The Gibson ES-335

Bad industrial design is notorious for going out of style. This 76 AMC Matador screams 70’s. But does a 335 or a Strat scream 50’s?

This 1958 Ford Edsel might be an even better example because it was designed at the same time as the ES-335. Hmm…which one has held up better all these years.

I know a little bit about design. I designed graphics for TV and, while it doesn’t make me an industrial designer, it does give me some insight. The old “form follows function” adage has its limitations especially when appearance is taken into consideration. It’s easy to see the difference when design takes beauty into consideration and goes beyond current trends and pure functionality. There will always be something called “modern” design. A Gibson Explorer from 1958 might have been considered radical, futuristic or just plain bizarre by some. But that same year Cadillac Eldorado (and the 59 which took it even farther) might have elicited the same response. With the Caddy, fins became the “modern” trend and they disappeared as fast as they arrived (and haven’t come back). The Explorer was a resounding flop in 1958 only to find its footing in the 70’s when it appeared that everyone had run out of good ideas. But when we look back at objects that were designed many years ago that remain unchanged, the beauty and the functionality still shine.

Certainly the ES-335 and the Fender Stratocaster are great examples. While both have faded and returned to popularity, they never went away (unlike the Les Paul). Both guitars look as modern today as they did when they were designed in 1958 and 1954 respectively. During the ensuing 60 years or so, guitars have gone through nearly as many trends as the automobile. Pointy Superstrats, oddball shaped Voxes, headless Steinbergers, BC Riches and plenty of others but the ones that endure seem to be the classics. All have had a similar level of functionality but design is what made them distinctive and, in many cases, led to their demise. Let’s go back to the automotive examples. These cars will never come back–From the 50’s–The Edsel, the 60’s The Rambler, the 70’s The AMC Matador, Pacer and Gremlin and the 80’s, the Yugo. Every one of them an industrial design punch line that started as someone’s “modern”  vision. So, when Ted McCarty designed the ES-335, was he going for beauty? Functionality? Modernity? Let’s take a critical look at all three.

There’s little to argue when it comes to beauty. The proportions and symmetry cannot really be improved upon. It is simply a beautiful instrument, the equal of any guitar design before or since. It doesn’t scream “futuristic” like his Flying Vee nor does it strive for stripped down functionality like Leo Fender’s Telecaster.  It is simply what an electric guitar should look like. It is no surprise that it has been in production since the day it was debuted. You can probably argue some functionality issues but not many. The knobs and buttons are where they should be from both an aesthetic and functional standpoint. The bridge and tailpiece are fully functional although you could argue that the ABR-1 needed more travel for intonation with the advent of lighter gauge strings. I will certainly make the point that the harness was way too hard to install and remove through the f-holes. This was addressed later by cutting a big notch out of the center block. So, functionality gets a good score but not perfect. The Stratocaster has its own minor functionality issues but, like the 335, looks as fresh and contemporary as it did in 1954.

OK, so what about modernity? And what is modernity anyway? Look at the automobile at the top of this post. Is there any question in your mind  that it wasn’t modern in 1976? Or look at an early cell phone or an 80’s laptop (especially a PC). I may not be able to describe modernity but I sure know it when I see it. You might argue that things like cell phones and laptops evolved to become modern and that this evolution is where we get our “modern” aesthetic from. Makes sense, I guess but not for guitars (or cars for that matter). Gibson has tried to evolve the electric guitar at least a dozen times in the past 60 years and yet they keep going back to the classic designs of the 50’s and 60’s. And, even when they try oh so hard to be cutting edge, they just seem to recycle those tried and true forms that are as old as I am. That self tuning, computer savvy Firebird X uses a 60’s design as its basis. Their largely ill conceived “Guitar of the Week” series showed some truly questionable aesthetics by doing dumb things like reversing the flying Vee and cutting holes in an Explorer. Truly, the Matador and Pacer of the era.

So, perhaps the guitar stands alone as the one bit of industrial design that cannot be improved on. Or maybe not. We won’t actually know until somebody actually improves on it.

Is this the Gibson equivalent of the AMC Matador? I think its worse because it takes a successful design and ruins it.

Some people just get it. And he can play too.

This 60 Byrdland has a spruce top and is fully hollow. Perhaps the prettiest guitar I’ve ever owned but it was not the best sounding. Find out why.

I was nosing around the Les Paul Forum today and came upon an older thread that had to do with pickup spacing. That’s a pretty irrelevant subject with 335’s and their brethren because Gibson never messed with the pickup placement on these guitars. Still it’s interesting and you can read it here. I think you can access it even if you aren’t a member. But a few of the posts discuss wolf notes-notes that are louder and more resonant and dead spots which is, essentially, the opposite-notes that are less loud and resonant. Fully hollow instruments have all kinds of vibrations going on and the relationship between these vibrations is key to how the instrument sounds. If the top is vibrating one way and the back is vibrating another, then they can cancel each other out. It’s a little like out phase pickups-certain frequencies are enhanced while others are diminished. There’s tons of math and physics involved in the finer points but the over all gist is that the front and the back should be vibrating more or less together to sound balanced. Violins and cellos have a post inserted between the top and the back (called, cleverly, a sound post) and it transmits some of the vibration from the top to the back helping them to vibrate more in sync.

I remember as a 4th grader taking violin lessons and the “A” was really loud and sounded almost like it was feeding back. You could feel the instrument come alive when you played an “A”. Sort of cool but not a good thing unless the only note you’re going to play is “A” (which probably would have been an improvement for me). My teacher looked inside the cheap rental violin and announced that it had no sound post. He rummaged around in a little box of parts and came up with a small wooden dowel-a sound post. He had this strange little bent metal tool and used it to wedge the post between the top and the back near the bridge. Problem solved-at least for the purposes of a 4th grader. An amplified instrument will make discrepancies like this become glaring. In general, guitars don’t have sound posts.  Carved spruce top arch tops like L5’s, Super 400’s and a few others, can be “tap tuned” – the builder taps the top and carves away wood until the tone of the tap is consistent throughout-and this goes a long way in eliminating wolf tones and dead spots. Whether a sound post would improve it further is up for debate. I don’t get to play a lot of fancy arch tops. Feel free to send me one if you’re not using it.

This brings us to laminate tops like you find on ES models. The tops on all arched ES’s are stamped from a flat sheet of plywood. No carving (or tap tuning) involved. And if the top and the back don’t vibrate at the same rate, tough crap. You get wolf notes and dead spots. That explains the high level of inconsistency I’ve experienced from ES-330’s and ES-175’s. Some are just great but some just suck. In a worst case, half the notes seem dead, a quarter of them normal and the other quarter howling at the moon. Especially when amplified. Recently I’ve had a lot of ES-330’s and mostly, I’ve been lucky. The next time I get one that isn’t sounding right, I’m going to insert a sound post and see what happens. Stay tuned.

Finally, one of the best things about ES-335’s-particularly early ones-is their great consistency of tone. I rarely get a bad one and I find 90% fall into the classification of excellent tone. There are perhaps 5% that are exceptional-those magical ones that I hate to sell. Another 5% might fall into the “ho-hum” (that’s a technical term) classification-these are guitars that just don’t quite have that great 335 tone I’ve come to expect. There are a lot of ways to make a ho-hum sounding 335 better and I’ll write a post about that later. but, to the point, one of the biggest reasons that 335’s sound so consistently great is that big ol’ block of maple and spruce down the middle. It keeps the top from interfering with the back. It is, more or less, a giant sound post.

You’ve all seen the center block of a 335 but this little detail is kind of important. These spruce “spacers” make sure the top, the back and the maple block are properly attached to each other and not causing dead spots and wolf notes. Gibson stopped doing this for awhile but is apparently doing it again. This photo is from my friend Ken McKay’s shop. He makes the best “tribute” 335 out there. I have one myself.

This is a 61 Epiphone Wilshire. One of my all time favorite non ES guitars. Yes, it’s in the wrong case. They reissued it in 2009.

This is the very well executed reissue done in 2009. Note the three way and the jack are located differently. This was changed in 62 so it’s still accurate.

When I was a gigging teenager back in the Stone Age, I used to borrow a 61 or 62 Epiphone Wilshire from a friend of our lead singer (whose actual name was Charlie Rocker-really). It was all beat up and the case was falling apart but it was the only guitar  I could get my hands on that I could get any kind of  “Claptonesque” tone out of. I played a 330 back then and it would feed back long before I could push the amp into overdrive. So, whenever I could, I would borrow this old P90 equipped Wilshire. I’ve owned a number of vintage Wilshires, both from the P90 era and from the mini hum era but the stop tail 61’s and 62’s are my favorites. They were also the only Gibson made guitar from the era that had a pair of P90’s and a stoptail ABR-1 combination. Remember, SG Specials and LP Specials had wraptails. Original Wilshires are around but they are pretty rare and will cost you around $5-$6K which isn’t that bad considering how good these guitars are. But there is an alternative.

In 2009, Gibson released the limited edition mouthful called the Epiphone Custom Historic USA 1962 Wilshire Reissue. Seriously, that’s what they called it. They only made a couple hundred of them and put a sticker price of nearly $5000 on them. I’m not sure what the street price was but they apparently sold out very quickly. The fact that you could get a real one at that time for about the same price didn’t seem to stop anyone. So, why am I writing about these now? They’ve been around for years now. Well, because I have one in my hands and it’s a very nice guitar. Nice like you close your eyes and it feels like a vintage one. Nice like it sounds like a vintage one as well. OK, it’s not an ES but it’s still a very cool guitar. The design was stolen from Leo’s Telecaster. Look close-it’s a rounded off Tele with a double cutaway. And it’s light and comfortable to play. The really cool thing is you can find them at a very reasonable price – there’s usually one or two on Ebay for around $2000 and sometimes less. The only problem is the neck join is a little unstable you can detune the guitar by pulling on the neck-just like the original. And don’t confuse it with cheapo Wilshire “Pro”or the recent “Phantomatic”.

Gibson is getting a lot of stuff right lately. I don’t know what’s come over them but the Memphis built 335’s are getting raves from all corners of the internet. The Rusty Anderson ’59 335 and the Warren Haynes ’61 335 are getting to be all the rage out there. I will write those up as soon as I get my hands on one. It’s great to see that they seem to have responded to a lot of the online criticism they were getting. They are about as close to getting it right as they have ever been and maybe these are the vintage guitars of the future. And maybe not. The good news is that these guitars can be in your hands for a few thousand dollars. That’s still a lot of money for most players but if they are as good as everyone says, then it sure beats spending five figures on a vintage one if what you’re going to do is play the crap out of it. We all knew they could do it. We just couldn’t figure out why they weren’t doing it. Maybe they were just too busy coming up with such brilliant variations like the Holy Explorer and the Reverse Vee. But those were released the same year as the Epiphone Custom Historic USA 1962 Wilshire Reissue, so I’m flummoxed. And I don’t flummox that easily.