Whereas Gibson sunbursts usually form a teardrop shape on the guitar’s front and back, Epiphones follow the body’s outline with an even band of colour all the way round. The Frontier is a great all-rounder for almost any occasion – but on stage it will really look the business!įret markers are slotted rectangles in mother-of-pearl, and the body is edged front and back in multiple cream and black binding. Of course, the Frontier stands out visually due to that striking pickguard, with what Gibson calls a ‘lariat and cactus’ themed engraving. Tuners are gold-plated Gotoh takes on the Kluson ‘keystone’ style found on so many Gibsons – and indeed the Frontiers that the company produced. As usual with electrified acoustics, there’s an endpin jack, plus there’s a second pin on the guitar’s heel so the Frontier comes stage-ready. It also has the excellent LR Baggs VTC under-saddle pickup with soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls. The top is solid Sitka spruce with scalloped bracing, the fingerboard Indian rosewood, with the nut and bridge saddle both in bone. Although, I just switched to Fender Bullet strings and that made it a non-issue.What a handsome thing! Built in Gibson’s acoustic facility in Montana, the Frontier features solid flamed-maple sides and back. This never happened to me with steel saddles. Even though they prevented string breakage at the saddles, if I for some reason detuned my guitar to make some sort of a tweak, and then tuned it back up, after a while the high E, B and sometimes G strings would unwind around the ball end.

My advice is, if you break strings at the saddle when bending or playing more vigorously, go for them, they'll definitely help (even though that can be fixed by smoothing out the existing saddle).

Plus, the Gotoh ones are so nicely made, I can still do crazy bends and not worry about it.

There is a subtle sound difference, but the steel saddles sound better to me. I kept using them even after I replaced my vibrato system with a Gotoh NS510, but recently I've switched to original Gotoh saddles and I have to admit, I don't think I'll be going back to Tusq saddles. They were a huge improvement when it came to string-breaking caused by wild bends, compared to my original MiM bent steel saddles. I've recently stopped using them, but I had them on my Strat for almost a year.

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