Is the Epiphone Sheraton the Superior ES-335 Alternative?!

[@Myfingersstinklikefish]

Epiphone will always be Gibson’s older brother, and its history is perhaps the most interesting of any guitar brand”: Celebrating 150 years of Epiphone

[@tier5958]

Quite interesting you dropped this vid today. I just purchased a wine burst 2001 Sheraton 2. Absolutely in love with it.

[@CameraLaw]

Sounded fantastic. Playing a Sheraton opened my eyes to what a great product Epiphone makes. Led me to a vintage 1992 Joe Pass Emperor II made in the Korean Samick factory that is a peach! Glad you reviewed this as the tailpiece and the minis are a nice change for buyers to be aware of. And I suspect for many players a semi-hollow body is something new to them that they’d like to try out and add to their arsenal. In that case, the lower price tag is a definite incentive.

[@janjablonsky]

I wish Cooper would play a few jazz-type riffs so we can hear the warm tone that these types of guitars seem to be made for.

[@ChiefsFanfromSCAL]

He can learn jazz playing and will quickly come to adore it .. more feel than speed, so he may need to log a few years in life to have an interest.

[@furtherdefinitions1]

The Frequensator tailpiece was invented by Epiphone product manager Herb Sunshine, and according to him, he used an oscilloscope and could measure how it worked on the strings.

[@dalecoffing8655]

Cool history lesson. Good to know.

[@CentaurusRelax314]

Herb Sunshine. Right. You totes made that up. 😅❤

[@cmdrargo4448]

@@CentaurusRelax314 the Frequensator tailpiece - designed by Epiphone employee Herb Sunshine - and introduced in 1937. Although the design was patented by July 19, 1938 the units kept being stamped “Pat. pending”

[@pepmasters-999]

Herbert S. Sunshine. Patent awarded in July 1938. Predates Gibson's acquistition of Epiphone (in 1957), unlike the Sheraton which is effectively a glammed up ES-335 and has only ever existed as a Gibson-owned product (albeit exclusively under the Epiphone marquee). I like the look of the frequensator tailpiece, but not sure it's desirable in terms of tone any more than a fixed stop bar.

[@furtherdefinitions1]

Look it up. That was his name and he created other innovative things for Epiphone when it was an independent company and Gibson's biggest competitor. @@CentaurusRelax314

[@ThePonDePon]

I had a chance to play a vintage Sheraton, definitely worth it

[@christianbond1561]

My first guitar - the one that got away was a Sheraton ll from the 80s I loved that guitar

[@RodVonLongrod]

I recently acquired a 150th Anniversary Sheraton. I have to say the guitar is darn near flawless and worth the price of admission. I've owned a 335 Studio and a 335 satin cherry finish. They have a different vibe than a Sheraton but both do the full size semi-hollow thing very well. I still have my Sheraton I bought new back in 2014. Every time I pick it back up I'm reminded why I've kept it. If you want a 335 but don't have the cash to buy one give a Sheraton a try. The factory producing them now has got it nailed down and are turning out some really nice guitars.

[@otherworldsnaps]

Man, I really loved the tone when you switched to the bridge pickup! Super punchy! Great playing as always, Cooper!

[@chrisquinn9104]

I have an early Elite Rivieria and a John Lee Hooker Sharaton from around 2000, both from the Tarada Factory in Japan (same factory higher end Gretschs come from). Gibson hardware and as good as my custom shop Gibson’s. The Minis work so well with the semi hollow great combination.

[@AndrewAHayes]

My elederly father before he passed away told me that the old English jazz players of the 30's-'40s preferred the Epiphone archbacks over similar Gibson models, my dad was a Gibson man through and through though. I love the Gibson mini humbuckers, they are very crisp sounding pickups.

[@tonray9395]

Sold ! I've been going back and forth between this Sheraton, the Sire H7, and a few others. If not for the gold hardware (which I'm not a great fan of) I would have grabbed this already. But you pushed me over the edge..thanks man

[@Myfingersstinklikefish]

Joe Pass uses an Emperor. Epiphone produces a signature model of Pass' guitar. Les Paul used Epiphone guitars for recording from the early 1940s until the late 1950s, even after his signature Gibsons were produced. The Epiphones were highly customized models... Steve Marriott (The Small Faces/Humble Pie) used a Dwight during Humble Pie's early days; it can be heard on the track "I Don't Need No Doctor".[...Bob Dylan used different acoustic guitars from Epiphone....Alex Lifeson (Rush) uses a Masterbuilt acoustic and has appeared in several Epiphone advertisements.

[@poodleguiderpeyes7388]

I like the Sheraton 2 Pro, it has Epi Pro Buckers, sounds great & is a beautiful looking guitar.

[@DevInvest]

Have one in all natural. It’s amazing and beautiful

[@strategist7671]

Had my Sheraton since '95. Beautiful sounding, great looking and cool AF.

[@texhaines9957]

Cooper, I thought this was a good guitar when I tried it locally compared to others. As for your demo, this needs one or two clean open chords to compare with others. Maybe it's my ear or the way I hear a guitar to sing with, or use. Thanks

[@Holonomics]

Great playing and great review. I have a Sheraton II which I love and the thing I love the best is that you can really crank it up to 11 which very few reviews manage to convey - it absolutely screams its heart out should you wish to go there in your playing :)

[@TommySG1]

Merry Christmas Alamo 🤙 As I’ve mentioned before, Cooper playing an Epiphone will make another channel playing a historic 7-8k Gibson sound comparable or even better LOL! All jokes aside, this is a beautiful guitar which won’t break the bank. Thanks guys.

[@dalecoffing8655]

I have a Sheraton ii pro. It is my go to guitar for pit work. Run through an AC-15 with some pedals there's not much we can't cover. Easy player with great sustain and lots of different tones. I've been asking for this review. Thanks for covering this great guitar. If you don't mind who's name is on the headstock grab an Epi. They have been kind of the "redheaded stepchild", Only complaint is the neck dive. But you just learn to handle it.

[@jondhama3111]

totally agree. if you're buying epiphone, but epiphone original designs. way cooler and more unique to me. the sheraton/riviera design with mini-humbuckers is the most underrated in music. the brighter and slightly thinner tone is such a great compliment to the added warmth and woodiness of the semi-hollow body design.

[@jonathanhorne6503]

I haven’t tried the recent Epiphone Sheraton. I have had two Epis from the 60s, still have one, I’m real impressed. Especially my two Crestwood guitars (Coral and White), a Coronet and my beloved CasinoCoupe. I’ve ended up modding them to my style and needs but they are cheap enough to do it without guilt. I’m really liking the cheap(er) guitars now, much better than the ones I suffered through in the mid 60s. Good values in my opinion. We need more guitar players to keep rock alive, I think the modern inspiration is lacking with few exceptions. Btw, I’m now in my 70s and have played since I was 14.

[@GarrettRodman]

Honourable mention would be the Sheraton Emily Wolfe for a different take on it

[@poesybeat]

I have the Riviera with the same pickups - the pickups are way better than any Epiphone I’ve owned before. No need to swap them out.

[@amybabb4013]

I love Vampire Weekend! One of my favorite bands!

[@thereala-a-ron9635]

Hey forgive me, what is the big difference between the Sheraton and the riviera? I just saw a riviera almost about the same specs and build, just a different headstock…what am I missing?

[@MsRavens13]

Been a pro session player for over 50 years and my workhorse guitar is a 90s Epi Sheraton blonde. Does it all. Any genre. Enuff said.

[@moongazer2049]

Great review and awesome playing , I always thought the Epiphone Semi-hollows were outstanding, the Sheraton has the fastest neck and the best looking headstock top notch quality and enjoyable to play on

[@YOSTINATOR]

I have one in Vintage Burst. It's fantastic!

[@swaffy101]

I have never played a bad Sheraton. Great guitars.

[@blkwheeler32]

This looks great!

[@pstraums]

Looks *great*, sounds *great*, and plays nice?.. *Win*!!

[@brianbeaven698]

I bought the Sheraton LE in Viper blue with gold hardware Fanatic guitar…. Cheers 🎸

[@mkrj2576]

What amp/settings you playing through? Yours sounds a lot brighter than my Sheraton. Great guitar all around except a bit of neck dive and neck is a bit thin for my taste. But I still really dig mine.

[@ericarachel55]

I have the Pro2 black, looks and sounds great

[@arthurblackhistoric]

I was a hobbyist guitarist since 1971 when I first began playing guitar. Acoustic at first, but only until I saved up enough money to get an electric. I began working in the workforce full-time in the same year I started playing guitar seriously, 1972. I literally didn't know one brand of guitar from another back then. I came from an impoverished part of our state capital city. My first amp, I built from a kit . . solid state, again not knowing anything about tubes and such. Actually a ham radio guy who was a technician with the phone company got my parents' old valve radiogram and converted the gramophone section into a kinda-sorta guitar amp for me, God bless him. Like I said, I was dirt poor. By 1974 I was good enough to play in any local band that'd give me a start, and a few did. By then I was playing a Tele-style guitar, branded Coronet, made in Japan. It looked nice, but the pickups were almost dead in the water. Then on Christmas Eve 1974, a friend of mine asked me if we could go home via Indooroopilly shopping town because he hadn't got his girlfriend her Christmas present yet. I used to give him a lift to and from work in those days. So, present bought, he said: Why not have a look in at Harlequin Music before we went home? So we did. On the wall hung a Les Paul Custom in black with gold hardware. Not a Gibson, in fact no name on the headstock. The price tag read $60. As soon as the guy handed it to me, one of the rusty strings snapped, so I tested it out with only five working. It spoke to me louder than any other guitar ever has. The guy knew I was gonna walk outta there with it, so he threw in a new set of strings and let me have it for 50 bucks! Years later I found out about the whole Lawsuit guitars thing. This guitar defined me and I used it for the next 11 years! Then I saw in my local pawn shop a Gibson ES-335 copy, so I bought it. That immediately took over as my No.1 squeeze. By this time, 1986, I was still a hobbyist, but with the chops to go pro if I wanted to, but there was no need; I had a good job as a truck driver, and played for fun with friends most weekends. Everything changed in 1997 when I got injured at work and was pensioned off. Our unnecessarily hard government changed all the laws to prevent injured workers "getting rich" off the back on career-ending work injuries. So I was back to being broke again. But I'd ordered myself a black Epiphone Sheraton that was still not anywhere close to being in my possession. I'd decided, on the advice of pretty much everyone who knew me, to finally go full-time professional into the music industry. The only way to make even close to a living was to work solo, so I did, using backing tracks while I played lead and rhythm guitar and sang live. I thought it couldn't hurt to join the city's Blues Association, so I did. Oh boy! what I found there was a two tiered affair, consisting of the "cool group" who only played with other members of the cool group at their monthly jam sessions, and the rest of us who could go to buggery as far as the cool group were concerned. Right from my first time at the first jam session I attended, I began attracting other Blues musicians who wanted me to play with them the following month. After a couple of months our number had swelled to nearly a dozen! Not everyone could make it every month, but we'd still have up to nine in our jam band! Then I began to notice something petty and petulant. When we'd all get up for our set, members of the cool group would leave the room! That just left more room for those who were waiting outside for us to take the stage to come in and dance. I copped plenty of snide comments from the "American-made brigade" for playing a Sheraton, but it was water off a duck's back to me. The audiences didn't know or care where my guitar was made; they just wanted to hear me play it. Once I started making decent money in the music industry, I did buy myself a few Gibsons over the years for tax purposes, but after I broke with my accountant, I realised I didn't need to do that. She was charging me for work that wasn't necessary due to my status as an invalid pensioner. For decades I kept going, touring relentlessly on my own, and slowly and surely wearing myself out in the process. I just made it to retiring age before everything started to come unravelled. First my back, that I'd injured during a fall from my truck way back in 1988, just gave up the ghost; then my shoulders seemed to go arthritic, right outta nowhere; then my hands stopped working AT A GIG in 2021 . . and that was all she wrote. I can't even hold a pick in my right hand and my left hand's fingers won't respond to the nerve impulses telling them where to go and what to do.

[@zmchenaustin]

Dude, appreciate the enthusiasm! If I want to read a book, I would not come on KZbin

[@camillekindbeiter4712]

Hi, I think I'm about to buy one of these, but I'd like it in vintage sunburst, and the price is 1045€, so I was wondering if it is worth it

[@Myfingersstinklikefish]

The SG of the Future The SG Modern Figured from Epiphone's Inspired by Gibson™ Collection has the classic SG™ body profile made from mahogany and a maple cap with an AAA-figured maple veneer. Powered by a pair of Epiphone's ProBucker™ humbucker™ pickups with coil-splitting, phase switching, and a treble bleed circuit for a multitude of tones. It also features an ebony fingerboard, asymmetrical SlimTaper™ neck profile with contoured heel, world-class Grover® Locking Rotomatic® 18:1 ratio tuners, and a Graph Tech NuBone™ nut.

[@buckbumble]

Does this have CTS pots?

[@leesanna7835]

I think you sold me, it was between a Epiphone Sheraton and a G&L Comanche Deluxe...

[@happytrails1963]

Thanks so much for video!! Such a cool guitar really like the things Epiphone has been doing. Have not yet dip toes into electric guitars but tempted very much. Taking your advice always say and best guitar is one I'm playing. I'/m the noobie and last christmas learned jingle bell rock but this year trying to up game and learn fancy version of same song. Its just so cool. Merry Christmas!! ☃ ⛄

[@Myfingersstinklikefish]

Look at the build specs of this 2019 epiphone exclusive deluxe limited run Sg Pro G 400...don't even say anything about the AAA flamed maple veneer Gibby boys because we can then talk about Gibson use of veneer on their 335..339.. headstock and backs of there Les Pauls.... Classic 60s Era "Solid Guitar" The G-400 Deluxe PRO is inspired by the first generation of SGs made in the 1960s at the legendary Gibson and Epiphone factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan that produced the Les Paul and the Casino. The SG model was originally intended to replace the Les Paul, which temporarily went out of production from 1961-1968. The new G-400 Deluxe PRO is constructed using the same dimensions and build techniques as vintage SGs and features a AAA Flame Maple Veneer top with a Mahogany body and neck with a comfortable 1960's SlimTaper 'D' profile and a 24.75" scale length. The Pau Ferro fingerboard has single ply binding with pearloid Trapezoid inlays, 22 medium jumbo frets, a 12" radius, and an adjustable truss rod with a 'bell' cover.

[@georgehorner1578]

I have been playing professionally for many years, I bought the Bonamassa 335 and it is better than my Gibson which I sold,sorry , play one and see, amazing axe.

[@John-p2o8g]

Would there ever be issues trying to find longer strings?

[@mikedavis7733]

I have A Epiphone Swingster with A Bigsby wire tremolo arm and would like This guitar if I could install one on it

[@hobonickel840]

can someone tell me the difference in this guitar and the one Mike Graff played before it was stolen in 2000? Hard to find info but I luvd the sound Course Of Empire's guitarist was able to produce

[@CentaurusRelax314]

[I’d like to suggest you avoid using a red bounding box on your preview images. At a glance, it makes it look like a video we’ve already viewed.]

[@dividedbytimestudios]

So we never see Alfredo is he active in the store?

[@LeeHoMusic]

Is that "out of tune" sound fixable? I had Epiphone SG Classic , I tried to intonate it and couldn't find the sweet spot and it was still out of tune close to 12th fret. This fault put me off epiphone....

[@dancinmikeb]

Do you need special order strings with that offset tail?

[@patrickschrepel7471]

It’s tough with the D string. The factory string runs out of wrap before reaching the peg. I have this exact guitar and ended up buying an aftermarket frequensator tailpiece that matches perfectly and swapped the short side from the guitar with the other long one from the aftermarket one. Now I have two pieces that are the same length and the strings reach easily. No change to the feel or sound. It’s a fantastic guitar.

[@cosmonaut9942]

How does this Sheraton differ from the Riviera? Both with mini hums, both with Laurel fretboards. Both semihollow guitars. BTW, would it have cost that much more money to have either an ebony or rosewood fretboard? Other Asian manufacturers seem to be able to do it. Sire and Yamaha are a couple of examples. Charge me an extra $50 for rosewood, or at least give me the option.

[@furtherdefinitions1]

The Riviera was released after the Sheraton as the lower cost version of that guitar. The Riviera is otherwise the same guitar without the frills

[@cosmonaut9942]

@@furtherdefinitions1 The new versions of both look exactly the same except for the slightly fancier headstock on the Sheraton. Is that what you mean by "frills?" I'm not sure what justified this new Sheraton model with the mini-hums. Seems like the Riviera had that territory covered.

[@dalenixon1947]

I have both. The Riviera has a larger headstock, whereas the Sheraton has the smaller new type. The Sheraton has gold hardware and, mop and abalone inlays, and the binding that is inset on the fingerboard. It does not have binding kn the f holes like the sheraton pro 2, nor the push pulls, nor the 3 piece neck of old. It had a slimmer neck than the Riviera. I prefer the sheraton to the Riviera, it feels and looks higher spec because of the details. The anniversary sheraton with the tremolo seems to be an over priced version of this model, almost double the price for a trem and hardcase. You get a soft gig bag with this model, and the Riviera has no case. Hope that helps.

[@chrisfranklinguitar7105]

​@dalenixon1947 Would you recommend this Sheraton or the Pro 2? Alternatively there's the Noel Gallagher Riviera which looks awesome but maybe overpriced

[@MarkTurner-vs7uc]

It's really the only alternative.

[@pepmasters-999]

To the 335? Hagstrom Viking and Guild Starfire V are worth considering.

[@Mauitaoist]

I don't know I have my Ibanez as73 it's as good as my Gibson 335

[@Someone-lc6dc]

So this one is made in China, right? Just checked Epiphone's website and they don't seem to have USA-made Sheratons :(

[@marchaas3768]

Do you really mean this...? The Epiphone Sheraton has not been made in the U.S.A. for more than 50 years....

[@arthurblackhistoric]

The reason the Frequensator exists is because our boy Epi, as Epiphone's ideas man, felt he had to come up with new ideas. First thing I do when I buy an Epiphone with a Frequensator fitted, is to remove and bin it, and then fit a Bigsby in place of it. And I'm talking about a real Bigsby, metal cast. NOT that ridiculous wooden contraption some of the Epiphones used to come fitted with. There's one of them in my bin too. I took it off my red '62 Re-issue Sheraton before I took it out in public!

[@dividedbytimestudios]

Epiphone needs to go back to Rosewood fretboard

[@marcpost4034]

Eastman T59-v is the superior ES-335 alternative.

[@pouyatorkiyan3258]

Nice 👍

[@seanzinger]

Thumbnail looks like a soap opera cover

[@Myfingersstinklikefish]

Gibson uses way to much veneer on their 335..339

[@hjmmjh4566]

It's neck-heavy. That makes it pretty much unplayable if you're standing up.

[@CentaurusRelax314]

Aren’t there ‘grippier’ straps that can help?

[@clickside5035]

That’s not true. I play this guitar with my band all the time standing up.

[@8chk92]

Pro 11 Made In China??

[@gillesserrigny6324]

Yes, interesting question. Made in China , lndonesia, Vietnam..? I have one Sheraton ll, and one Riviera Jorma Kaukonen, made in Korea. Two great guitars. But, l think it's over for the Epiphone made in Korea. And the Epi made in Japan are expansive.

[@jihunlee9316]

와우..기타 진짜 못생겼다..사고싶지 않다...

[@vincemincevince]

this looks like a Riviera i dont really see the difference

[@texhaines9957]

I got to play both at a local store. The neck on this felt better. Using clean settings, this sounds warmer. It's the one that came home with me.

[@Jomor44]

No it’s not