Epiphone Emperor Regent

TenorClef

Does any one have experience with this jazz box?

MichaelHorowitz

That was my first archtop! Pretty loud acousticly....but the pickup was pretty lame. The high E string was never as loud as the others. But for $800 it was a good deal.

TenorClef

Ok thanks Michael, i did a gig yesterday afternoon, a christening event in a local pub with about 100 people and my Gitane DG250M really struggled to be heard over the crowd with the exception of comping which was no problems so i wondered if the Emperor Regent would be better for these noisier events. The guitar looks pretty enough and i'm assuming with the solid top and floating pickup it would have a nice woody sound through my AER Alpha.

MichaelHorowitz

Well, you get what you pay for. It was a good first guitar, but the pickup was junk...I think you'd be better of just using a pickup on the Gitane.

BluesBop Harry

In my experience, an Stimer pickup can make a Gitane sound a lot like an archtop, too much in fact for GJ but for other stuff could work.

TenorClef

Not sure if the stimmer would work for me as i've heard the Gitane does'nt have enough clearance for the pickup.

Colin Perry

I agree, the pickup on those is truly awful. Of course, it's a pretty standard size, and you could easily replace it with a Kent Armstrong, or remove it and use a dearmond with it. If you look around though, you can probably find a low end vintage epiphone for the same price or less. Look for a blackstone, spartan, zenith, or olympic. Those tend to not be the greatest sounding epiphone acoustics, but they are all far superior to the new asian made ones. They aren't bad though, I gigged with one regularly for a couple of years, and didn't really get frustrated with it until I had played some high end archtops and discovered what I was missing.

TenorClef

I guess this is all a bit mute as the original point was that the guitar wouldn't be used from a purely acoustic point of view but rather amplified to be heard in a rather noisy larger environment. You know I'd probably prefer to find some sort of work around for my Gitane as i dearly love the sound and responsiveness of this guitar even though its a Chinese factory built guitar. I guess that's testament to Mario's brilliant design of the Maccaferri.

I did try the Schertler Dynamic-G for about a year but found i couldn't get sufficient volume without crazy feedback even after all the advice I'd read and also the discolouration was horrendous. I believe Michael mentioned it wasn't really compatible with my AER.

I've just purchased a AKG 1000S Condenser Mic which seems to have better responce and a very clean reproduction of my guitars acoustic properties. For the smaller restaurant gigs where I'm not playing for more than 15-20 people it handles really well.

I may look into the Stimer 48 as it looks good and suitable for my needs however i had read that it won't fit on Gitanes, does anybody know if this is actually the case?

BluesBop Harry

Yes there is a clearance problem with Gitanes but on mine (DG- 250) it only means you can't play above the twentieth fret. That' s no problem for me.

TenorClef

Thanks for that info, so can you get a good amount of volume from the Stimer and also how do you find the sound, obviously i'm guessing the sound is quite different from the acoustic signal produced from a condenser mic. I could live without the top couple of frets but keeping audible in a loud enviroment is my main concern. I was pretty much dead in the water at my last gig. Oh and also where do you get these Stimer pickups from, i'm assuming yours is not an original?

TenorClef

As a develoment i came across these two items, the other pickup apparently a variation on the Stimer is a Miller, it purports to have better clearance with the strings but i note it does'nt have the volume pot as does the stimer. This may be why it is slightly cheaper.