Gibson ES-350T
| Gibson ES-350T | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General | |
| Type | Semi-resonant guitar |
| Manufacturer | Gibson ; United States |
| production | 1955–1963, 1977–1981, special editions |
| Construction and materials | |
| Scale length | (1955-1963) 23.5 in (597 mm) (1977-1981) 25.5 in (648 mm) |
| Body | Sound from maple with f-holes |
| neck | Set-in maple neck |
| Fingerboard | Rosewood , 22 frets |
| Mechanics | 3 × left, 3 × right; capsuled |
| Footbridge / bridge | Two-piece: rosewood bridge with individual saddles and metal tailpiece |
| Pickups and Electronics | |
| Pickups |
|
| Tone control | passive
|
The Gibson ES-350 T is an electric guitar model made by the American musical instrument manufacturer Gibson Guitar Corporation , which was introduced in 1955. The ES-350 T , a further development of the 1948 Gibson model ES-350 , has a completely hollow body . The special feature of the Gibson ES-350 T at the time of its market launch was the reduced width of the frames . As a result, the guitar has a body that is roughly half the height of an instrument with a resonance body . This design feature made the ES-350 T, together with its sister models Gibson ES-225 TDN and Gibson Byrdland , one of the first models of the semi-resonant guitar type .
Construction form
The letter T in the model name of the ES 350 T stands for the English word Thin Line (German: "thin line") and in 1955 simultaneously with the "Gibson Byrdland " and two other new models to refer to hollow body guitars (English: Hollow Body ) introduced with narrow frames and a flat body. The body of the ES-350 T - arched top, back and sides - is made entirely of laminated maple wood . Also, the set-in into the body neck of the guitar is made of maple wood and has a fretboard made of rosewood . The neck is equal to the 14th Federal glued to the body. The fingerboard has 22 frets and is provided with inlays in the form of double parallelograms between the frets to mark the pitches . The base plate of the two-part bridge with individually adjustable metal saddles is also made of rosewood . The lower ends of the strings are held by a trapezoidal metal tailpiece attached to the lower frame.
In addition to the flat body, another special feature of the Gibson ES-350 T is its shortened length of only 597 mm (23½ inches compared to the 25½ inches otherwise used by Gibson). It is believed that this short scale length goes back to the jazz guitarist Tal Farlow , who had expressed a wish to be able to grasp difficult chords and melodies more easily. Contrary to this assumption, Gibson Tal Farlow dedicated its own signature model in 1962 , the Gibson Tal Farlow - with a standard length of 648 mm. In addition, both the ES-350 T and its sister model Byrdland have particularly close distances between the individual strings, which made it necessary to manufacture special, narrower pickups for these models. The scale length was extended to 25.5 inches from 1977 to 1981.
The first edition of the ES-350 T from 1955 is equipped with two pickups of the type P-90 developed by Gibson in 1946 - pickups of the single-coil design . As early as 1957, these were replaced by the Gibson type PAF (Patent Applied For) double coil pickups ( humbuckers ) newly developed in the same year . The setting of the cartridge is via four attached to the ceiling controller ( potentiometer ) with knobs (each pickup a volume and a tone control) as well as a three-position toggle switch body close to the incision ( cutaway ) at the neck base. This cutaway has had a rounded shape since 1955; in 1960 Gibson switched to the “Florentine” cutaway shape with a sharp edge in the frame. Later new editions of the ES-350 T have the outwardly rounded frame on the corpus horn (see photo in info box).
The Gibson ES-350 T and Chuck Berry
One of the first prominent users of the Gibson ES-350 T was American rock 'n' roll guitarist Chuck Berry . Berry has used the model as an exclusive guitar since his first recording sessions with Chess Records . First he played an ES-350 T with two P-90 pickups. It is with this instrument that he can be seen in most of his early promotional photos, and on it he recorded most of his legendary recordings from the mid-1950s. Around 1957, Chuck Berry bought a similar ES-350 T, but it was equipped with two PAF humbucking pickups and which he said was used on most of his hits from the late 1950s. Chuck Berry would probably have continued to play the model; However, since he bought a new guitar every few years for tax reasons, when Gibson ceased production of the ES-350 T in 1963, he switched to the Gibson ES-355 , which became his new trademark.
literature
- Tony Bacon: guitar classics. All models and manufacturers. Premio Verlag, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-86706-050-9 .
- George Gruhn, Walter Carter: Electric Guitars and Basses . Inside: Chapter Semi-Resonant Guitars: Gibson . Presse Projekt Verlag, Bergkirchen 1999, ISBN 3-932275-04-7 , p. 203 ff.
- Carlo May: Vintage guitars and their stories . Inside: Chapter 1955 The Slimming Diet - Gibson's Thin-Line Models . MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 1994, ISBN 3-927954-10-1 , p. 20 ff.
Individual evidence
- ^ Tony Bacon, Paul Day: The Ultimate Guitar Book. Edited by Nigel Osborne, Dorling Kindersley, London / New York / Stuttgart 1991; Reprint 1993, ISBN 0-86318-640-8 , p. 188.
- ↑ a b c d May: Vintage guitars and their stories . P. 22
- ^ Gruhn, Carter: Electric Guitars & Basses . P. 205
- ^ Franz Holtmann: Archtop Heaven - Super 400 CES & Tal Farlow 1965 . In: Electric Guitars ; Special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004.
- ↑ a b Bacon: Guitar classics - all models and manufacturers . P. 137
- ↑ Rockabilly Pickers . Article on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website