Epiphone Genesis Electric Guitar
Last Update 06/11/2026
"Gotta start somewhere..." This Epiphone Genesis, which resembles a
Gibson Les Paul Custom with double cutaway, was my first
guitar. It came from the Norlin/Gibson era, I think it was
made in 1980. My brother acquired it about 1982 as a spare
when we were both playing in a club band, then it passed into my
hands about 1984. For a long time it was the only electric
guitar I owned. Since I just play rhythm guitar, I didn't need
anything fancy. They have two weak points 1) the split coil
pickups are awful and 2) the jack which is mounted on the face of
the guitar. The jack broke through and the repair job moved it
to the side with a metal plate like the Les Paul, and the two
volume/single tone control changed to two volume/two tone control
with the new tone control occupying the former location of the
jack.
These were well crafted in Taiwan between 1979 and 1981, but the
stock pickups sucked. My brother replaced the bridge
pickup on his Les Paul Custom and his original LP pickup was
installed in the Genesis, which I recovered for him before selling
it. About 1985 I replaced the hardware with gold plated Gibson
stop tailpiece & tune-a-matic bridge, and Schaller tuning
machines which held the tuning better. The body is mahogany
with maple arch top, the fingerboard is rosewood (not Brazilian)
with block markers. The binding on the body/headstock is
3-ply, while the binding on the neck is 2-ply. The neck and
body were one piece, I could find no joints on them. This is
quite an ornate guitar for a "student" brand like Epiphone.
These are now considered "vintage" on the guitar market and trades
for about US$400 as of 2017.
It was a great sounding guitar for overdrive (with my brother's
pickup), although I never cared for its clean tones. The neck pickup
is split coil (don't expect single coil Fender tones), and I almost
never used it as the original pickups sounded awful. I
explored developing my guitar technique by learning some leads and
learning to bend notes with vibrato, but the neck was uncomfortable
above the seventh fret. It just wasn't a good fit for my
hands, and there were some fret issues. I looked into having
it refretted but the refret job - made difficult with the neck
binding - was a task that none of the shops I approached wanted to
do, so I never had it refretted. Then the neck developed an
issue with a couple of marker inlays protruding out of the
fingerboard above the twelfth fret, so I gave up any lead playing on
it.
Eventually I got into better guitars; the Stratocaster, the Les Paul, and the Telecaster.
I was look for more tone variety and the Genesis just wasn't
delivering. I also got into better guitar amps. As I was
exploring different guitars with different amps, every time I went
back to the Genesis it just paled compared to the other
guitars. It isn't terrible, but as my sonic tastes were
changing better guitars were what I needed. This is a good
guitar for crunch, more than once the lead guitar player told me he
liked the tone of my Genesis better than his guitar so take that for
what it's worth. For a student brand, these are pretty sturdy
guitars.
"Gotta start somewhere..."
I no longer own this instrument. During 2021, I was preparing
for a major relocation to a new
job/new state and because of the volume of belongings to be
moved (and the desire to fit into a smaller house) I decided to
purge furniture, clothes, books, and even music gear. The
Genesis had been neglected so I sold it.
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