The Epiphone Dot is a semi-hollow archtop, which echoes the shape, style and sound of the original Gibson Es-335 at a fraction of the price.

Never the less this does not mean “The Dot” lacks in quality or features. I own several high-end guitars and this one caught my eye as well built, with attention to detail and a superb finish to include the flamed maple top and binding.

The name as is obvious comes from the lack of the usual mother of pearl (or pearloid) inlays. Dot markers more frequently found on solid body guitars replace these. The neck is set into the body in the usual Epiphone / Gibson tradition and sports an unbound rosewood fingerboard, which although chunky feels comfortable with a semi-gloss painted finish.

Being a short scale guitar, blues style bends are easier, and the stop tailpieces allows comfortable right-hand palm muting styles.

In the electronics department the instrument has installed into it’s central block two “Designed by Gibson” humbucking pickups, plus the usual 2 volume and 2 tone controls found in Epiphone / Gibson instruments. Being the deluxe model all hardware is finished in gold.

Being a hollow body the instrument is resonant and quite loud even before it is plugged in giving one a good idea of its acoustic and tonal properties. Plugged in the bridge pickup has a nice treble edge, whilst the neck pickup is warm and vibrant with a Jazz style quality to it that makes you want to play in octaves! Both pickups together blend these sounds into a warm, slightly edgy tone suitable for rhythm playing.

Whilst direct to the amp it has it’s own tonal characteristics, using different effects and amp modelling brings out the character of the guitar and patches on my multi-effects pedal that use older amps such as “AC30” and “Tweed” bring out the flavour of this instrument even more so.

A fantastic value for money guitar, which can easily fool many into thinking you, spent a small fortune on an instrument.

Ernest H Slade
www.gear-review.co.uk