ES 2007

Hello. This is an old post, but here is a new response. I am an acoustic violin and mandolin player, but I had an interesting opportunity to buy a 2007 ES-339 at a fair price that found its way out of a studio arsenal here in Hollywood. It has been highly modified with completely different pickups, but sounds nice. I tested it on a rocker's Marshall Stack and couldn't really make any sense out of the sound I was hearing. My motivation is to learn all those exotic Jazz Comps, and the rocker's stack didn't work for me. Also, the strings on it (super slinkies) didn't work for me either. But I bought the guitar! I brought it home, changed the strings to Thomastik 12s and hooked it up to my Fishman Loudbox Artist (the older version without USB). It sounded good, but it sounded even better when I tweaked the pickup height. Finally I put the pick down and do the comps with my thumb and fingers and the sound is beautiful. So, the Fishman Loudbox Artist works, but since I have a Seymour Duncan PAF replica in the neck and some other exotic hand wound in the the bridge, you mileage may vary.

I bought one of the early 2007 ES-339s, fat neck, vintage sunburst, last week and have been playing it over the long weekend. I am not a guitar player so much, but I need a break from violin, so I'm going to start working on improving my guitar skills. This guitar has been highly modified, so I don't know about the "Memphis Wiring". I opened it up to look at the pickups to try to diagnose a dead e-string problem, and see that neither of the pickups are originals. They are (expensive) upgrades. The finish has some checking, and there are nicks and dings, but I don't mind that. It stinks of cigarettes. It was a studio instrument at a large Hollywood recording studio, but although it has been played and modified, it stayed indoors all its life. It arrived with a poor output on the high-e-string. Noting the B string sounded smooth and sweet, but no similar sound from the e-string through my amp. I tried changing the height of the pickups and filing new slots in the saddle bits to try to get the string centered over the pickup, but to no effect. I finally got a set of all nickel "Vintage Reissue" Gibson strings. Changing the strings made a huge difference. I called the seller and he said the strings on it when I bought it were "Ernie Ball Super Slinky", also nickel. I miked them and they read out 0.010, and I see that Super Slinkys are 0.009 or 0.011 so I don't know which they are, but at any rate, they did not work well with the pickups I was using. Your mileage may vary. The only other changes I made were to change the intonation of the low E-string (Tune-o-matic makes that easy) and I put covers on the pickups (for looks only: they didn't seem to change the sound.) It is just a joy to play. It is much easier to play than my Martin OM-28, and sounds nice with my Fisher Acoustic amp. I am feeding it to a red-eye preamp for convenience. I have been working out the fingering for Bach's Prelude to the 1st Cello Suite to guitar, and have tried a other tunes, as well as picking out tunes (Telstar, for example).

Putting covers on my humbuckers and figuring out how to play the prelude to Bach’s first cello suite on my ES-339.

Thank you!

Scales

Greetings, all. I have just acquired and ES-339 built in 2007. Could someone interpret this model number for me? What does it tell me about the guitar: ES3399AVSNH1 EDIT: I've sorted out the VS (Vintage Sunburst) and the NH (Nickel hardware) The 9A and 1 are still perplexing. This guitar and the '50's (fat and round) neck. Kluson tuners with celluloid buttons that kind of look like the tuners on my 1956 A-5 Mandolin. Jack

I am a long time owner of Gibson mandolins (I’ve got 3 mandolins and one mandola), but have just acquired a Custom Shop ES-339. I’m here to learn more guitar lore. Jack Roberts