Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro Hollowbody Electric Guitar

The Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro Hollowbody electric guitar honors the "President of Bebop Guitar" and one of the most prolific and groundbreaking electric guitarists in the history of jazz. The Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro hollowbody is a true archtop guitar with hand-scalloped bracing and sound post, and features Epiphone's critically acclaimed ProBucker pickups with coil-tapping plus the Graph Tech NuBone XL nut. And now available in a beautiful Wine Red color finish.

During his long career, Joe Pass's advanced harmonic knowledge and seemingly endless well of melodic ideas made him the premier accompanist for the top singers and soloists in the world of jazz, including Les McCaan, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Milt Jackson. The Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro is a fitting tribute to Joe, who was a great inspiration and friend to Epiphone and guitarists throughout the world.

A True Archtop
The Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro is a true archtop with a select spruce top and classic "arch" that's supported by hand-scalloped bracing and a carefully positioned sound post for optimum tone. The back and sides of the Emperor-II are made from laminated flame maple and the Emperor-II Pro is available in beautiful finishes. The top also has a bound tortoise-style pickguard shaped to House of Stathopoulo's unique profile along with Epiphone's signature metal "E".

The Emperor-II Pro has a hand-set 3-piece laminated hard maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard that has beautiful pearloid block inlays, 20 medium jumbo frets and is topped off with the Epiphone-vintage style "tree of life" design seen on the best Epiphone archtops since the late 1930s. The Emperor-II Pro features the Graph Tech NuBone XL nut that is as hard as bone but will last a lifetime. Graph Tech molds and engineers each NuBone XL nut for consistent tone and string balance as well as precise string spacing.

The Emperor-II Pro has Grover Rotomatic 18:1 ratio machine heads for fast, intuitive and worry-free tuning. The black-and-white truss rod cover has an elegantly lettered "Joe Pass Emperor-II PRO" in white.

ProBucker Humbuckers
The Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro gets its name from the new critically acclaimed ProBucker humbuckers. The first generation of humbuckers (often called "Patent Applied For" for the tell-tale sticker found on the back of the pickups) were made at the Epiphone/Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the late 50s and have acquired a mythical status among guitar players.

Epiphone ProBucker pickups have that elusive tone bec'se they are made with the same alloy as the originals--18% nickel silver unit bases and covers--along with sand-cast Alnico II magnets and high-quality 4-conductor lead wire. Each ProBucker pickup is also vacuum wax potted to eliminate microphonics.

The Emperor-II Pro has a ProBucker-2 in the neck position and a slightly hotter ProBucker-3 in the lead position. Both pickups also have coil-tapping via their individual volume controls. Coil-tapping allows a player to turn a humbucker pickup into a single coil pickup for endless tone combinations. The Joe Pass Emperor-II Pro also sounds great unplugged and at low volume for players who strive for those classic horn-like tones like Joe Pass played.

Each ProBucker pickup's volume and tone are attenuated by Top Hat control knobs with metal inserts that are spaced slightly farther apart than a typical archtop along with a 3-way pickup selector with an ivory-colored toggle cap.

Epiphone-tough Hardware
The Emperor-II Pro has rock solid nickel hardware in elegant gold and a vintage style gold scroll tailpiece, a design inspired by vintage Kalamazoo-made archtops. The Emperor-II Pro is strung at the factory with Joe Pass-approved D'Addario 10-46 gauge strings. And setting the intonation for the Emperor-II Pro is easy with a floating rosewood bridge with thumbwheels for quick height adjustment.