Surprisingly Good dare I say Excellent

Yep, 5 star rating. And here is why.

I A/B'd this guitar against a Gretsch g5120 for over an hour.While the two guitars look the same they are two different dogs. I play professionally making most of my income on playing so I needed a non expensive hollowbody for some of my tunes. It was either one or the other I was taking home.

The Gretsch rocked and had a creamy dark tone and the neck was very nice. I had to turn up the treble on the amp to get really any highs out of it. ( tried 3 of them and they were the same). The g5120 would be a great guitar to gig with. It had that acoustic guitar sound down and could go into rockabilly mode really fast.

The Epi can flat out rock and has much more tonal capabilities with the push pull pu's. The pu's in this guitar are BRILLIANT. I will not be changing these pu's out. They give and give. I threw a Rat distortion and a Durham Sex Drive on it and it handled it like butter. I like that while using the Chorus I switched to single coil and I got a clean clear crystal sound out of it. I tried it on a few different amps. The AC30 handled it nicely with no problem and allowed that jangle to come through. On a Fender Super Sonic 22 it was killer with the fat tone applied. On the Twin I had a bit of a problem with feedback. Deluxe handled it well.

What I do not like about the Epi is the neck. It is way to tight. But I adjusted the string height and it made it more playable with my big fingers. But the Gretsch has a more roomy neck and is a bit more forgiving.

So I give this puppy 5 stars because for the price and what you get is amazing. And make sure you get the right case for this guitar. Get the newly released Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II with the slight rise. The old one does not work well with this guitar.

SOUNDS AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS

This guitar is outstanding right out of the box. Visually this guitar is worth the money. The binding . Bigsby Tremolo, Flame maple sides and back make this instument worth far more than its price tag. Unplugged it has a nice mellow tone that is plenty loud enough and will hold its own agaist any acoustic. But, plugged in is where this guitar shines. It rings. The switchable tone controls are excellent and give you a wide variety of sounds. I have a Gibson Les Paul, Fender Deluxe Plus Strat, 52 reissue tele and an Epiphone SG. This Swingster measures up to them all in playability. I give it 5 stars. If this guitar has caught your eye, I say go for it. You won't be disappointed.