Jazz guitarists, I need your help

[63dot]

I have already decided I need to learn how to read music, not just on guitar, but on piano. I have the piano.

I have been looking over some jazz guitars in the inexpensive to medium price range from ibanez and epiphone companies. - ibanez.com, epiphone.com

here they are (street prices in us dollars)

epiphone dot studio ($299)
ibanez artcore 335 style (329)
epiphone dot (399)
ibanez artcore es-175 style (399)

epiphone es-175 (599)
epiphone joe pass emperor II (599)
epiphone bb king lucille (699)
epiphone emperor I (649)

ibanez artcore joe pass style fashioned after the emperor II (799)
epiphone elitist es-335 (1299)

yes, i would like to have $3,000 dollars available to get the ibanez george benson model, a heritage jazz guitar, or the gibson memphis es-335, but that ain't gonna happen with my budget

 

[CanadaRAM]

Watching this thread - I am in the market for same, although I am looking for blues/rock humbucker tones as well.

There are some Tokais on the market in the lower price range too - gorgeous natural mahogany finish, have no idea how they sound. These are Chinese made Tokais not Korean or Japanese, so I also don't know what the build quality is. Who is producing the Hagstrom reissues? Is this another case of an old name being bought by a low end factory?

 

[Mike Teezie]

If it were my dollars, and Jazz tone is what you are after, I would buy an Epiphone Joe Pass model, and change the pickups out for something better.

Maybe these, or if you are feeling spendy, these. I like Seymour Duncan a lot. Great pickups, especially for the money.

When you get the thing, the first thing you need to do is have it set up for at least .11s. It's going to be hard to get the round jazz tone with anything less. When you get used to playing on .11s, have the guitar set up with .12s.

 

[SuperSnake2012]

I've seen the Ibanez Artcore going as low as $299 on Musician's Friend. It's a really nice guitar that sounds great on clean tones. Didn't try it overdriven though.

 

[dornoforpyros]

I've been eyeing up those dot studios as well lately, seems like a decent price for a basic hollow body. I own 2 epiphones already, the studio les-paul is great.

The LP special-II...not so much, it's got a bold on neck and a 'slab' body and honestly, it kinda blows. I don't think I'd even recommend it for a beginner just cuz even after a set up it plays and sounds like crap. But I'll prolly keep it just cuz it's got some sentimental value.

 

[63dot]

If it were my dollars, and Jazz tone is what you are after, I would buy an Epiphone Joe Pass model, and change the pickups out for something better.

Maybe these, or if you are feeling spendy, these. I like Seymour Duncan a lot. Great pickups, especially for the money.

When you get the thing, the first thing you need to do is have it set up for at least .11s. It's going to be hard to get the round jazz tone with anything less. When you get used to playing on .11s, have the guitar set up with .12s.

i don't like the idea of 12s on any guitar, but 11s are great...i was playing rock and roll so much i have been accustomed to 9s and 10s for many years

i will probably go the traditional route and get a small transistor based amp and not some tubed out marshall or mesa boogie...as for pickups, i like the ultra clean attack and accuracy of the EMG 89s for jazz...switchable back from humbucker to single coil sound from a '57 humbucker sound to dog ear gibson P-90s...and if need be, but not in my case, any active EMGs sound great distorted on any size amp from any maker or through any foot pedal or digital rack mount unit...EMG pickups are truly amazing live and in the studio and very tweakable as far as shaping that custom sound

but nothing seems wrong with the stock pickups, or some dimarzios or duncans...paul reed smith makes some great pickups, too but i don't know if they are appropriate for hollow or semi-hollow body guitars, but i am not looking for much in a pickup except for something that picks up the sound halfway decently and even some hum, from a full humbucker sized/routed P90 after market pickup is not so bad, either

 

[CubaTBird]

let the great jeff golub jazz guitarist give you some good advice...

http://www.jeffgolub.com/equipment.html

 

[Mike Teezie]

i don't like the idea of 12s on any guitar, but 11s are great...i was playing rock and roll so much i have been accustomed to 9s and 10s for many years

i will probably go the traditional route and get a small transistor based amp and not some tubed out marshall or mesa boogie...as for pickups, i like the ultra clean attack and accuracy of the EMG 89s for jazz...switchable back from humbucker to single coil sound from a '57 humbucker sound to dog ear gibson P-90s...and if need be, but not in my case, any active EMGs sound great distorted on any size amp from any maker or through any foot pedal or digital rack mount unit...EMG pickups are truly amazing live and in the studio and very tweakable as far as shaping that custom sound

but nothing seems wrong with the stock pickups, or some dimarzios or duncans...paul reed smith makes some great pickups, too but i don't know if they are appropriate for hollow or semi-hollow body guitars, but i am not looking for much in a pickup except for something that picks up the sound halfway decently and even some hum, from a full humbucker sized/routed P90 after market pickup is not so bad, either

I'm probably not the best guy to offer advice then, as the first the first thing I did with my PRS's was rip the stock pickups out. They were tinny and totally lifeless to me.

Different strokes.....

 

[63dot]

I'm probably not the best guy to offer advice then, as the first the first thing I did with my PRS's was rip the stock pickups out. They were tinny and totally lifeless to me.

Different strokes.....

want life? dimarzio Steve Vai EVO's, duncan distortions, or EMG 81s...all have tons of gain

my friend had a perfectly warm sounding 70s ibanez iceman, (warm by the tastes of vintage buffs, but weak by the tastes of metal players of the 90s) but he wanted more horsepower in the lead pickup so he added a dimarzio hot rodded PAF humbucker with more gain on the mids...that was not hardcore enough for his metal stylings so I gave him a duncan distortion with more gain all around and he uses that to this day

I just saw a new peavey 335 style semi-hollowbody (the jazz fusion 1) and the guitar seemed as nice as the ibanez and epiphones in the same price range I saw at guitar center...this guitar was going for $350 used and while the list is only $399 this guitar was flawless in its condition with maple plywood body and set in mahogany neck, flame maple top, and transluscent red finish with gold plated hardware and decent tuners...plugged in the guitar had a good range from traditional jazz to hard rock due to the hollowbody and solidbody components of its hybrid body

the pickups have a medium gain of a regular stock gibson humbucker and that's all I need for the bebop jazz I want to embark on...but it would be nice to also one day venture into fusion ala Allen Holdsworth and have a pickup that could get "turned" up if needed

I did a little research and found that many guitar companies are now using pots that allow for heavier sounding pickups to be able to be turned down while still retaining the highs

I have always had problems with older guitars, in the past, with losing the high end of the tone when I turned down the volume on my gibsons, strats, or ibanez guitars

I like to keep the high end at all volume levels on the volume knob on an electric and if I need to reduce the high end tones, as in bebop jazz guitar, I resort to the tone knob and turn it to 1 or 2 or thereabouts for that jazz tone

but there is this one magical exeption I had in a near religious guitar experience many years ago at San Jose's guitar center (with one of those terribly bad volume pots)...they had this stock 1972 blonde telecaster for $1200 dollars, all original, but the volume knob really lost its highs when I rolled it off but when it was turned all the way up it had that typical telecaster twang...but then I experimented and turned the amp way up and rolled off the volume knob of the telecaster to less than half and the tone got really heavy on the mids and bass and sounded nothing like a telecaster, but I got the best fat "woman" tone, clapton sounding les paul or sg sound...it actually transformed this telecaster into a very humbucker sounding machine...I have never been able to replicate it with my '65 tele, '68 bigsby tele, '78 tele, 1990 american standard tele, or 1990 japanese squier telecaster by fiddling with the volume knob...and no, I could never afford all guitars at once...he he..BUT anyway, that's not what I am looking for these days in a traditional jazz guitar

also, today's new humbuckers, on many makes and models, can be split via the volume knob, tone knob, or a switch so one can get that full humbucker tone or cut off the bass and mids by disabling a coil and get a good clean fender tone

 

[63dot]

here they are (street prices in us dollars)

epiphone dot studio ($299)
ibanez artcore 335 style (329)
epiphone dot (399)
ibanez artcore es-175 style (399)

epiphone es-175 (599)
epiphone joe pass emperor II (599)
epiphone bb king lucille (699)
epiphone emperor I (649)

so anyway, i realized i didn't need to embark on the more semi-pro/pro level guitars of the second grouping, so i got the artcore 335 style but agonized between that and the epiphone dot since they were both very comparable in sound and playability...i almost sprang for the completely different artcore full hollowbody es-175 style guitar which was in the similar range as both the epiphone and the ibanez 335 style electric

here's a link to my new guitar which will be my only electric (i also have an old yamaha acoustic)

www.ibanez.com/guitars/guitar.asp?model=AS73

 

[63dot]

I've seen the Ibanez Artcore going as low as $299 on Musician's Friend. It's a really nice guitar that sounds great on clean tones. Didn't try it overdriven though.

while the ibanez artcore 335 style and both epiphone dots (one slightly cheaper than my ibanez and one slightly more expensive) all had great clean tones and were great for jazz, the ibanez beat the epiphones hands down on the overdriven sounds (which i really don't expect to use all that much)

the ibanez also had a slightly thinner and faster neck to go along with those great distorted tones so it could easily be used for most kinds of rock...i tried metallica on my ibanez 335 and it sounded fine even at a high volume on a medium sized fender blues deville amplifier...and no feedback...that being due to the solid center piece in the guitar

a full hollowbody guitar like a gibson or epiphone es-175 series guitar, or most hollowbody gretsch guitars, would feedback horribly when turned up loud and on a full on overdrive setting