Buy Richmond Empire Electric Guitar, CreamRichmond Empire Electric Guitar, Cream Product Description:
- Mahogany Neck
- Godin Low-Noise Single Coil Pick up Neck
- Godin Custom Humbucker Bridge
- 3-Way Toggle Switch
- Chrome Wrap-Around Bridge
Product Description
Silver Leaf Maple Body
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Great overall guitar, minor quality issues
By J. Faser
Godin did right when they introduced the Richmond line of electric guitars. The result was great Godin design and playability ... for less money. For that alone, the Empire deserves 5 stars. But it gets a 4-star rating due to a few problems.Let's get the bad stuff out of the way: 1. Appearance: Straight out of the box, everything looked great except for a small chip on the edge of the fingerboard (most likely a natural imperfection in the rosewood but nevertheless worth noting) and a minor surface flaw on the side of the neck at the heel (which I concealed by rubbing brown shoe polish into the wood). The factory-installed strings were of good quality, but I quickly swapped them for my preferred brand/gauge. I rarely have problems with string breakage, especially with a brand new set, yet it wasn't long before the high E string snapped at the bridge. I think the Empire's bridge design could be improved by rounding the corners at the wraparound points and/or providing grooves to guide the strings. (I eventually solved this problem by knowingly voiding the warranty and fashioning small, rounded grooves for each string at the wraparound point with the help of a nut file.) 2. Electronics: The 3-way toggle switch (pickup selector) was initially functional but somewhat noisy. Within a few months of moderate use, the switch totally failed in the bridge position, leaving me with only the neck pickup in both the neck and middle positions. I checked the wiring and all solder connections seemed fine, so I'm hoping it's just a defective switch (something I have yet to replace).The good stuff: 1. The Empire's neck is awesome! Open-position and bar chords are a breeze to fret. The back of the neck has a fast, worn-in feel. The medium-size frets are perfectly finished. 2. The body is ergonomically contoured and lightweight, making it very comfortable to play, with easy access to the upper frets. 3. The tilted headstock features staggered tuning pegs that fit my fingertips just right. 4. The Graph Tech "Tusq" nut is ping-free. 5. The pickups sound great. The stock Godin bridge humbucker is perfect for hard rock and blues, and holds up well when compared to pricier, after-market replacements (that means I like it and won't be replacing it). The Godin single-coil pickup in the neck position is fatter-sounding and quieter than most single-coils, making it well-suited for clean blues and jazz. 6. The deluxe gig bag has zippered pockets everywhere.I recently parted with a more expensive Godin LG model, which I'd had a few years before purchasing this guitar. In my opinion, the Richmond Empire is a better instrument. It just needs a new toggle switch.UPDATE (October 2012): The toggle switch wasn't defective after all. But the bridge pickup was. It took installing a new toggle switch and rewiring the bridge pickup three times to figure that out. I ended up trashing the bridge pickup and replacing it with a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat P-90, which sounds absolutely incredible! I still play this guitar almost every day.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic guitar for the price
By Kevin L. Swaim
This is a fantastic guitar for the price. The fret work is some of the best I've ever seen, the nut is cut right, the neck feels super fast, the humbucker is smoking hot. The neck single coil tends to squeal a little, that's about the only complaint.Oh, and the strap buttons are Schaller strap lock buttons. If you already have the Schaller strap locks on your strap, the strap will snap right on.All in all, it's very well done for the price.
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