurements; we'll compare the pickups and the outputs and the hardware and the software and whatever else we remember, really. Um, I'm sure we'll forget something, but we'll do our best. Okay, so let's get stuck in. So let's look at the guitars. So, of course, we've got the Epiphone 1961 Les Paul SG. Retail price in the UK: £749.

Around about £900. The Epiphone SG Custom I paid £469 for in the UK, so this is probably selling for

around about, you know, £500 or maybe $650. And the Epiphone SG Standard, I paid £329 for this, I think it was

an ex-display; I got it a little bit cheap. So these are probably around about £400, $520, $550, something like that, you know.

We're in the ballpark; these are ballpark figures, you know, they'll vary. And this is a secondhand Gibson SG,

so I bought this a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago. I paid £500 for this.

Uh, obviously you'd be very lucky to get it for £500 now. Um, my feeling is these are around

about seven or eight hundred pounds; it might get you a good, might get you a secondhand Gibson SG.

This is a 2010 Standard, so it's, you know, it's the, it's the pick of the bunch, if you like.

Um, this is their kind of flagship, you know, standard SG Standard from that time, 2010. So it'll be interesting to see, um,

you know, I don't know what the pickups are or anything, so it'll be interesting to have a look, wouldn't it? So very soon,

we're going to start hearing these guitars, um, back to back, um, with some, starting off with some simple

stuff and to give you an idea of how they compare, I suppose, with simple stuff. And then we'll, we'll try and turn up the

wick a little bit and, um, play them a little bit more. Okay, so, um, again, you know, we've

tones and volumes and stuff; we've gone through all of that stuff, um, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get

bogged down in all that sort of stuff today. Let's just actually hear some, some stuff side by side, and we'll, we'll run through all

the nerdy data as well as the speccy stuff throughout now, and we'll get on with it

and we'll see if we can make some headway. Okay. [Music] [Applause]

[Music] So every now and then, I'm going to chip in and mention what you're listening to

just really in case you can't be bothered to watch, or maybe you're not able to.

This is the Epi '61. [Music] [Applause] This is the Epi Custom

and now the Epi Standard. [Music] [Applause] [Music] The Gibson

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Here we are: four SGs.  All intents and

purposes, the same shape; a couple of minor variations obviously, which we'll get into a little bit more in a

second. Um, so they're all made of wood, obviously mahogany. Um, they're all made of mahogany. Um, I would

say it's a safe bet that the three Epiphones are made from the same species of mahogany,

whereas the Gibson, um, slightly different, uh, purely because it's sourced on a different continent. I don't know any more than that about um

the sort of timber that they use. I'd like to find out. In fact, I did go to the extent of contacting an Epiphone rep

in the UK. I got a number from a friend of mine, of an Epiphone rep in the UK, and I fired off an email

saying I'd, you know, be very interested to share a little bit more information about the type of timber that is used in

these um, these Epiphone guitars, um, you know, with with you guys, but he ignored me. So I'm afraid I don't

I don't know any more than that. I will try again at some point. I think it would be an interesting subject to dig a little

bit deeper into, because a lot of people are very sniffy about their tonewoods. As you know, tonewood is a massive debate,

but the Epiphone timber is in some way inferior to the hallowed Gibson timber, and we just simply don't know if that's

true or not. So, it would be interesting to find out. But anyway, moving on, they're all made of mahogany.

They've also all got mahogany necks. Um, we know that the Epiphone Standard and the Epiphone Custom

have scarf joints in the necks and heel joints, whereas the Gibson and the Epiphone '61

are carved from a single piece of timber. So, um, yeah, that's that in terms of the

finish. We discussed the Epiphone '61 just last week. I mean, imagining it, it is a kind of a

urethane finish, I think that's what they call it, but it's flat; it's not a high

gloss finish. This, I call it a satin finish. The other two Epiphones have a solid

urethane high-gloss finish on those, whereas, of course, the Gibson has got the nitro finish, um,

and looking at it, you can see it's a lot thinner; you can see the wood grain

underneath it, and it shows through. And um, it's got lots of dings in it already. Obviously, this is an older guitar; anyway,

this is like 12 years old now, so it would have... But it's a nice, you know, wearing

nitro guitar. It's nice when they look like this after a decade. It's not so nice when they look

like this from brand new when you haven't paid extra for it, shall we say? Okay, um, I'm just looking now at the binding

as well. Um, the neck binding on all of the uh, the Epis—nice shade of antique white, classic white if you like.

Whereas the Gibson's faded to quite a—it's quite a, quite a yellowy color actually. That's faded too.

Yeah, okay. The fretboards on these now—um, this is divisive, isn't it? So the um [Music]

the two white ones here, so the Epiphone Standard and the um, the big-money Epi '61. They've both got

Indian laurel fingerboards, whereas the the Gibson um, we, we must assume that this is rosewood,

and they were definitely putting rosewood fingerboards on Gibsons in 2010. Um, so you can compare

you know, the the difference in these, in these, in the close-up shots here, bearing in mind that the Gibson's been

played by oily fingers over quite a long time, whereas uh, both of the white Epiphones haven't

been played very much, and um, I can't remember if I lemon-oiled either of these, but I don't think I did.

So they're there pretty much as they came. The Epi Custom of course has got an ebony fingerboard.

So there you go. I wonder if we can hear the difference. [Applause] [Music]

[Music] Talking about the neck, let's have a look at the profiles and specifications. So here you are, you can see those specs

all on the screen there. Okay, so the Epiphones are all very similar. They're all very similar. The uh,

the '61 is slightly fatter when it gets down towards the 12th fret, but there's kind

of about a millimeter difference in it, I think. Um, and they're Epiphone call these a medium C profile,

but we, you know, they're not they're a D profile really, as far as I'm concerned. They are anyway.

You can see that if you compare that to the Gibson. You can see that the Gibson's

a lot chunkier; it's a lot rounder. So the Gibson's got a fatter neck; that's

a significant difference between the Gibson and the Epiphones. You would feel the difference, you know, you were playing the Gibson

from the feel of the neck. I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference um between the Epiphones,

were it not for the fact that the '61 is, it's got a nice satin finish, whereas the

uh, the other two are a little bit more glossy. Okay, so now let's um, so let's see what

they weigh, shall we? Let's weigh them. Gibson SG Standard weighs six pounds eight ounces or

2.97 kilograms. The Epiphone SG Standard weighs six pounds 14 ounces or 3.12 kilos.

Epiphone SG Custom weighs six pounds 11 ounces or 3.06 kilograms, and the Epiphone 1961

weighs six pounds nine ounces, 2.98 kilograms. So there you go; they all weigh within a couple of ounces of each other, which is

I think it's interesting. I suppose it means that the Epiphone factory where they make these three

um, are all very consistent in their timber that they use, and it isn't really any different, or certainly weight

wise, it's no different to the stuff that they use um in the Gibson factory, or over 10 years.

ago, so there you go. Um, well, yeah, that's a thing, isn't it? [Music] [Applause]

[Music] [Music] Bye. Oh, [Music] [Music] Okay, so here's the information and

readings for the pickups. You've got, obviously, Burst Bucker 2 and 3 in the Epiphone '61. In the Custom and

the Standard, they've both got Alnico Pro pickups. And then the Gibson, this has got the

490R and the 490T in it. And as you can see, it actually has a slightly lower reading

um, than the... well, they're all in the same ballpark, actually. They're all in the same ballpark, but I I

thought the 490R and the 492 were hotter, but I was wrong. They're not. [Music]

Let's look at the hardware. The three Epiphones are identical, um, or have a fraction of a difference in

Which SG? - Epiphone 1961 Les Paul SG vs SG Custom vs SG Standard vs Gibson SG Standard

Which SG? - Epiphone 1961 Les Paul SG vs SG Custom vs SG Standard vs Gibson SG Standard