Epiphone
The Epiphone Company is a manufacturer of guitars and other musical instruments founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Music Company in 1957 who also had owned Gibson Guitar Corporation. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market. Their professional archtops, including the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway and Triumph, rivaled (and some contend surpassed) those of Gibson. Aside from their guitars, Epiphone also made bass guitars, banjos, and other stringed instruments. However, the company's weakness in the aftermath of World War II allowed Gibson to absorb it.
The most famous Epiphone model introduced by Gibson after taking over was the Casino. The Casino was made in the same shape and configuration as a Gibson ES-330 guitar. It has a very heavy sound and is a very good rhythm guitar due to its fairly thick sound when strummed. It is a genuine hollow body electric guitar with P90 pickups, which are of single-coil, non-humbucking construction.
The Casino is famous for being used by The Beatles. Paul McCartney was the first to acquire one and John Lennon and George Harrison followed suit soon after. Paul McCartney used his for the solo in Taxman and the Casino sound is very prevalent throughout Revolver and their later albums. John Lennon made his Casino one of his main guitars and used it for the rest of his time with the Beatles and into the 70s. Paul still uses his Casino in concert and studio today.
Epiphone is now a subsidiary of Gibson, somewhat like Squier is a subsidiary of Fender (the chief difference being that the Squier line of guitars was created in-house by Fender; in other words, there is no such thing as a pre-Fender Squier guitar). Because of this subsidiary relationship, many of the instruments look the same as the more expensive Gibson versions. However Epiphone still maintains its own line of archtop guitars.
Gibson produced Epiphone amplifiers in the 1960's which were basically copies or variations of Gibson and Fender amplifiers. These amplifiers were of a tube design and some had reverb and tremolo. Gibson decided to launch a new line of Epiphone amplifiers in 2005 with many different models including the So Cal, Blues Custom, and the Epiphone Valve Junior. The Valve Hot Rod and Valve Senior were released in 2009. The Valve Hot Rod is a 5w amp just like the Valve Junior, but has a gain and reverb control. The Valve Senior offers 18w of power, with a full eq, gain, volume, reverb, and presence control.
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