Epiphone Hummingbird

As I promised last week here are the my thoughts on the Epiphone Hummingbirds. As you all know Epiphone is Gibson's ugly step sister. Well that's really not fair because Epiphone does make some very sweet and most importantly affordable guitars. The Epiphone Hummingbirds come in the same two varieties as the Gibsons (Hummingbird and Hummingbird Artist). Neither of these has a built in pickup so you can plug them in.

Here's a side-by-side view of both models:

Here's what I think:

Looks:

The first thing I have to say is the pickguards on these things look terrible. I said last week I wasn't crazy about the hummingbird and butterfly etching. The pickguards on the Epiphones are so thin you can see the rosette inlay right through them. I can't imagine that is by design because the inlays on these leave much to be desired.

Finish:

The the sunburst on the Epiphone looks pretty bad in these pictures but believe me it is even worse in person. Very cheap looking. The tabaco burst finish on the Epi Artist looks better but the actual up close finish on both of these is not great. The materials also seemed low end too. Not totally sure what tone woods are used on this one but I wasn't impressed.

Action/Playability:

Believe it or not the action on the two Epiphones I played was slightly better than on the Gibsons. However the necks just didn't feel right and I didn't enjoy playing these all that much.

Sound:

Well I was so blown away by the sound of the Gibsons I talked about last week it would be hard for any of these to top that and they didn't. Maybe it was the low end tone woods or just the construction of the guitar itself.

Price Tag:

Here is the one place the Epiphones blow away the Gibsons! You can drop a zero from the end of the Gibson prices.

$350 (Hummingbird) / $300 (Hummingbird Artist)

Pro's:

Price. Although for $300 - $350 there are a lot of other choices out there but if you have to have a Hummingbird on a budget here you go!

Con's:

Everything except the price.

Thanks for reading. I still do not have a ton of requests so if you want me to find out more about a particular guitar let me know so I can find one to try out.

ez8

Gibson Hummingbird

Hey Talula-thanks for the requests.

I decided to go with one of your suggestions and check out the Gibson Hummingbird this time around. First thing, the Hummingbirds come in a few different varieties. I tried the Gibson Hummingbird Acoustic-Electric and the Gibson Hummingbird Artist Acoustic-Electric. These are both high-end acoustic guitars made in the good 'ole USA.

Here's what I think:

Gibson Hummingbird Acoustic-Electric



Gibson Hummingbird Artist Acoustic-Electric



Looks:
Well the Hummingbird (top picture) definately has a pretty unique looking pickguard. I think you either love it or say "what's with the bird?" Personally I'm not a fan of the etched hummingbird, flowers, and the butterfly but you may like it. It's pretty old school...like Little House on the Prairie. The Artist version (bottom picture) has a smaller more suttle pickguard.

Finish:
The finish on both models is super nice. Not a high gloss finish but the aged look is very nice. The Hummingbird has chrome Grover toners that are great if you like chrome versus gold or ivory (I like chrome - shiny). The Artist has slightly cheaper looking tuners with ivory knobs. The one thing that did stick out was the bindings on these babies. They were obviously very simple cream bindings but they even covered the ends of the fret wire. Now that's paying attention to detail!

Action/Playability:
If there was one downside to both of these guitars it was the high action. It looked like the saddle was a little bit too high for my liking. Don't sweat it though I'm pretty sure in the hands of the right luthier or technician the bridge could be lowered to correct this.

Sound:
OMG! This thing sounded unbelievable! Soft strumming, hard strumming, up and down the neck, fingerstyle, power chords they all sounded great. Even with me playing it. Both models are wired for sound and can be plugged into your favorite amp. There are no volume controls or an equalizer to make adjustments while playing. It's just plug and play. I did't have the chance to plug either in to hear them through an amp. Sorry.

Price Tag:
$3000 (Hummingbird) / $2300 (Hummingbird Artist)

Pro's:
Sound, overall construction of the guitar, sound, made in the USA, oh did I mention the sound?

Con's:
High action, price tag (you're looking at a couple of mortage payments here...foreclosure...Gibson Hummingbird...decisions decisions).

Well that's it for now. I actually tried these out in the Epiphone line too. Since I'm actually shocked you read this far I've decided to include them in my next post (you're welcome). See you next time!

ez8

Welcome to the ez8 Guitar Blog

Wow! My very own blog and I get to post whatever I want...cool. Well this blog is going to be focused on one of my favorite topics, guitars. Since this is my first ever post I would like to make some disclaimers:

I am not a expert at blogging, guitars, brain surgery, cooking, or just about anything I do for that matter. Well I admit I haven't tried doing brain surgery...not yet at least. The content on this blog will be based on my own experiences and opinions so if you disagree please let me know. My feelings won't be hurt.

Anyway, my plan is to put up some weekly posts to talk about a certain gear that I've tried, maybe some songs/tabs that are cool (or easy to play), some other guitar related websites, basically whatever garbage I feel like throwing out there. Man, I can't believe they let people just post whatever they want out there on the internet.
So I guess for this post I'm going to ask you all to help me out. I'd like the first gear review to be of a particular guitar. Maybe one that you'd like to know more about. Yeah there's tons of reviews out there but do they really help you decide on just the right ax for you? So if there's one you want to know more about let me know and I'll get a hold of one, try it out and let you know all about it. Please don't request a 1941 Gibson L30 because I probably won't be able to find one to try. Let's stick to guitars that you can realistically go out and buy.

Well thanks for stopping by and I look forward to hearing from you.

ez8