eor Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 i'd like to give these guitars a shot, but the smaller nuts listed in their specs have always given me pause. to confuse things further, various iterations had "regular" sized 1 11/16th" nuts instead of the 1 5/8th" nuts the mij casino and riviera claim to have. its all a little confusing, and since i haven't had any of them in hand, i thought i'd ask you fellas what you thought. there aren't enough of them around for a try before i buy, sadly. i don't have the stubbiest fingers in the world, but i do need a little space, and do most of my playing down by the nut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lengle1981 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 i'd like to give these guitars a shot, but the smaller nuts listed in their specs have always given me pause. to confuse things further, various iterations had "regular" sized 1 11/16th" nuts instead of the 1 5/8th" nuts the mij casino and riviera claim to have. its all a little confusing, and since i haven't had any of them in hand, i thought i'd ask you fellas what you thought. there aren't enough of them around for a try before i buy, sadly. i don't have the stubbiest fingers in the world, but i do need a little space, and do most of my playing down by the nut. I've played epiphones for the best part of 15 years. I've had les Paul's, a dot, a casino, an SG, EJ200 and now a 355 and I'm on the verge of getting the new Sheraton reissue. Let me start by saying that not one of these let me down live or in the studio, they're great guitars. I also had a gibson SG standard which was a beauty also, apart from the pickups was there a huge difference? Not in my opinion. I'm not saying the pickups are poor either. The 355 I currently have wont be getting new pickups any time soon, they sound great. Don't be put off by any write up on an epiphone, try them for yourself, I think you'll be surprised how good they are. I've also never had an issue with the nut but that can be replaced easily enough if u chose to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluscuba Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 I had 1997 mik riviera that had a thin neck width at the nut. I had a luthier replace the nut to make the spacing a bit wider, it worked really well as there was actually a bit of space to do it. The strings weren't close to falling off or anything. It played really well and was one of my favourite necks. I stupidly sold it! I don't think you will have a problem, none of them are so thin as to make it difficult to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lengle1981 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 I had 1997 mik riviera that had a thin neck width at the nut. I had a luthier replace the nut to make the spacing a bit wider, it worked really well as there was actually a bit of space to do it. The strings weren't close to falling off or anything. It played really well and was one of my favourite necks. I stupidly sold it! I don't think you will have a problem, none of them are so thin as to make it difficult to play. At least I'm not the only one who regrets some of my guitar sales. There's 4 or 5 I regret getting rid of to this day. Safe to say I've learnt from my mistakes though, I can't see I'd ever let go of my current batch unless I was forced to financially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amx05462 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 really the difference is 32 thousandths of an inch on either side what that would equate to n string spacing is .010 or ten thousandth difference between the strings. i dont think its really all that noticeable. just my opinion. its also very possible to have the strings spaced the same on this nut but have a smaller outside edge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted February 28, 2013 Author Share Posted February 28, 2013 i know that 1/16" doesn't sound like much, but i wanted to be sure. i know some where based on vintage specs, and late 60s-early 70s epis/gibsons had that maligned skinny nut. i sometimes do funny chords and i have to be careful not to mute things with my stupid fleshy fingers. i do like the chubby strings, too. i can deal with a wider 1 3/4" nut to an extent, but only because they are acoustics and i play them differently. i do prefer the regular old 1 11/16" that most of my guitars have. i've heard about, but never attempted, the wider string spacing at the nut. i suppose that's something to think about. i'm not a huge string bender, after all. but strangely, scale length doesn't bug me at all. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amx05462 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 the only time i have trouble with scale length is going from my sg to my 325 ric . takes a few minutes to get used to that change i can tell you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 The nut on the Elitist Casino is pretty narrow. I don't recall the exact measurement (1-5/8"?), but I do have trouble with some of open chords on it. If it were any less I couldn't play it. I prefer the nut width on the standard and IBJL Casino. I am 6'-3" tall and have fairly large hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lengle1981 Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 The nut on the Elitist Casino is pretty narrow. I don't recall the exact measurement (1-5/8"?), but I do have trouble with some of open chords on it. If it were any less I couldn't play it. I prefer the nut width on the standard and IBJL Casino. I am 6'-3" tall and have fairly large hands. 6"3!!!! Try 6"6 mate. I've never had problems playing though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayyj Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 I usually pride myself on being able to adapt to different neck widths and profiles without a great deal of bother, but I have a 1990s Japanese Casino (a Fujigen version, not the same factory as the recent Elitist) and of all my guitars it was the one that took most getting used to. Compared to '60s Gibson profiles I don't have a great deal of experience of post '65 guitars, but own a '65 ES-330 and have spent time with a few other '65 330s and Casinos, and the Fujigen Casino is fractionally shallower, with fractionally less shoulder than the originals I've had in hand - so it is small. Having said that, a couple of small changes made the world of difference. One was the nut, which had very narrow spacing that made fretting chords genuinely awkward - and I have pretty slender fingers. I replaced that with a new one that was much more widely spaced, a little closer to the edge of fingerboard than I'd usually go, but it hasn't caused me any problems falling off the edge of the frets and feels colosally better. The other thing that has helped a lot was rolling the very acute fingerboard edges, so that they now match the edges of my 330. All in all I'm pretty much happy with it as it now is. I wouldn't choose this neck profile, but I'm used to it now and the pros far outway the cons: the build quality is flawless, it looks beautiful and has a unique sound and personality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobouz Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Re the Epi electrics I currently own: The Japanese-Terada made Elitist Casino and Korean version of the Valensi Riviera are both 1-10/16" at the nut. The Elitist Casino has a slightly larger profile that the Valensi. Both are a little smaller than my ideal. The '04 Peerless Casino is 1-11/16", just a touch larger overall, and very comfortable. The '61 Casino reissue is 1-11/16", but has an even larger profile, and is a bit bigger than I would prefer. The AIUSA Sheraton (body made in Japan by Terada, Gibson hardware & assembly), is 1-11/16" at the nut, and has a somewhat wider profile with less overall neck depth. I find it to be incredibly fast & comfortable. Epi neck profiles can certainly be all over the map, due to variations from different factories, and different eras of production. Just gather all the info you can & tuck it away for future reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluscuba Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 At least I'm not the only one who regrets some of my guitar sales. There's 4 or 5 I regret getting rid of to this day. Safe to say I've learnt from my mistakes though, I can't see I'd ever let go of my current batch unless I was forced to financially. Off topic but which ones do you regret letting go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lengle1981 Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Off topic but which ones do you regret letting go? My once cherry but later natural epiphone casino, my Gibson SG standard, my ej200 (although I bought the same model again) and my honey burst les Paul. They're the ones I regret. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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