mellowgerman
Senior Member
An Epiphone Rivoli II! Not a Guild and not quite vintage, but very nice bass none the less, made by the wonderful folks at the Peerless factory in Korea back in 1999. I figured Rivolis are in the Starfire arena and they have come up a few times in the past here in the bass section, so I figured I'd make a post. I was lucky enough to spot this one at a very nice price on another forum's classifieds, so I pounced, always having wanted to try one. Even though it's not that old, this one was clearly a road warrior, showing quite a bit of wear (dings, scratches, and even a soundly repaired neck crack). The electronics needed a good cleaning and the "baritone" switch was shot. I had an extra 3-way mini toggle switch on hand, so I had some fun trying out a bunch of different capacitors and pairing them with the stock inductor. One high value cap made for a neat warm wooly/fuzzy tone. The other one I picked gets a nice alternate mid-notch tone. I also decided to move the controls around so they were in a tighter grouping, making it more aesthetically pleasing to me. The stock control arrangement is a little clumsy looking and counter-intuitive in my opinion. Finally I removed the pickguard and added a Babicz bridge, replacing the awful stock "3-point" bridge. Really love this bass and it's actually super comfy strung up with nicely worn-in TI flatwounds (not usually my cup of tea). It has a 1 5/8" nut and I wouldn't describe the neck as thin or chunky... nicely in the middle.
Here's the first recording of it. Built upon a cool improvised guitar jam that a college buddy of mine sent me recently, which seemed like a great opportunity to noodle with the new Rivoli a little bit. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how the pickup wasn't just a muddy mess, as these mudbuckers are commonly supposed to be. Definitely woofy, but still has a nice articulate quality to it and makes a nice contrast to my Starfire. On the recording I switch back and forth on the mini-toggle between the fuzzy cap and the bypass setting, though mostly on the bypass. The bridge pickup does not come into play this time around.
https://soundcloud.com/mellowgerman/first-rivoli-recording
Here's the first recording of it. Built upon a cool improvised guitar jam that a college buddy of mine sent me recently, which seemed like a great opportunity to noodle with the new Rivoli a little bit. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how the pickup wasn't just a muddy mess, as these mudbuckers are commonly supposed to be. Definitely woofy, but still has a nice articulate quality to it and makes a nice contrast to my Starfire. On the recording I switch back and forth on the mini-toggle between the fuzzy cap and the bypass setting, though mostly on the bypass. The bridge pickup does not come into play this time around.
https://soundcloud.com/mellowgerman/first-rivoli-recording
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