Epiphone SG Custom
They should have done better.
Gibson created the SG Custom to give the same upscale look and feel to the SG as they did to the Les Paul Custom. But at over £4000, the Gibson doesn’t come cheap. At £489, the Epiphone is about a third of the price of a Gibson SG Standard and a whopping one eight the price of a Gibson SG Custom. But what trade-offs does the reduced price bring other than the different name on the headstock and the “hand-crafted in China” sticker on the back?
Visually it is stunning! The gold hardware, the binding on the neck and headstock, the pearl inlays (it’s just shiny plastic) and the “Custom” headstock logo all look every bit as classy as the £4000 Gibson. Upon closer inspection, there are a couple of issues and quirks. The binding on the top of the fretboard is white, but on the sides it is painted cream. It is a very noticeable difference when looking at the fretboard while playing. The binding on the headstock is yet another different shade of cream, compared to the neck. Also, the neck binding was not applied properly near the third fret and part of it was unfinished like the top of the fretboard. The nut was also not sanded properly – it is sticking out by about a millimetre at the low E string.
The fretwork was not great either. You can feel the frets sticking out quite a bit and the last 3 frets are very sharp! You could easily scratch your hand if you regularly played frets 22-24. Nobody does that, of course, but I would have still expected better from a guitar at this price point. At least the frets were properly leveled with no high spots. You can also see a lot of tooling marks on the white binding, where the frets were rounded.
The setup on the Epiphone SG Custom was poor. The neck had a very high amount of relief, resulting in high action. A few turns of the truss rod fixed that very easily though and now the guitar plays very well! I was able to set the action quite low with no buzzing.
After a setup, the guitar is very comfortable to play. The Slim Taper neck shape pairs nicely with the 12” fretboard radius. The SG shape allows for easy access to the higher frets, making this guitar excellent for lead playing.
The Epiphone SG Custom has the signature sound of PAF pickups. The Alnico Classic PRO Humbuckers are very warm and have a good amount of sustain. There isn’t much definition, but they pair very well with overdrive and distortion. If you want to play AC/DC or Black Sabbath – this is the guitar to do it! Unfortunately, the clean tones aren’t as pleasing. It just sounds muddy and dull. You will need a compressor pedal and some EQ to get decent clean sounds with it, but it is possible.
After about a year the neck pickup stopped working. Opening the back cover revealed Epiphone’s Quick Connect pickup system. Checking all the connections and pots revealed no faults. Disconnecting and reconnecting the quick-connect plugs solved the issue. It must have just gotten loose. Not a big deal, but this would have been much less likely to happen with regular soldered wires. It is not a bad idea in theory, as it makes changing pickups quick and solderless. It’s just a shame they don’t include a spare connector with the guitar, because the vast majority of aftermarket pickups will not come with these.
Bottom Line
Unfortunately, I was not impressed with the Epiphone SG Custom. At £489, it is competing with some very high-quality Schecter and ESP LTD guitars that would not have such glaring quality control issues. That said, it is still a good player’s guitar, especially after a setup. The pickups sound great for rock tones and you will not get that classic gold-on-black aesthetic anywhere else. Don’t let this review deter you from considering Epiphone guitars in the future either. I have owned many Korean and Chinese-made Les Pauls by Epiphone and all of them were excellent guitars. Just make sure to try them before you buy!