NGD - '64 Historic ES345 w/bigsby Olive Drab (pics Pg2)

[Despot]

The guessing game thing never takes long around here.

Great guitar! I feel like I'm the only one here that still takes chances with new Gibsons sometimes!

Thanks Larry. Hopefully it'll be great ... but I'd say that the odds are that it'll be, at least, very good. The historic ES stuff really is some of the best stuff Gibson are putting out these days - that ES330 that I had was really something ... and all the centre block models I've tried have been cracking too. I'm usually wary of ordering a new guitar - I've only done it once before through Bilt - but the historic ES stuff has just been consistent enough that I'm confident in ordering a new one.

I've put my boot into Gibson plenty over the years - but I've never found a reason to kick the historic/memphis ES stuff.

[Larry Mal]

I realize that I've been very lucky with my ordering of instruments in general. I completely disregard the typical advice of "you gotta run the racks to find a good one"- I don't have time for that. I just order whatever.

I've bought like twenty Gibsons, ranging from a $220 M2 up to an ES-330, haven't been disappointed with a single one of them. If you were to base how Gibson is perceived off my own personal experience, you'd think they were an amazing and incredibly consistent company. But I know that's not always the case from what I read.

Of course, as you have seen, my luck may have come to an end. I'm sure you'll be doing just fine, though.

And I may join you in this paring down to the instruments are are really important soon enough, for the same reason, myself and the family need to purchase a home ourselves. Our needs are not extravagant, and the real estate in St. Louis is not expensive compared to other large American cities, so we might be able to get something nice without me having to liquidate my guitar collection.

But, if it has to go, it has to go. You're doing the right thing and I hope you end up in a wonderful home very soon.

[NickD]

The guessing game thing never takes long around here.

Great guitar! I feel like I'm the only one here that still takes chances with new Gibsons sometimes!

The best guitar I've ever bought was a new (2013) Gibson. They don't always hit the spot, but they can.

[Despot]

So I have it at last.

Pics:


Just a few quick ones.

Here's the photo the store owner sent me earlier when it arrived (better than mine):

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Very nice indeed!

I love that shade of green and the off-white binding. Really classy!

[Despot]

Right ... I've only had this for a few hours, but so far I'm very impressed with it.

Neck Profile
They really have improved the neck profiles on these historic models. I've always found that most Gibsons fell into two categories in terms of necks ... at least on electrics. You had a chunky '50s profile (which I actually quite like) and a slimmer '60s profile with a quite pronounced D profile - straight shoulders and a flat back feel. I've never played a '60s Gibson that had that profile - yet that seems to have been what Gibson decided was a '60s profile for them.

This one feels like SGs I've played from '64 - it's slimmer around the nut, but very quickly starts to get substantial - by around the third fret it's feeling chunky, and by the 7th it's a bigger neck. Also - it's a proper C shape - no shoulder and very comfortable to play. It's far closer to the real '60s necks I've played and like a chunkier version of my own '62. It's also not 1,000 miles away from my favourite Fender neck profile - the '63 Jazzmaster/Strat profile.

MHS Humbuckers
Yeah ... these I like.

You're all probably sick of hearing me wax lyrical of my love of brighter humbuckers - I like things that are clear, articulate and bright. These are quite full sounding, but bright in the neck and gutsy in the bridge. There's a lot of range available here - the MHS pickups are, to my ear, the best sounding humbuckers that Gibson make right now.

Combined with the varitone switch there are a lot of sounds available on tap. I find that I can get some reasonably quacky single coil sounds from the varitone.

Overall fit & finish
Very well done. I'm not a huge fan of the VOS treatment (which seems to be basically running a light grade of sandpaper over all the finish), but it looks decent here and gently takes down the shine of the finish. It's funny to see this 'ageing' done on a finish that never existed on an actual 1964 model - but it looks great. Also, the change from gold hardware to nickel plated is the other thing that makes this guitar. With gold hardware against the flat Olive Drab (which isn't metallic) it would look cheap somehow - the nickel hardware looks great against the flat green. I also love the rosewood board grain - clearly it's lighter than vintage Brazilian boards ... but it as a lovely grain.

The guitar itself is light - models with varitone switches tend to feel a lot heavier (the chokes are heavy - think mini-transformer weight). This one is noticeably lighter than my old 345. The guitar is responsive and resonant - almost as much fun to play unplugged as the vintage ES345.

In short - I love it. This is the nicest new Gibson I've played in quite some time - and only the second time I've bought a new Gibson. I'm going to have to decide whether I love this more than the old ES345 - but what it does allow me to do is to keep the ES345 in the hope of selling it down the line ... not as an immediate need, but as a 'fall back' if we need more cash to work on the house in a year or two. If I had to let my vintage ES345 go I wouldn't feel too hard done by having this.

This one is a keeper. And that's me done. The Jazzmaster, the J45 and this ES345. It was a complete curveball - but what I was thinking about getting was a vintage ES355 - with a varitone and maestro. What I've ended up with is a beautiful new Gibson with a varitone and bigbsy (also - that bigsby is smooth as silk - much more so than on any newer Gibson I've tried before).

[Despot]

Very nice indeed!

I love that shade of green and the off-white binding. Really classy!

Thanks Mark.

I love the colour - that was what caught my eye. I also love the other non-vintage changes - like putting a black varitone ring on there - I guess because there was never a nickel varitone ring and gold would have looked wrong. Black goes back to the '50s varitones. The nickel hardware looks perfect too - even though nickel hardware on ES345s was extremely rare (you could find it - some were ordered, just as some were ordered with block necks or headstock binding - but super super rare).

[Larry Mal]

Can't argue with that! You've got all you need, correct, you have the acoustic, you have the humbucker thing, you have the single coil thing. Everything else is just gilding the lily.

I hope to have enough discipline should the time come. I don't know that I will.

[Despot]

It's actually nowhere near as tough as I expected it to be to let go. Even that I'm now thinking the unthinkable in terms of selling the old ES345 ... it's just a guitar. It's just stuff. Having a home for the two of us is just a far higher priority now than having a rented place full of stuff.

We went through a general decluttering spring clean over the last few weeks - the amount of stuff that was just taking up space. Stuff bought for some random reason that wasn't all that important.

Reducing the gear load also takes away excuses - there's nothing else to hide behind anymore. There's no "oh well to play this song I need to use the other guitar". Even though I still have the Tele and old ES345 ... I've stopped playing them. If they're on the block it's better not to even think that they're there - they're stored away waiting for when they become useful as things to sell.

But this green ES345 - this is a thing of beauty. I tweaked it a bit over the weekend - went up a gauge from the factory fitted .10s to a set of .11s - the bigsby isn't quite as soft as it was with the .10s on it given the heavier strings ... but I can live with that. The overall feel of the guitar has improved - I prefer the strings to feel a little tight.

Having gotten to know this guitar a little over the weekend I noticed a few interesting things. The first thing I noticed was that while the finishing on the internal parts of the guitar are clean inside the F hole (where you can see the 'guts' of the centre block etc) - if you shine a torch inside and look at angles you'd never look normally ... it's 'interesting'.

Say ... the centre block. There's a cut out in the centre block under the treble pickup. They started doing this sometime in the early '60s - so it's consistent with how they did things. Also, it's where the choke for the varitone is fixed ... so I think even the varitone equipped guitars from the '50s and early '60s had the cut out. So - it's appropriate for the era.

When you look at the side of the cut out that's nearest the F hole ... the cut out is sanded with a sanded curve - very clean/neat work. Identical to how it's done on my old '62 by the way...

However, the other side of the cut out is jagged and raw - it's been cut ... and that's it. Now ... I know ... it doesn't matter (it really doesn't). But it's where you can see how Gibson operate now - it takes a few minutes to sand that side down and it will more than likely never be seen ... so don't sand it. The old '62 has both sides of the cut out profiled/rounded and sanded clean.

This is just a curious observation - I love the guitar and it doesn't matter ... just a little insight into Gibson corporate thinking. Everywhere that it matters, this thing is lovely. The nut is perfectly cut thankfully (unlike on the ES355 that I had - that had a very wonky nut), the neck angle is perfect, the neck profile is ideal, the pickups sound fantastic and the fret work is outstanding.

I love how this thing sounds through the Princeton - the bridge pickup in particular. The neck is lovely - a nice bright and clear pickup. It doesn't compare to the PAF in the old ES345 neck position - but then it can't ... that pickup is extremely hot/loud and this neck pickup is wound to balance with the bridge. What it does remind me of though is that 1959 ES345 that was for sale in Dublin for a while - that guitar had PAFs that sounded like a hotter telecaster ... and that's what these sound like.

[shadowplay]

Looks great, though I get the feeling that it's a guitar you really need to see in person. It's a shame you've noticed a few awry details but it's good to hear you're happy with the fundamentals.

D

[Despot]

Thanks D - to be fair I'm being picky ... you wouldn't notice or see these things unless you looked for them. I was just being my usual curious self - given how much they've nailed in these newer historic reissues (in terms of accuracy to the old ways of making them) I was curious to see if the internals were similar. The neck tenon is identical (same way as the old ones), and the way the centre block is cut out is the same as the old ones (albeit a bit rougher). The stuff that matters is all perfect - neck angle, neck shape etc. Oh yeah ... something else I forgot to mention ... the frets are finished very well. They've rounded the edge of the fingerboard/binding and rounded down the fret edges - it feels like old guitars where the binding has worn down through play.

The only other thing that I find strange (and this bugs me about all Gibson historic models) is the inaccuracy of the pickup covers. You can always tell whether a guitar has Gibson stock pickups from the covers - the old pickups didn't have that round-over/curve between the top and sides of the pickup. It's funny how Gibson have gone to great lengths to get things like neck profiles, construction methods and the actual pickup voicing right ... but the most obvious thing, the pickup cover, is wrong. This could be easily corrected if they bought in covers used by others (Seymour Duncan, Bareknuckle, ThroBak etc) for their vintage reissue models.

I'm subjecting this guitar to a degree of criticism that suggests that I'm unhappy with it. I'm not - at all. Where it counts it's perfect. But it is interesting to see that even on these high end reissues Gibson cut corners. Remember that these guitars are the ES version of those Les Paul collector's choice models - thankfully the ES models haven't gone to the insane prices of the CCs though.

Actually ... for what it is, this guitar wasn't hugely expensive. A quick check online shows that new 'standard' ES335s (so 57 Classics and modern everything) runs to 3,400 euro - that's for the 2018 model. This was less expensive than that. This is actually a 2016 guitar - it was sitting on Thomann's website since I first saw it early last year. There does appear to be one newer historic reissue - a '59 in natural that is a significant upcharge over what I paid (it's the price of a new US Professional Fender more!). This does show how completely off kilter Gibsons prices have become - that there can be a 1500 euro difference between guitars that should be close to identical (same pickups, same construction, different neck profile and no bigsby or varitone) is a bit bonkers.

And a final point before I shut up - if anyone sees one of these second hand (and by that I mean historic spec ES models) and is tempted ... go for it. Stories in the press suggest that the Memphis factory is going to get closed down soon - and while Gibson will be 'seamlessly moving production' to Nashville ... the reality is that folk who worked in Memphis more than likely won't be 'seamlessly moving' with the production line. I've played a lot of Gibsons over the years - from McCarthy, to Norlin to modern - 100s of them. These historic reissue ES guitars are the best ES guitars Gibson have made since the McCarthy era. They're going to be a bargain second hand ... if you can find any of these for around the 2k mark second hand in a few years go for it. The price difference between one of these and something like a vintage '64 is getting substantial - and going up. In my view that increased price just isn't worth it unless you're a professional musician or really need to have that old guitar. As a hobby musician ... and someone who has hoarded vintage guitars for years ... it's just not worth it. The differences between a really exceptional one of these and vintage is pure diminishing returns.

[Musjagjazz]

the bigsby isn't quite as soft as it was with the .10s on it given the heavier strings

If you want a softer feel for the Bigsby, Reverend sell a "Soft Touch Spring" for your Bigsby.

Just drop it in and it is a nice, noticeable difference. Just have to give it a slight wobble for it to work.

The arm will sit slightly higher once installed.

http://store.reverendguitars.com/produc ... ch-spring/

[Despot]

Thanks for that Musjagjazz.

I think you've posted that for me before (when I had the ES330 with bigsby) - as has PorkyPrimeCut.

To be honest it's grand - I wondered why the bigsby was nice and soft with the factory set up, and forgot that it probably came with .10s instead of the .11s I usually use on Gibson scale guitars.

A side note - the case.
Gibson have been quite good at replicating their old cases for these historic spec guitars - the cases they used for their '50s ES models were lovely - they replicated the old brown lifton cases very well, but in a way that made them actually safe to use through using better materials.

It's the same with these cases - they've gone to the trouble of using the yellow plush interior and black tolex of the early '60s cases - but added in structural support and extra padding. A nice touch.

[Larry Mal]

And a final point before I shut up - if anyone sees one of these second hand (and by that I mean historic spec ES models) and is tempted ... go for it. Stories in the press suggest that the Memphis factory is going to get closed down soon - and while Gibson will be 'seamlessly moving production' to Nashville ... the reality is that folk who worked in Memphis more than likely won't be 'seamlessly moving' with the production line. I've played a lot of Gibsons over the years - from McCarthy, to Norlin to modern - 100s of them. These historic reissue ES guitars are the best ES guitars Gibson have made since the McCarthy era. They're going to be a bargain second hand ... if you can find any of these for around the 2k mark second hand in a few years go for it. The price difference between one of these and something like a vintage '64 is getting substantial - and going up. In my view that increased price just isn't worth it unless you're a professional musician or really need to have that old guitar. As a hobby musician ... and someone who has hoarded vintage guitars for years ... it's just not worth it. The differences between a really exceptional one of these and vintage is pure diminishing returns.

I'm of the opinion that this is going to be viewed as a high water mark for Gibson. I know there's a lot of internet babble out there about poor quality and I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but overall the modern Gibsons are very good guitars, especially in models where they are forced to focus on quality and accuracy.

I think that you are correct, the Memphis Gibsons will be held in a very high regard.

Whatever comes next for Gibson after what seems to be certain bankruptcy at this point, I don't think it's likely to be "better", and I think that from the vantage point of twenty years down the road these instruments will be highly sought after.

[Ursa Minor]

the bigsby isn't quite as soft as it was with the .10s on it given the heavier strings

If you want a softer feel for the Bigsby, Reverend sell a "Soft Touch Spring" for your Bigsby.

Just drop it in and it is a nice, noticeable difference. Just have to give it a slight wobble for it to work.

The arm will sit slightly higher once installed.

http://store.reverendguitars.com/produc ... ch-spring/

I literally just put one of these on a Dot. I can't believe how nice the Bigsby feels now. Its miles softer but it feel more like a JM / Jag trem in terms of response. Game changer for me.