The "Upgraded" Version of a Classic Gibson Archtop Electric Guitar
Written: Mar 12 '07 (Updated Sep 22 '07)
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Pros: A truly great jazz and rhythm archtop guitar.
Cons: Expensive. Big and bulky. Rare.
The Bottom Line: The ES-5 is one of the great guitars, ideal for jazz and standard play. Its rich, full tone is remarkable, a truly great machine. It's also really expensive.
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Gibson Es-5 |
By the late 1940s, Gibson had figured out that it needed to design electric guitars from the ground up rather than just installing pick-ups on existing models. In 1949, a truly great year for Gibson, it introduced the ES-175 and ES-5 archtop under review here, two guitars that are unparalleled for their beauty and the tones that they have provided for jazz and standard players.
The ES-5 is the larger of the two, a true hunk of guitar. The guitar was a big 17 inches wide with maple plywood top (to limit the feedback that was very common in acoustic guitars back then) and a three piece maple neck, typically available in brown or natural finish (mine is brown, it's a fabulous guitar). The body is a single soft cutaway with a trapezoid tailpiece, two f-holes, and gold plated parts. The fretboard had parallelogram inlays.
Acoustically, the guitar produces a full body sound, not quite the harmonic complexity of a Martin, but big and booming. The electronics, of course, set the ES-5 apart from its Martin competitors. The original ES-5 was equipped with three P-90 pick-ups, each with a separate volume control, plus a master tone control. Amplified, the guitar produces a warm, rich sound that ideally suits it for orchestral rhythm playing and gentle leads. The neck pick-up alone is remarkable in its tonal quality.
However, some guitarists were complaining about their inability to make quick tonal changes during performance because of the separate volume controls that were needed to pull up or draw down the three pick-ups. In response, the Gibson introduced in 1955 the "Switchmaster". First, each pick up was given a separate tone control knob. More importantly, a four-way pick-up switch ala Telecaster was introduced, allowing the player to select any one pick up or all three pick ups simultaneously. Late 50s versions were equipped with humbuckers.
Note: the Switchmasters are considered the more collectible of the ES-5 models. Be prepared to pay extra. There may also be some difference in pricing for the versions with the P-90s vs. the humbuckers, the former being considered more desirable.
The guitar went out of production in 1962 and was reissued in the late 90s. Make sure you know what you are buying. I have seen players complain about the reissues.
Recommendation: The ES-5 is a superb guitar for what it is intended to do: play rhythm and lead for standards and jazz guitarists. The P-90's are warm and lively but do not look for any country twang, blues wailing, or rock distortion. Those qualities just aren't here, and they shouldn't be. You're also going to want to use fat strings with this, probably with a wound G, so you won't be doing much bending unless you have a hankering to imitate Steve Howe. Be prepared to pay well north of $5,000 for a good quality ES-5, these things don't come cheap.
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Recommended:
Yes
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