It's no secret that I like Epiphone guitars. I also like Gibsons. And Fenders. And a good Gretsch. Gosh, I just really like guitars. I also like modding and even fixing them sometimes.

That said, if I were to pick my top 5 guitars from my woodpile, they would probably be these, and in this order.

• Gibson ES-339
• Epiphone ES-335 Trad Pro
• Epiphone Les Paul Standard 50s
• Epiphone ES-339
• Fender Highway One Stratocaster

Four of those guitars have been modded in some way. The Strat is the only one that is bone stock. I kept saying I was going to swap out the pickups in it, but every time I decide it's time to do so, I pick it up and play it, and like the way it sounds. So it has managed to remain untouched. I guess I did add a couple of springs to it to deck the trem, but I'm not sure that completely counts.

The Gibson ES-339 is mostly un-modded. The only thing I've done to it is to swap out the bridge. I didn't like the bridge that came was on it when I bought it. I'm not completely sure it was the original bridge either. So I bought one and swapped it out. It came with 57 Classics in it, and that's how I'm leaving it.

The Epiphone 339 has had the pickups swapped out and two of the knobs have been swapped. The original shipment of those that Epiphone sold were advertised to come with their Probucker pickups. When I ordered mine, and even when it came in, they were still advertising those as the pickups. However, when I got mine in and checked it, it had the Alnico Classic pickups. I found out that, after that first batch that came over, they had swapped the pickups in all the 339s, but they hadn't updated their ads or specs on the website. I was disappointed, but the ones in it didn't sound bad. Still, I always wondered what the Probuckers would sound like in it. A year ago, I ended up with an extra set of Probuckers, so I finally got to hear what the 339 sounded like with them in it.

The Epi LP originally came with Probuckers in it. A Probucker 1 in the neck and 2 in the bridge. I really liked them. In truth, I saw no reason to change them out. Played it for a year and a half or so with those in it. Then one day I got a wild hair and decided to grab a pair of Burstbuckers (a 1 and a 2) and drip them in to see what they sounded like. Honestly, I liked the Probucker 1 better that the Burstbucker in the neck, but the Burstbucker 2 sounds better than the Probucker 2 in the bridge. Because I'm lazy and didn't want to mess with it again, the Burstbuckers have stayed in the LP.

Those Probuckers out of the LP were what went into the 339.

The Epiphone 335 came with the Alnico Classic pickups. I was quite happy with those. They sounded as good as the 57 Classics that were in the Gibson 335 that I had traded off a couple years previous. I had no plans to replace them. I played it for a year with it being bone stock. Then, back in December, I unplugged my cable from it, and the jack fell back into the guitar. Then, while I was trying to fish the jack out and back into the hole, I screwed up one of the pots. So, since I didn't feel like I had the time to I decided to carry it into the my local luthier. And, since I was carrying it in for electronics work, I started making a list of what I wanted him to do to it. Basically, put in another jack and replace the push/pull pots in it. Since I was doing that, I decided to pick up a couple of 57 Classics to put in it. When I dropped it off to the luthier, I have him do all of that at the same time. Got it back, and have been super happy with the sound of it. 

You'll notice that, by and large, it's the pickups that have been swapped. I know that there are a LOT of different pickups out there, and a LOT of those pickups sound really good. You may notice that all of the pickups that I have talked about are Gibson branded in some way. That's mostly because I know what they sound like because I've played them at some point in time. So I've stuck with them. I know that Lollar Imperials are supposed to be super good. I've also been told that the Bare Knuckle brand is super good.

By my own admission, with the humbuckers I've always picked, I have always seemed to chase that PAF sound. In the Gibson stable, the 57 Classics and the Burstbuckers are both supposed to get that sound. Of the Burstbuckers, the Burstbucker 1 and 2 would be closer to that vintage 50s LP kind of sound. In the Epiphone world, it has been my understanding that the Alnico Classics are the Epi version of the 57 Classics and the Probuckers are the Epi version of Burstbuckers. I once read that, from a PAF perspective, the Burst/Probucker 1 & 2 combination would be that 50s sound. The Burst/Probucker 2 & 3 combination would be that 60s sound. And the 57/Alnico Classic combination would be that 70s sound.

So, except for the Epiphone ES-339, all of the pickups were just swapped from the Epiphone version to the Gibson version. In that 339, I just swapped from one Epiphone version to another Epiphone version. In the case of the ones being swapped from the Epi version to the Gibson version, the Gibson pickups do sound better. The Epiphone ones sound good. They're not bad. I could absolutely play them and be happy. But, since I swapped them out, I'll say that the Gibsons seem to have the edge when it comes to clarity and range. I think there's a reason that they cost twice as much, and isn't just the name on the box they came in.

Maybe some day I'll try some other pickups like the Lollars I mentioned. I hear the low-wind Imperials are just the best. In fact, I've got a buddy that said that's what he has in his 335, and his guitar sounds amazing. Course his overall tone is a step above mine too.

All that to say, if you don't like the sound of the guitar, try some new pickups. Heck. Even if you like the sound, try some new ones and see if you like them better. Or leave them the same. At least for me, half the fun is in the tinkering.

Our personal musical journeys are always filled with twists and turns. So often we start down one road and end up going in a completely different direction. I was talking to Mrs Snarf the other day about that very thing.

I played for years and only played acoustics. Then I bought my first electric. It was a low end, import Parker. I don't remember the model number. I only remember a few things about it. I never really bonded with it. It was a weird Parker because it was an SSH. And I traded it at a guitar shop in a little town several hours away to a shop keeper that just saw Parker and gave me waaaaay to much for it because he thought he had something special (he didn't). I traded it straight up on my first Strat. 

Honestly, I got that Strat to impress Mrs Snarf. We weren't even dating at the time, but I thought she needed to see me with a guitar for some reason. I immediately named it after her. It also made it into our engagement pictures. Kind of cheesy if you ask me. But sometimes life is ooey and gooey like that.

Neeways, I started playing that guitar, and I really liked it. It was, in my opinion, a much better guitar than the Parker. Honestly, though, it was probably more that I just didn't know what I was doing when I bought the Parker. But the Strat left an impression on me. When it came time to buy another electric, I bought a second Strat. Heck! At one point, I had 5 Strats. Currently, I only have 4. And, for the time being, that's probably where the count will stay.

Between that first and second Strat, I actually bought a really low end Les Paul. I don't really count it, because I never bonded with it. It was a low end instrument with a LOT of the problems that you would expect from something that was at that price point. The humbuckers in it were...I'll be nice and call them muddy. They didn't sound good. I ended up swapping them out for a pair of Burstbuckers, and it sounded a LOT better, but it still played terribly. So, by and large, it stayed in the closet. 

About 10 years ago now, when Epiphone first started making the ES-339, I picked one of those up. I tried to get in on that first run of them, but didn't get one ordered in time. So I put my order in and waited like 6 months for the next shipment of them to come over. Got the guitar, and it almost never went in the case. I liked the way it sounded and the way it played. It made me think I might like humbuckers better than single coils. Then I got my 1962 50th Anniversary Sheraton. Loved the sound of that one! Initially I thought it was the fact that it had humbuckers too (even though it's mini-hums in it). Then, because I have always like the aesthetic of an ES-335, I got one of those. Oddly enough, I LOVED the sound of that one, but I never bonded with it. There was something just not right about it. But I got to wondering, at that point, my 3 favorite guitars were all semi-hollows, so was it the humbuckers or the semi-hollow that I liked.

Fast forward another couple years, and I was trading the 335 off. I picked up that Epiphone Les Paul when I did, and really liked the sound of it. I figured I was just turning into an humbucker kind of guy. But I realized that I still liked the sound of the 339 better than the LP. Then a year later, I picked up the Epi 335. I totally dug the sound of it. So I started doing the A/B thing with some of my guitars, and I realized that I think I have a thing for semi-hollows with humbuckers. That sound just really does it for me.

A few months after that, I had always told myself I wanted a real live Gibson ES-339, preferably made in the area of 2010 when the Custom Shop was making all of them. I had been trolling for a particular color. Found what I thought was a screamin' deal on one on the other side of the Metroplex. So I got it. And it has been my main guitar since. When Mrs Snarf and I were having the conversation the other day, I had realized that the second guitar hanging on the wall since I got the 339 has been either the LP or the 335. And mostly been the 335.

I've kind of done a 180. I started the electric guitar journey with single coils in a solid body. For several years, I thought they were the only pickups that were any good. If you played anything with humbuckers, then you were just letting your tone suffer. Now I pull a Strat out on occasion, but I primarily grab a semi-hollow with humbuckers in it, and I sometimes think that single coils sound kind of anemic. Unless they're P-90s, but those are a whole other animal. 

Funny how that happens sometimes.

Last week I talked about my two Strats. Well, two of my Strats. The two Strats that I have that I play anyways. I think I have four. Maybe five. The Hwy One, the ADE, the Monterey Strat from 2017, and the Splattercaster. I think that's all of them.

Since I mentioned them last time, I thought I'd talk about the Hwy One and the ADE.

The Highway One is a 2009 according to the serial number. Mrs Snarf bought it for me in really early 2010. I had started working my way through Griff Hamlin's Blues Guitar Unleashed course, and, to motivate myself, I decided that I would buy myself a MIA Strat once I got done with it. Had it already picked out and everything. My wife walked in one day, let me know that she had gotten a pretty good bonus at work, and told me to buy the Strat that I had been looking at. So I ordered it well before I finished the course.

Don't quote me on this, but I think the Hwy One series was built from early 2000s through 2010. In 2010 or 2011, I believe they were replaced by the American Performer series. As I recall, they changed a few things in the series long about 2006. I think they changed the pickups, but the thing I remember most is that they added the Rust Bucket tone control. I don't remember what exactly it does, but I think I remember the ads saying something about cuts the highs without adding more lows.

Mine's a 3 color sunburst with an ebony fretboard. Whatever pickups are in the Hwy One series (I never found out) with the middle being reverse wound, reverse polarity. A 1970s headstock. A modern C-shape neck. That Rust Bucket tone control I mentioned earlier. I've heard over the years that the electronics are all American and I've heard that they were the same electronics as they put into the MIM Strats.  

I've always liked the the finish on it. It's a satin finish, and since it's a sunburst, you can really see the wood grain through it. Also, since it's satin, the more you play it, the more the areas of wear shine.

I've never quite figured out the Rust Bucket part of the tone control. It does what a tone control is supposed to do. However, I've always like that the first tone control runs the tone on the neck pickup, and the second tone control runs the bridge pickup. There is no tone control on the middle pickup that seldom gets used. 

It has what I would consider a modern Strat sound. The pickups seem a little hotter than regular single coils. At least hotter than the usual stock pickup on a Strat. Playing through the positions, it definitely sounds like a Strat.

The other is a 2013 American Design Experience. That's the equivalent of a current Mod Shop guitar. Before the Mod Shop, where you can order whatever pretty much whatever guitar you want online, Fender had the American Design Experience. It was the predecessor of the Mod Shop. And before they had the online American Design Experience, they had the one where I got my guitar. When I got mine, you actually had to go to the factory out in Corona. It's probably the closest thing I'll ever own to a real Fender Custom Shop.

Now, when you got to Corona, there was the little visitor center that had a gift shop and museum-ish area. Then, off to the side, there was this small room over on the side where you could go and spec out a guitar. They had bodies, necks, pickups, bridges, and all the other hardware around the room and on the walls, and you could pick out what you wanted in a guitar. If it was in the room, then it was an option on your guitar. If it wasn't in the room, then it wasn't something you could pick.

Over in one corner was a rack that had probably 20 Strat bodies and 20 Tele bodies and maybe 10 or 15 bass bodies. I had wanted a surf green one, but they didn't have any in the rack, and the guy reminded me that if it wasn't in the room then it wasn't an option. I ended up picking a body color that I hadn't seen before. It wasn't really that special other than the fact that I had (and still haven't) seen that color anywhere. The one I picked is a satin orange color. I went over and played with the rack of necks and ended up with a fairly standard one-piece maple neck.

Then I went over to the hardware and picked a set of vintage tuners and one of the modern bridges. Got to the pickups, and the guy showed me the list on the wall. There were the standard pickups plus the Noiseless and Custom Shop 50s and a couple of other Custom Shop varieties. The ones that I wanted were the CS 69s, and they weren't on the list. So I mentioned that to the guy, and he said that they had pulled them off the list because they were in short supply at the time. But then he let me know that he'd be sure that my guitar got a set of 69s in it. 

From there, everything went into a box with my name on it that went into the corner of the room with some other boxes that had names on them. Two months later, it arrived on my doorstep. By the time all was said and done, it was a nice balance between a Standard and a Deluxe. The total cost of it was also right dead in between the two. And it was also twice as much as the Hwy One.

I believe that my opinion is being objective when I say that they're both super nice guitars. Out of the box (and even today) the fit and finish on both of them are great. They both play great, but, as I mentioned in the previous post, the Hwy One plays a little better. Not sure what it is about it, but it does. They both sound like a Strat, but those CS 69s in the ADE Strat just sound soooo nice. For the money, they're both great guitars.  Bang for the buck, you can't beat the Hwy One. Total cost, the ADE is a super nice guitar as well.
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