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Zephyr Blues Deluxe?


Richard89

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I'm thinking of buying a hollowguitar and came a cross a used "ES-5" Zephyr Blues Deluxe, with 3 p90 pickups, natural finish. I haven't tried it yet, but hopefully I will see the guitar next week. Anyway, this model seems pretty rare; I have searched a bit but not found much information about it. I Would Really like to know a bit more about this model! Does anybody here know anything about it? Maybe someone got one and call te more about it?

 

And when did Epiphone produced this model? Do you think it was discountinued because people didn't liked them? Or was it a popular model?

 

=D>

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The Zephyr Blues Deluxe is a very nice guitar. If you have seen a modern day Epiphone Broadway or Emperor Regent, then you will know the body size. If not, think something roughly the size of a jumbo acoustic. The construction of the ZBD is different from the Broadway or Emperor Regent, though--the top is laminated flame maple instead of laminated spruce. The back and sides are also laminated flamed maple. The block inlays on the fretboard are plastic. personally, I wish the builders had used pearl or abalone, as a guitar this unique deserves it.

 

Each of the dogear P90s has its own volume control, but there is no pickup selector switch. You just use the individual controls to blend the pickups. There is also an overall master volume control that you can use after you've produced the blend you want.

 

The Epiphone P90s are very good, and do well reproducing the early rock sounds you'd associate with an ES-5. Being a big hollow box, it's not a super versatile guitar, though it does what it does well. Some people find that the middle pick up gets in the way somewhat, so you may have to give yourself some time to adjust.

 

I recommend you give the ZBD a try if you can get your hands on one, especially if you're into 50s style music, give or take a decade. It's a very unique guitar, and it's unlikely you may get the opportunity to buy one again. There's a good market for them used, so you should have no problem reselling it later. I don't know when Epiphone began making them, but if memory serves, they were discontinued in the States around 2005 or so.

 

My Epiphone Blues Deluxe is the last guitar on the bottom row.

 

Red 333

 

picture116x.jpg

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The Zephyr Blues Deluxe is a very nice guitar. If you have seen a modern day Epiphone Broadway or Emperor Regent' date=' then you will know the body size. If not, think something roughly the size of a jumbo acoustic. The construction of the ZBD is different from the Broadway or Emperor Regent, though--the top is laminated flame maple instead of laminated spruce. The back and sides are also laminated flamed maple. The block inlays on the fretboard are plastic. personally, I wish the builders had used pearl or abalone, as a guitar this unique deserves it.

 

Each of the dogear P90s has its own volume control, but there is no pickup selector switch. You just use the individual controls to blend the pickups. There is also an overall master volume control that you can use after you've produced the blend you want.

 

The Epiphone P90s are very good, and do well reproducing the early rock sounds you'd associate with an ES-5. Being a big hollow box, it's not a super versatile guitar, though it does what it does well. Some people find that the middle pick up gets in the way somewhat, so you may have to give yourself some time to adjust.

 

I recommend you give the ZBD a try if you can get your hands on one, especially if you're into 50s style music, give or take a decade. It's a very unique guitar, and it's unlikely you may get the opportunity to buy one again. There's a good market for them used, so you should have no problem reselling it later. I don't know when Epiphone began making them, but if memory serves, they were discontinued in the States around 2005 or so.

 

My Epiphone Blues Deluxe is the last guitar on the bottom row.

 

Red 333

 

[img']http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/6671/picture116x.jpg[/img]

Wow! What a lovely collection of furniture!

Lemme see if I got this right: Top row--Pass, ES295, Wildcat; bottom row--Byrdland, Broadway, ZBD. Please correct errors.

Question: which do you use in what contexts?

Sorry to divert from the question at hand, but that's an impressive lineup, IMHO!

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:D Very nice collection, Red :)

 

Richard,

 

I agree that if you find a ZBD at a decent price, you should snap it up! My ZBD was manufactured at the Peerless factory in Korea in 2005. I bought it a couple years ago for about $950 Cdn. from Long & McQuade, the Canadian importer of Gibson and Epiphone products. I was fortunate to get this guitar as the ZBD is now discontinued. I was told that my guitar was one of only four ZBD's in stock in the entire Long & McQuade chain across Canada.

 

The ZBD is based on the 1949 Gibson ES-5. In 1955/56, the ES-5 was redesigned by adding a tone control for each pickup and a four position pickup selector lever at the cutaway. It was now known as the ES-5 Switchmaster.

 

I replaced the Frequensator tailpiece with a Bigsby B30 vibrato and changed the gold speedknobs for black ones - matches the pickguard :D The stock gold ABR-1 tune-o-matic bridge was replaced with a Gotoh and the stock Grover tuners swapped for top-of-the-line Grover Locking Rotomatics. I created my own version of the Switchmaster by replacing the master volume (or tone?) pot at the cutaway with a six position rotary pickup selector, complete with a black chickenhead knob. I think it looks much better than a large lever :-k The pup selector provides the same 5 pup combinations as used on a Strat. The sixth position gives me the legendary "T-Bone" sound, as all pups are "on" and wired out of phase in this position. This guitar does not have a tone control now, whick is OK, because I just use my Boss GE-7 equalizer to get all the tone I need.

 

EpiZephyrBluesDeluxe.jpg

 

Below is the original spec page from the Epiphone website:

 

zepblues.jpg

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  • 7 months later...

I have a Peerless-made Carlo Robelli ES-500, which is pretty much the same guitar as the ZBD except for some cosmetics and the stock Bigsby. It is a GREAT guitar, and very versatile. The neck pickup can get a nice warm jazz tone, and by blending the others you can get all sorts of tones. The middle pickup is wired out of phase, so you can get those strat-like "quack" tones, but with P-90 punch. Here's mine:

RobellES500.jpg

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