Epiphone SG Custom Electric Guitar - Ebony Reviews

Have had gibsons and epiphones and the new epiphones are such great quality. I really wanted an SG Custom, but didnt want to spend on the Gibson, so I opted for this one. Tremendous value.

I got this guitar from Sweetwater. It was set up good came well packed no damage. Got it in two or three days after order. Joseph my Sweetwater rep was excellent in helping me acquire this. Can't say enough good things about Sweetwater and their service. Will definitely use them again. I have bought several guitars from Sweetwater. An amp some straps, piks, always been satisfied with my purchase. If you get something you don't like, it's easy to return. Thank you again Sweetwater. Thank you again Joseph Donner

Perfect finish, love the black with gold hardware.
I set the action very ow and tuned down a half-step.
Light and has excellent upper fret access. It plays and sound great.
I liked it so much I bought the Epiphone P90 SG as well and it sounds and playsgreat too.
If you are on the fence, just get one.

This sg is really fun to play . I found the action to be fast . I had Sweet water do the set up for me. I highly recommend this guitar . You will not be disappointed in the quality and sound.

This guitar plays nice sounds nice. neck was straight. Everybody at Sweetwater was great. I have a few guitars and I play a lot. I bought this to replace the first guitar ever had which was a SG and I sold it and traded it for my 1982 limited edition les paul. This is a great replacement. If
You get a chance to try one of these, do so. Shipping was fast and it was packed nicely from Sweetwater. Thank you

Fretboard is very nice. Frets are smooth. Sounds like a champ. Couldn't ask for anything better for a SG. Would definitely buy again from Sweetwater. Flawless delivery. Dennis is great as my engineer.

Very impressed w/ the build quality & tone. Can't beat the value here. One of the best SG's I've owned, & I've owned plenty!

This and the last 2020 Epiphone SG Custom I bought over a year ago from an online competitor are the two best Epiphone SG Customs I've bought since I've been playing mid priced to upper ended Epiphone SGs 13 years ago. The finish is gorgeous and the gold hardware looks like an Egyptian king, queen, prince or princess should be playing these things of they were still around. As for the pickups and the sound of them they sound hot and middle to high gain. I like the way the pickups sound but for personal preferences they should have put either Gold Chinese made ProBuckers or or American made Gold Burstbuckers just like they did for the Epiphone Custom Les Paul SG Standards they'd just put out around the holidays last year. I might swap them out for either American made Burstbuckers or some American made Duncans or keep them stock for now until I break this guitar in. Thanks Michael DiGiorgio (My sales Engineer) for reserving this great Demo Model and thanks Sweetwater for selling me this great guitar when my local Samash told me not to call them anymore and they weren't going to be doing business with me anymore and the local shops in the area either didn't have them or weren't doing payment plans or layaway.

This Epi SG Black Beauty far exceeded my expectations. I'm usually quick to change things around but this one I'm leaving alone. It really rocks through my Marshall Origin 50 head and through my Fender Deville 2 x 12 is where it really shines. It sounds just awesome through a higher powered clean amp with more headroom. Today Epiphone is making outstanding guitars. As soon as they're available jump on it immediately. You'll be glad you did. BTW Sweetwater makes these awesome guitars more easily available for us more financially challenged musicians with service with a smile. Thank you Sweetwater.

I own multiple Gibson Les Paul's, and a Gibson sg, and a boat load of fender starts. All amazing instruments. Looking at the specs of this guitar made me feel like it was as close to a Gibson as you can get for a fraction of the price.

First impressions the neck was nice, straight, flat, easy to play, but the frets needed to be broken in. I used a little bit of steel wool to polish them up and some fine grit sand paper to clean up the Edges of the neck. A little bit of adjustments to the bridge and this thing ROCKS.

The bridge and neck pickups are amazing sounding, full, and unique from great highs to rumbling lows. The pots and knobs give you an amazing range of possibilities and feel of quality.

The neck does have a little bit of play in it, compared to my Gibson's, but the guitar stays in tune. It's feels more like a fender Stratocaster neck then a Gibson. But who's said there was anything wrong with that!

Simply an amazing guitar for the money. Once it's broken it it's hard to put down.

I love my Epiphone SG Custom.

This is a spectacular guitar. You can't go wrong with an ebony fretboard! The neck is nice and slim for speedy playing, and the gold and black aesthetic is perfect. It's also much lighter than previous Epiphone SGs I've owned without losing any sustain. Funny enough, I can't stop listening to AC/DC since I bought this. Great playability, great sound, I can't wait to make some upgrades.
Bottom line: I don't see the point in buying a Gibson when you can get this quality for a fraction of the price, leaving some room to spend money on upgrades if you want to.

This is my 3rd Epiphone guitar. When I first laid my hand on the the wide, flat neck I thought "I don't know if this is going to work for me". But after a few minutes of playing I began to like the feel of it, the longer I played the more I appreciated what an awesome instrument Epiphone has created here. And to go with it are nice tuners, outstanding looks, and most importantly great sound. Win, win, especially at this price point.

This picks up from my last revue Dark Horse .
What you see in the pictures is all the mods complete:
1- a good case..... Consider this a must have
2- a B5 with a 1 inch spring
3- a Roller Bridge
4- a Rock , Drop and Block Mod this is no long available it consists of a drilled out Vibromate V5 Plate a modified Spoiler with a Quarter pound Carbon Steel Block and to pins giving the Guitar 36 to 44 added seconds of sustain and tighter bass response when unplugged acoustically so when in 4 -100 watt half Stacks She's a Roller This is the buy of a life time do the math

Got it and played it all day and all night, it sounds , feels and play's as good as My real 1961 LP SG but with the added bite of a ebony neck. I crashed and had dark dreams of a Black LP Sg Killing M other Guitars... I woke up and it was in my bedroom watching me . I don't remember bringing it in the bedroom so I asked it to make me some coffee It just stood there looking at me with Murder in its Strings , Well it was worth a shot so I got some coffee and took off the strings and put a full contact Babicz LP Bridge and tailpiece set I have had on the shelf just waiting for the right AXE.It is the right AX .Fired up my 900 Marshall and it all came together .Conclusion The Axe Kills it out of the Box unless your going all in the hard wear I added is not needed but I won't lie it Made it meaner as for the pickups... 57 Classic pros are nice. For now, SEYMOUR DUNCAN P-rails are what comes next and She will be mine for Life. This is For Me ,,So My Friends Get Your self one of there Dark Horse's and Make Her Your own Dark Story You will never find one like this again....

Totally solid guitar. I received it well-intonated and with great action, and it holds tune. You can tell the pots aren't the normal cheap stuff and the pickups sound great. This might be the first import on which I do not feel the need to replace a thing, partially because they already upgraded what most would. Have had it about a week and feel better about it each day.

This guitar is beautiful I received it last night and put it through the paces. The craftsmanship is gorgeous. The tones I was getting out of it messing with the tone knobs and the volume knobs going through some fuzz pedals and a Mesa Boogie are awesome. My fingers did turn a little black though from the ebony fretboard. I'm hoping that's just the new coming off it. I can't wait to get home after work and play it some more, I have three beautiful Gibson's that might be sitting for a while. Of course thank you Sweetwater, and Ryan Clapper for always making my purchases easy.
Rock On!!!

First of all I just wanna say that I love the guys at Sweetwater they are very kind and professional! My experience with Sweetwater has always been more than satisfactory! Onto the guitar though The new line of 2020 epiphones are definitely worth the hype! For a 3rd off the price of a Gibson you can't really go wrong! The new Aesthetics with the new Kalamazoo headstock really looks good. Also this guitar comes with a Nubone self lubricating nut designed by graph-tech, and epiphone which will save you a couple of bucks in upgrades I haven't really had to tune my guitar that much I think it's very high quality nut! The already installed CTS wiring will make it easy for a pickup switch if you wanted to! It sounds pretty close to my gibson loaded with burstbuckers but a little less middy I think it'll a great addition to your guitar family wither your a complete beginner or touring musician!

The Good: LOOKS - Good looking guitar with nice inlays and nice headstock. I don't typically like gold hardware, but I think it looks good on the customs. Black and gold is mean but classy at the same time. FEEL - Nice slim neck...easy to get around on. Light weight...a little neck heavy but nothing drastic or annoying. My guitar had no sharp fret ends or obvious signs of poor craftsmanship. Inlays look good and don't have a lot of excessive filler around the edges. SOUND - Stock pickups are surprisingly good and react well to changes in the tone and volume pots. I don't see any need to change them out. Snarls, growls, screams and sings out just fine.

The Bad: Action out of the box was high. Neck is a little flexible, but seems to hold tune and tension just fine. The truss rod seems to only affect from frets 1-14, anything higher than that sort of "is what it is" when it comes to relief/flatness/backbow. Frets - My biggest gripe (deduct 1/2 star). I had read about poor fretwork on some of the earlier released models. I held on to get something out of the 2nd or 3rd wave of stock to see if there were improvements in quality control. My fret ends are fine, but I've had to work on several of the frets to get them level...mostly high frets that were choking out notes up in the 9-15 fret range. Not a huge deal, but if you aren't comfortable doing that type of work, it's worth noting that it might need to be done to get better playability out of this guitar. If there was a sweet deal on a PLEK job, I'd consider it, but it's tough for me to justify that cost on a guitar in this price range.

Overall takeaway: Good value, doesn't feel cheap, fun to play (after some adjustments), sounds great. In my quest for some Adam Jones tones I've owned a couple Les Pauls and always end up finding them too muddy and heavy for my liking. This is my first SG and it gets me all the warmth crunch and chewiness that I associate with Adam's sound, but without the muddiness and excessive weight. It's also very versatile in it's sonic capabilities. Between this SG and my Strat I can cop just about any type of sound I'm looking for. If you are a Strat player, this is any easy and relatively familiar feeling guitar to play. Definitely worth considering.

The first guitar I ever bought was an Epiphone Les Paul Special II. The year was 2004.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was leaving the music store with an Epiphone SG G-400. I owned and played that guitar every single day for the better part of 14 years. I ended up getting rid of it in 2020 because I thought that I needed something different. I picked up a Les Paul, a Strat, a Sun Valley Super Shredder, a C-1 Plus, a couple telecasters, and a Kramer.

I purchased this guitar somewhere around February of 2020, due to missing the 2008 SG model that I had previously owned. This model had some obvious improvements over my G-400 model including upgraded pots and electronics, block inlays, double diamond headstock inlay, and all of the binding work around the headstock and along the sides of the fretboard. Beautiful looking guitar. I always thought that guitars looked very clean and classic when done black with gold hardware. A guitar can look stunning all day long, but...

When I received the guitar, there were a few cosmetic flaws in the finish of the guitar. I had to order this model from a different distributor due to Sweetwater not having a timeline for when there would be more in stock. There were a few small areas on the back of the neck that were a little hazy. The spots lacked the nice smooth glossy finish but they were small.. and I had waited and waited to be able to find one of these in stock. The neck has proved to be straight and CONSISTENTLY reliable to play on. The tuning stability is rock solid as long as you're properly stringing and stretching your strings. Also, makes sure that you're stringing your guitar up so that the strings "lock." This helps the guitar maintain its tuning when you do a lot of bending. The frets could have definitely gotten more attention before leaving the factory. There are file marks along the fret boarding from the frets being crowned. The fret ends weren't sharp.. but they drew attention to themselves within the first 10 minutes on the guitar. The neck joint was a little sloppy with what looked like a paint run/build up. It still to this day has not shown any signs of cracking or weakened integrity, this is just me being picky about things I feel a guitarist should not have to worry about on a guitar in this price range. The ebony fretboard will make your fingers black for awhile after first receiving it. Depending on how often you play, it will quit doing this within a month or two. The GraphTech nut was an awesome upgrade that Epiphone added on this model. I feel as if this helps a ton with tuning stability when it comes to these guitars. The slots on mine were cut correctly from the guys at Epiphone. After taking my Z-File to the frets and dressing the fret ends with my Stew Mac dressing file, (best place to shop for all of your luthier wants and needs! Dan is a great guy!), I restrung it with some Ernie Ball 10's, and took a couple more weeks to play it and make fine adjustments.

How does it play? I quickly felt at home playing on the SlimTaper mahogany neck. The wide jumbo frets produce notes with clarity and a warmth that really makes for a great full bodied tone. The pickups in this guitar are surprisingly good! Similar to a Gibson manufactured guitar but with slightly less mids. Nothing that can't be fixed with a new set of pups.. but, I haven't had the desire to change them since owning this guitar. Like I previously stated, the tuning stability has been consistently solid for me, and that's very important as a performing musician. The fretboard edges were a little rough in a few places but nothing that impacted the playability in a negative way. The tuning keys make for quick and accurate adjustments thanks to their gear ratio. Currently, other than this Epiphone SG, I own a 2020 Tash Sultana Signature Fender, a 2021 Fender Am Pro II, 1996 Fender Stratocaster (black with maple neck and board, MIM), 2021 Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder PT FR, a 2006 Gibson SG in vintage cherry, a 2004 Martin D Series, 2004 Epiphone Black Beauty, and an Ibanez classical guitar.

I can easily say that I play this SG more than any of the other guitars that I own. I feel more creativity, inspiration, and joy while playing my SG. It brings me endless hours of fun and smiles. WITH A LITTLE BIT OF KNOWLEDGE AND WORK, you can have you an excellent playing guitar for highway robbery prices! You will not be hurt buying this guitar at this price point. Just make sure to really examine the guitar you are thinking of buying. I would recommend paying attention to the neck joint, the back of the headstock where it is glued and clamped to the neck, and pay attention to the quality of fretwork.. the quality can vary quite a bit even when dealing with a bunch of the same models. If you can afford the service, look into having the fretboard PLEK'd by Sweetwater or other certified shop. This will give you a fretboard that intonates accurately, sustains your notes longer, and is plays like a dream. What a time to be alive as a guitar player! Be patient and go into a music store to sit down and play a few different ones. Notice whatever guitar feels at home in your hands. Effortlessly. The guitar that inspires you and fills you with a burning passion to play. Whatever guitar brings a smile to your face and allows you to have fun. That's what it is all about at the end of the day.

I've owned 6 Epiphone guitars and numerous others as you can imagine. They manufacture some awesome instruments. I can't speak for all of the instruments they've built.. I can only speak for the ones that I've owned but I've been happy with all of them. I've always appreciated the ability to be able to pick up one of their instruments and feel right at home regardless of what model it might be. To me that says something about the company and its ability to consistently roll out reasonably priced gear that allows a good percentage of players out there to really find their sound without breaking the bank. If you're thinking about getting this guitar.. do it. I genuinely believe that you'll be just as satisfied as I have been with mine. I would just suggest that you find a music store that is close to you so that you can go in and actually pick up the guitar and have a few minutes in the drivers seat to make sure that you're getting one that has been properly setup and maintained. That is an important factor in buying any kind of new music equipment that you're unfamiliar with.. it will save you a lot of time, stress, and most importantly.. MONEY! You'll be MUCH happier buying the equipment you actually want compared to randomly buying things hoping that you may stumble across a piece of gear that you enjoy playing.

thanks!

Great guitar first time buying gear online
Overall not a bad experience would definitely buy again from Sweetwater if needed

Very classy looking and the sound only a sg can make. Stays in tune very well. Definitely a good buy. All the reviews don't lie. I would but it again without hesitation. Very nice!

Man this thing sounds and feels wonderful. Feather light, great stock hardware and pickups. Really sounds unique against anything I have.

Big issue : frets are trash above the 12th fret. It's a roll of the dice whether you'll get a dead note or not. Meedley-meedley, flep. Deedle deedle pop. It seems I'm not alone in that problem. Not in the least.

At the end of the day this is still just an Epiphone. A very nice one, but fraught with problems. Par for the course I guess. If you do get a nice one, keep it, it's a rare peacock amongst chickens.

I tried an sg again, nice guitar but it just doesn't like me. I don't like the way it carries when playing it very uncomfortable for me. I purchased a custom les paul epiphone and love it. It's all about the player. Just cause some rock star plays it doesn't mean you have to. Buy what you're heart desires. Shot out to Sweetwater and Kent for being there for me ,on getting the right gear.

This guitar is lighter than my Fender Stratocaster.I have changed the strings on my Strat. The action on my Strat is a lot easier. Maybe it's the strings. I will be changing them.
I have purchased many items from Sweetwater. As usual their service is exceptional and my service rep, Stewart Niven is the best! ( Hi Stewart)

First impressions: out of the box it feels cheap. Neck desperately needs some work - it's got way too much relief - like a bow, but sounds clanky as I struggle to play with such high action. Some noticeably high frets -even with such high action.
Pretty fat neck as well.


The neck is strangely malleable - it's made of wood but almost feels like plastic.

Great looking guitar, but I'm not sure anyone thought it might be used as a musical instrument when it left the factory. I'll give it a basic set-up and see if it ends up something I can use. As it is, I wouldn't play a gig with it.

Also - Weighs next to nothing - I honestly wasn't sure there was a guitar in the box.
I'm trying to imagine how I'll make this work for me. I saw some awesome reviews on this. I have over 20 guitars - and I've had to patiently work a few of them. This one is just a royal disappointment out of the box.