“I get by with a little help from… Epiphone?”
Beatles-Esque, laminated maple and a literal vintage finish make this guitar a fantastically high contender in the market. Especially when you see what else is around for the same price.
As I said, the VSA590 echoes Epiphone’s Casino but the surprising design feature with this guitar is its semi-hollow body with twin f-holes. Unlike the Epiphone being completely hollow the VSA590 features a solid center block running down the length of the body, straight down the pickups and body. This bodes well for feedback cancellation. This should, ideally, augment sustain and increase resonance.
At such a modest price one would have thought that Vintage had cut corners somewhat. However, the only thing that has been cut, and to perfection, is the comfortable c-shape of the body. The neck is a work of art to being traditionally glue jointed to the body and given good fret spacing in the process. All the work has unfortunately added to the weight of the neck – alright for sitting down but for standing, make sure you have a good quality strap.
The P-90 single-coil pickups wail under heavy playing, a relatively new concept considering where this guitar’s roots. Whether it be Brit-pop strumming or heavier work this guitar can cope with it. However, when pressing on with a distorted amp setting the guitar tends to offset some of its headroom and tonal quality. This can be fixed however just by being conservative or using EQ.
This guitar is meant for strummers, not really engineers and technicians. But what’s wrong with that? A fantastic guitar for the price.
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