Re: best lower cost semi hollow?
rainsong86 said:
anybody played the yamaha aes620hb or the epiphone wildkat (or alleykat or any other variation of "kat" they choose to call it)
I just picked up an Alley Kat last week... this is not like a ES-335 copy with a center block going the full length of the guitar- under the pickups it is open but there is a block under the bridge and tailpiece.
The workmanship was good... the bindings and frets smooth and even. It looks better than some of the new Gibson's I've seen: the Koreans are learning how to build some really nice guitars!
The stock Epiphone "57" measured something like 14k ohms on my meter... I didn't think that anyone was wiring them that hot back then! I replaced the full-sized bridge humbucker with a Seth Lover bridge, which sounds great.
As for the neck pickup it is a "New York" style mini-humbucker, Alnico magnet and around 6k DC. I tried an SM-2 neck pickup (with ceramic magnets) which sounded interesting by itself but did not work well with the Seth Lover so I brought it back and will be getting a SM-1 neck pickup.
I already have a Heritage H-535 (to soothe my ES-335 envy!
) but the Alley Kat fills a completely different niche, being more aggressive than an ES-335. It is more prone to feedback if you're not careful, but that just makes the guitar more responsive. The neck is like the one on my Casino; I can't put my finger on exactly how it is different from a Gibson neck. You do have to work harder to play it, but that just puts more character and authority into your playing... :dance:
I had been checking one of these out at the local GC for about a month and when I finally made the plunge to get it, it was gone. Supposedly Jason Newsted the ex-bass player from Metallica had bought it the day before. The store had a second Alley Kat but I really did not like the way that one played. So I found a 3rd Alley Kat at a different location that played sweet and bought it while it was still around.
I have to say that I'm glad that Epiphone is coming out with some new designs that aren't based on existing Gibson models. One thing very slick with the Alley Kat is the controls: in the lower bout opposite a LP-style selector switch is a master volume pot. The two pickup volume controls are wired up "backwards" with the signal from the pickups connected to the center terminal (wiper) and not one of the outer terminals. What this means is that in the blend position you can turn down one of the pickups without muting the other one. So you can mix the two pickups in any percentage you want and then control the overall level with the master volume control, cutting back a bit on the master tone control if you want. With a typical LP-style guitar if you turn down one of the volume controls in the middle position it will mute the other pickup.
This guitar sells for a street price of $500... the construction details look very efficient. The body is bound on the top but not the bottom (which appears to be the same piece of wood used for the sides- it looks like it was hollowed out like a canoe with the carved top added.) The wood grain looks great but it might just be a veneer (or contact paper!) The one drawback I'll mention here is the cheap knobs on the volume and tone controls... the black knobs with white writing don't look right on the Heritage Cherry Sunburst finish... maybe gold would look better?
