Hello and new member here. After playing vintage Gibson and USA guitars and basses for 30+ years and avoiding them like the plague, I bought my first Epiphone (vintage Pro sunburst) 3 weeks ago new from
Sweetwater. Wow, what a great bass! I love the vintage vibe, the build quality and playability is top notch.
Being so impressed by the TB model And with my history w Gibson, I happened upon a very good deal on a 2013 Gibson TBird with some sweet mods that I purchased to compare the Epi quality to. This Gibson model has a chrome Hipshot bridge, D=tuner and what I believe to be the exact pickups that come stock in the VP. I only need to swap the tuners and it will be a full black to chrome/nickel conversion.
I haven’t made the formal comparison yet as I need to restring both and I only received the Gibby on Saturday but will definitely post my opinions here soon.
Ok, here are required pics (provided by both sellers. I’ll photograph my own for the comparison).
EPIPHONE VP
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GIBSON
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So here’s where I’d like a little help from the club. The Gibson has the nickel pickups and covers installed. The bridge pickup is missing the black plastic pickup riser that the Epi VP comes stock with. I see quite a few people remove these. Anyone have one they’d like to part with? Otherwise are there any retailers that carry this part?
I look forward to posting my comparison in the future. First impressions is the VP is really going to give the Gibson a run for the money...
Oh, and do I get a number?