Epiphone Joe Pass Emperer II Pro

The Joe Pass Emperor-II PRO is powered by critically acclaimed ProBucker™ pickups carefully designed to recreate the tone of the first generation of humbuckers (often called “Patent Applied For” for the telltale “PAF” sticker found on the back of the pickups) made at the Epiphone & Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the late 50s. Early Kalamazoo-made humbuckers have acquired a mythical status among guitar players and Epiphone ProBuckers™ are made with the same components as the originals including 18% Nickel Silver unit bases and covers, 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-splitting via their individual volume controls allowing you to turn each humbucker pickup into a single-coil pickup for near-limitless tonal combinations. The Joe Pass Emperor-II PRO also sounds great played virtually acoustic at low volume for players who strive to reach for Joe Pass’ horn-like tone. Each ProBucker pickup’s volume and tone are attenuated by Top Hat control knobs with metal inserts spaced slightly farther apart than on a typical archtop and a 3-way pickup selector with an ivory-colored toggle cap.