Gibson L-5
| Gibson L-5 | |
|---|---|
 Gibson L-5 VSB CES, manufactured in 1990 |
|
| General | |
| Type | Jazz guitar / archtop |
| Manufacturer | Gibson ; United States |
| production | since 1923 |
| Construction and materials | |
| Scale length | 25.5 inches (648 mm) |
| Body | Sound box with f-holes , sides and back made of maple , top made of spruce |
| neck | Set-in, multi-striped maple and walnut neck |
| Fingerboard | Ebony , 20 frets |
| Mechanics | 3 × left, 3 × right; capsuled |
| Footbridge / bridge | Two-part: ebony bridge, continuous or with individual, gold-plated saddles ( Tune-O-Matic ) and gold-plated tailpiece |
| Pickups and Electronics | |
| Pickups |
|
| Tone control | passive
|
| Unless otherwise stated, the data come from the manufacturer's website (as of December 29, 2013) | |
The Gibson L-5 is an archtop guitar model from the American musical instrument manufacturer Gibson Guitar Corporation . The model L-5 was first produced in 1923 and is built by Gibson to the present day. The L-5 is of the design form an acoustic guitar with 17 inch wide hollow body (hollow body) ; since 1951 it has been offered with or without electromagnetic pickups . When the model was launched, it offered several innovations in guitar construction that are still considered the standard for the construction of archtop guitars today.
The L-5 is the longest-lasting guitar model in the Gibson lineup. It is still made by hand according to traditional craftsmanship rules and, due to its high manufacturing costs and quality, it is one of the highest quality instruments made by this company, along with the Gibson Super 400 model .
Development history
Since the end of the nineteenth century, Orville H. Gibson , founder of the Gibson Guitar and Mandolin Factory , had transferred construction forms from stringed instruments to plucked instruments in order to improve their sound quality. These included the predecessor models of the L-5: the Style 0 guitar, which had been in production since 1903 (from 1908 under the name Special Grand Concert Guitar Style 0, Artist's Model ), which was market leader until the L-5 was introduced, and the guitar model introduced in 1910 L-4 . Both instruments already had a handcrafted, arched top and back, but still had the sound hole typical of early Gibson models in the form of a horizontal ellipse and a fingerboard glued to the top. These models remained unchanged on the market until the early 1920s.
From 1919 Lloyd Loar , who had started his career as a mandolin player, composer and arranger as well as an employee of an Italian violin making company, headed the development department of Gibson. He began working there with the development of three new models from the mandolin family , named K-5 (mandocello), H-5 (mandola) and F-5 (mandolin). Loar continued the acquisition of design features from stringed instruments that Gibson had begun over twenty years earlier. He paid particular attention to the vibration properties of the instrument tops. So that these could vibrate as freely as possible for better sound transmission, he adopted the construction of the fingerboard end floating freely above the ceiling from violin making. Also at plucked from the family of lutes popular pickguard (pickguard) received a "floating" suspension without contact with the ceiling. Another innovation was a height-adjustable bridge . The most noticeable feature of the changes introduced by Loar were the f- shaped sound holes on both sides of the bridge that were adopted from string instruments .
After the mandolin models, the L-5 guitar model with the same innovations was introduced in 1923 . In addition, the L-5 had the neck tie rod used for the first time the year before . This steel rod, which lies in a longitudinal groove inside the neck, was developed with the help of Loar to counteract the tension of the strings on the neck. The tension of the rod was adjustable via a threaded nut at its exit under the saddle on the head plate. The Gibson company had a patent on this construction for a long time. The neck of the instrument, in previous guitar models in the amount of the twelfth Federal connected to the body, were 5 L-full 14 frets freely in. From 1925 the body was made of maple and replaced the previously used birch wood. In the following years only cosmetic changes were made until 1934 the body was enlarged to 17 "wide to" Advanced ".
When it was launched, the new Gibson L-5 was officially offered under the cumbersome name of The Master Line Guitar L-5 Professional Special Grand Concert Model . The instrument was initially only available in the two-tone body finish, Sunburst , and cost US $ 275 in its launch year; almost twice as much as the previous model L-4 . The first edition of about 100 pieces was hand-signed by Loar on a label attached to the body.
Identification of the L-5 against similar Gibson guitar models
A reliable identification feature of the Gibson L-5 CES compared to other, very similar-looking, electrically reinforced archtop models from the Gibson brand, which can hardly be changed without visible damage to the instrument, is the inlay work ( inlay ) in the front of the headstock. This inlay in the form of a stylized flower pot with a plant (Flowerpot Inlay) has been used by Gibson since 1951 exclusively for the L-5 and Byrdland models; The latter has a body that is about half the size of the L-5.
Models
- L-5 - the basic shape of the instrument.
- L-5 C - an L-5 with a cutaway without a pickup.
- L-5 CES - a model with cutaway and two humbuckers - pickups as shown in the info box.
- L-5 CEST - like the CES, but with a narrow bezel (see the models ES-350T and Gibson Byrdland ), which is occasionally launched and has been available again since 2014.
- Signature and special models of the L-5: Wes Montgomery , Lee Ritenour, George Gobel,
Common finishes of the L-5 are sunburst , tobacco burst (a variant of the sunburst finish; see photo in info box), “natural” (color code “CESN” - Cutaway Electric-Spanish, natural ), wine red and black.
Guitarists with the main instrument Gibson L-5
- Wes Montgomery , American jazz guitarist , played an L-5 CES with a pickup
- Al Viola , American jazz guitarist-guitarist (with Frank Sinatra )
- Tuck Andress , American jazz guitarist
- Scotty Moore , American rockabilly guitarist (with Elvis Presley )
- Maybelle Carter , American country guitarist
- Rue Protzer , German guitarist, composer and band leader (Rue de Paris)
- Garrison Fewell , American guitarist and lecturer at Berklee College of Music
literature
- Tony Bacon: Guitar classics - all models and manufacturers . Premio Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86706-050-9
- Tony Bacon, Dave Hunter: Totally Guitar - The Definitive Guide . Backbeat Books, London 2004, ISBN 1-871547-81-4 (English) Guitar Encyclopedia
- George Gruhn, Walter Carter: Electric Guitars and Basses . Presse Projekt Verlag, Bergkirchen 1999, ISBN 3-932275-04-7
- Carlo May: Vintage guitars and their stories . MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 1994, ISBN 3-927954-10-1
Web links
- Reissue of the 1934 acoustic version of the L-5 from the Gibson official website. Accessed June 13, 2010
- Wes-Montgomery Signature Model of the L-5 CES from Gibson website, accessed June 13, 2010
- Rudolph Blazer, Wilhelm Henkes: Under the microscope - Gibson Advanced L-5 1936 . antique-acoustics.de, on the acoustic design of the L-5 designed by Lloyd Loar using the example of an instrument from 1936; Retrieved June 17, 2016