Epiphone Sheraton Frequensator with Premium Gig Bag

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Epiphone Sheraton Frequensator with Premium Gig Bag - Natural

Some guitars are designed to look stripped-back and utilitarian. The Epiphone Sheraton has never received that memo. With its ornate binding, gold hardware, elaborate inlays and wonderfully old-school Frequensator tailpiece, the Epiphone Sheraton Frequensator in Natural is a semi-hollow guitar that arrives dressed like it already has reservations somewhere considerably nicer than you do.

The Sheraton has long been one of Epiphone's flagship designs, and the current model keeps that distinctive character intact. Its layered maple semi-hollow body surrounds a solid maple centre block, giving you the open, resonant personality associated with semi-hollow guitars while adding stability and helping control feedback when the amplifier starts getting enthusiastic. The Natural gloss finish is particularly handsome, letting the maple provide much of the visual interest while all that gold hardware does its level best to steal the show.

The neck is mahogany with a SlimTaper 60s C profile, offering a comfortable, relatively streamlined feel that's equally happy handling big jazz chords, blues bends or rock rhythm work. It's paired with a bound Indian laurel fingerboard, a traditional 24.75" scale length, 12" radius and 22 medium-jumbo frets.

And because apparently ordinary dot markers weren't nearly fancy enough, Epiphone has fitted the fingerboard with mother-of-pearl block inlays featuring abalone triangles. Up at the Kalamazoo-style headstock you'll find an equally elaborate mother-of-pearl Tree of Life inlay. Add the extensive multi-ply binding and you have a guitar with absolutely no interest in minimalism. Quite right too.

Electronics come courtesy of a pair of Epiphone ProBucker Mini-Humbuckers. Their smaller format helps give the Sheraton a clear, articulate response while retaining the body and smoothness you'd expect from humbuckers. There's plenty of scope here for warm jazz and soul sounds from the neck pickup, crisp blues and rhythm tones from the middle position, and a more focused bite from the bridge when it's time to introduce the amplifier to the dirtier end of proceedings.

Control is reassuringly traditional with two Volume controls, two Tone controls and a three-way pickup selector, allowing each pickup to be balanced and shaped independently.

Then there's the hardware. An Epiphone LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge is paired with the wonderfully distinctive Frequensator Split Trapeze tailpiece, one of the defining visual features of classic Sheraton models. Gold-plated Wilkinson tuners handle things at the headstock, while gold Top Hat knobs, gold pickup covers and a beautifully period-flavoured 1962 Sheraton Historic tortoise pickguard complete the look.

At Musicmaker, we have a lot of time for a guitar that manages to be genuinely versatile without becoming visually anonymous. The Sheraton can move comfortably through jazz, blues, soul, indie, rock and plenty in between, yet nobody is going to mistake it for just another guitar hanging on the wall.

And because transporting a large, beautifully finished semi-hollow guitar under your arm is generally considered poor long-term planning, Epiphone includes a Premium Gig Bag.

Big semi-hollow tones, mini-humbucker clarity, acres of binding and enough gold hardware to concern a pirate. That's a Sheraton alright.