What's the difference? Nitro is usually applied in a thinner coat than poly. Epiphone guitars come shipped in a tougher poly finish. Gibson models are coated in a vintage style nitrocellulose lacquer. The big difference between Epiphone and Gibson guitars is the finish. That said, some of the greatest rock and blues tones of all time have been fuelled by 'buckers so it hasn't put cats like Jimmy Page and Slash off their game. Neck pickups in particular can sound a bit 'woolly'. Humbuckers, as the name suggests, produce way less background noise but that comes at the expense of clarity. The downside to P90s is they can produce a lot of background hum. Think Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. As a rule of thumb, P90s produce a fat tone with good note separation when you engage your overdrive or distortion. Gibson guitars, and their Epiphone equivalents, come with either single coil P90 pickups or double coil humbuckers. As pretty as all of these guitars are, it's the tones they produced that make them special. Epiphone Vs Gibson: The tonesīetween 19 Gibson launched the Les Paul Standard, Junior and Special, the ES-335, Flying V and Explorer not to mention a new double-cut Les Paul design in the early 60s that was eventually rechristened the SG. What really put the brand back in business in more 'recent' times was the conspicuous use of Epiphone by Noel Gallagher and Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs in the early days of Oasis. As a result, a 60s original costs a bloody fortune. The ES semi-solid thinline guitars are Cream era Clapton, Alvin Lee of Ten Years After and BB King and his infamous squeeze 'Lucille'.Īnd Epiphone? The Beatles played Casinos in the mid-60s.

The Firebird is blues icon Johnny Winter, dead Rolling Stone Brian Jones and Joe Bonamassa. The SG is synonymous with rock pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mod god Paul Weller, Robbie Krieger of The Doors and Angus Young of AC/DC, natch. You want brand ambassadors? The Gibson Les Paul Standard has been clutched by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, top hat model Slash, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Bluesbreakers-era Eric Clapton, Dire Straits' legend Mark Knopfler, hirsute hombre Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and thousands more.

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