Epiphone Casino

Firstly, ignore any derogatory comments on the Casinos manufactured in China. Mine is brilliant (for bedroom and band). Also my first semi - acoustic! A quality guitar, great response from the electronics. First love will always be the strat, due to neck - so not a big an of Les Paul's (small hands I guess). This guitar felt just right from the first strum. Plugged in - more than happy (valvestate, not rubbish!). At this price it's a bargain and looks fab (choose your own colour!). If you want the range of sounds, light weight, cool look and watch the bank balance - buy it.

Ithink the casino has a beutifull sound and is very atracktive howeer, I found the tail stock anoying because it but in the way but not every one gets that.

It was hard to decide between the Natural or Sunburst Epiphone Casino, but I took the natural, not even thinking about the Lennon-ish-ness of that choice. It's got a great bound neck, and plays very well, but try to get the intonation right? And the bridge wires rattle, but that can be cured with a dab of clear nail polish. You can play anything on this. I was using it in a jazz combo....maybe it wouldn't be too credible for playing death metal.

Overall, I would give Epiphone Casino the thumbs-up. It looks good, is generally well-finished at the price, but most importantly, it plays & sounds great! I replaced the pots with US made CTS versions, and the p/u selector with a Switchcraft. Makes one hell of a difference I can tell you! The original pots have little variation until you come to dead-spot where both volume & tone dissolve into a mush! (For anyone contemplating this change, and if you're not technically inclined, get a tech to do it. It is a fiddly job at the best of times, and I personally adhere to attaching a wire to each of the pots/switches/jacks externally before dropping the whole assembly into the body, and extracting it through a pick-up hole. 3 hands would be handy! (Pardon the pun!)Regarding Gig-bags or cases : if it's not supplied with the guitar, then I'd suggest going for either the dedicated gig-bag (the Casino has an unusually long peg-head) or better still, an optional Epiphone or Gibson 335 style hard-case. It won't fit in a standard sized gig-bag. Good Luck.

The Epiphone Casino is a "must have" guitar for jazz, classic rock, pop, blues, country and modern stuff too. Like every guitar with her own sound, you may like it or not. For me is one of the best guitars ever made from Epiphone in his long history. Don't waste money buyin' Elitist series, Custom Shop series....Casinos made in Korea in the early '90s are great. You might consider to change the pickups, Fralin or Lollar stock are a good choice. Mine is from '92 and the Epi pickups still do the job.