Hedon09
Member
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2015
- Messages
- 47
- Reaction score
- 102
Pics first:
So my Lee Malia Custom arrived today. After a first inspection there were several little flaws as you can see in the pictures. Mostly some little cracks in the finish. There was a little amount of white stuff (laquer?) below the dot-marker of the 19th fret. Took a bit of carefull polishing of the spot to get rid of it to the amount where i was ok with it.
What i found more disturbing is the wild slotting of the nut. This will be exchanged to a bone nut in the future.
Nevertheless i instantly bonded with the fiddle. The top has a nice subtle figuration. Not as dramatic as the tops i've seen in epis advertises but a nicer grain than the one i tried in Palma de Mallorca. It has a 3 piece body (pretty heavy, though i haven't weighted it yet)and a 2piece neck. The rosewood of the fretboard has been stained for a darker color. As you can see on the pictures this hasn't been done the most exact way on the edges. The inlays are nicely done, as is the complete binding.
The neck is somewhere beween the Baseball bat of my Bonamassa and the 60s neck of my T+, tending strongly towards the 60s neck direction.
The neck joint is nicely done, no visible gaps. It's actually more precise than the joints of the Bonamassa and the T+.
I really like the pickup-combi. The p90 in the neck has some really nice clean Tones going on. The 84T in the Bridge reminds me somehow of the 498T i once had in an epi lp Studio. It has this strong, biting mid-crunch without getting as honky as the 498T did. Very good for cutting rythm tones. Coil splitted it gives a very nice and responsive middle position combined with the p90.
All in all the guitar seems more mid-heavy than my T+ or my Bonamassa. I think this will change a bit, as soon as I put on the graphtech resomax bridge i've ordered. They have added more bottom to my other les pauls as well.
The wiring Job is ok, alpha pots. Might change the toggle Switch someday. After getting used to the switchcraft toggle in my T+ this one seems a tad to flubby for me. Not an urgent matter though.
Strung her up with 11-52 d'addarios. The neck relief was a bit too much with the stock strings (10-46 i guess) but with the heavier gauge it seems to be just fine.
Reading through the first part of my post, you might get the impression of a slight disappointment concerning the craftmanship but since the flaws are very small i don't care too much. The guitar sounds very good, plays very well and is extremely sexy.
Finally a short clip i've recorded to give a little impression. This is ment to be a guitar for heavy music, so this is what you will hear
https://soundcloud.com/hedon09/epiphone-lee-malia-artisan-custom-test
So my Lee Malia Custom arrived today. After a first inspection there were several little flaws as you can see in the pictures. Mostly some little cracks in the finish. There was a little amount of white stuff (laquer?) below the dot-marker of the 19th fret. Took a bit of carefull polishing of the spot to get rid of it to the amount where i was ok with it.
What i found more disturbing is the wild slotting of the nut. This will be exchanged to a bone nut in the future.
Nevertheless i instantly bonded with the fiddle. The top has a nice subtle figuration. Not as dramatic as the tops i've seen in epis advertises but a nicer grain than the one i tried in Palma de Mallorca. It has a 3 piece body (pretty heavy, though i haven't weighted it yet)and a 2piece neck. The rosewood of the fretboard has been stained for a darker color. As you can see on the pictures this hasn't been done the most exact way on the edges. The inlays are nicely done, as is the complete binding.
The neck is somewhere beween the Baseball bat of my Bonamassa and the 60s neck of my T+, tending strongly towards the 60s neck direction.
The neck joint is nicely done, no visible gaps. It's actually more precise than the joints of the Bonamassa and the T+.
I really like the pickup-combi. The p90 in the neck has some really nice clean Tones going on. The 84T in the Bridge reminds me somehow of the 498T i once had in an epi lp Studio. It has this strong, biting mid-crunch without getting as honky as the 498T did. Very good for cutting rythm tones. Coil splitted it gives a very nice and responsive middle position combined with the p90.
All in all the guitar seems more mid-heavy than my T+ or my Bonamassa. I think this will change a bit, as soon as I put on the graphtech resomax bridge i've ordered. They have added more bottom to my other les pauls as well.
The wiring Job is ok, alpha pots. Might change the toggle Switch someday. After getting used to the switchcraft toggle in my T+ this one seems a tad to flubby for me. Not an urgent matter though.
Strung her up with 11-52 d'addarios. The neck relief was a bit too much with the stock strings (10-46 i guess) but with the heavier gauge it seems to be just fine.
Reading through the first part of my post, you might get the impression of a slight disappointment concerning the craftmanship but since the flaws are very small i don't care too much. The guitar sounds very good, plays very well and is extremely sexy.
Finally a short clip i've recorded to give a little impression. This is ment to be a guitar for heavy music, so this is what you will hear
https://soundcloud.com/hedon09/epiphone-lee-malia-artisan-custom-test
