GRYNAN

Hi everyone, over the years, I have owned most versions of the MIII, including the MIII deluxe, which I still have, the MIII standard, the MIV-S Deluxe and the MIV All-American. I will pass on all I know about them here, starting with the MIII Deluxe: I am in France, and when originally looking for an electric guitar, I happened upon a review of the MIII Deluxe in a magazine. I thought the description & photos were great, and so went of to my local decent music store to see if they could get one. There was just one left in stock at the distributors, ( the last one ever available from them ) so I ordered it (6000 FF / £600) and it duly arrived. What a beauty, I was delighted. Here's the specs: The body is a 5-piece sandwich of ( from back to front ) maple /walnut /poplar /redwood /walnut. ( I have described one part here as redwood, as it is RED and although on my first deluxe I believed it to be synthetic, and believe I also may have read that somewhere, on my latest one, it seems to have a grain & looks like wood. Can anyone throw any light on this..? ) The neck is one piece quarter-sawn maple, with 24 frets, which is glued to the body at around the 22nd fret(!!) The fingerboard is laquered maple and the frets are medium wide and taken down quite low with flat tops. the body has a synthetic tortoiseshell pickguard, which appears to have been glued to the body with Tippex!! Actually it's not true, a white paint has been applied to the back to highlight the semi-transparent colours. This has also been done to the truss rod cover, and this paint sticks to the guitar, and if you want to take the guard or truss cover off, they will try & take the varnish with them. Great care is needed. I use a blade to carefully free them, but you shouldn't really need to remove the pickguard, anyway, as the pick-ups are phenomenal and don't need changing. They consist of a 500T bridge in zebra / NSX single middle in cream colour / 498T neck in zebra ( I think. Or maybe it's 496? ) The tremolo block is a Floyd Rose licensed Schaller, stamped Gibson. Twice, I've had to order a new B string saddle, on separate guitars, as they were out of spec & too low. Otherwise excellent quality. 5-way pick up switch, with 2-way switch for changing between split or humbucker sounds. Single coil sounds are as per a Strat, and in Humbucker mode we have Bridge/both/Neck/Gibson sound (Neck filtered by inductor)/off. Also has volume and tone controls. Gibson marked Schaller machine heads, and Floyd type nut. The set-up on this guitar is critical. Set up correctly it sounds absolutely lovely, and plays beautifully. By correctly I mean that the neck must have some relief, the intonation must be perfect, and the action not too high & not too low. The neck on this guitar is extremely long outside the body - the reason for the quarter-sawn neck, and 10-46 strings, tend to give a lot of pull on it, and frankly that worries me about the long-term stress effects, but that's what I use. With the truss rod too tight, the sound is thin, and with it too loose it's soft & loses definition, and the string height rises noticeably. Set up well, the sound is thick, rich, and mellow, with a sort of Mediaeval character. Fantastic on recordings, perfectly in tune everywhere, and even chords are playable right up to near the 24th fret. Distortion sounds are deadly, solos sing, picking is clear, strong, and well defined, and the single coil sounds are cutting, chimey and full of character. In my opinion, this is one of the best electric guitars ever made, although I repeat that the set-up is critical, and explains to me why this guitar was never a great sucess for Gibson, as an example not well set-up will be disagreeable to play, because of the slightly weird low, flat frets, and will not sing, scream, chime, cry, or inspire, like this guitar is capable of doing. The MIII standard is pretty much the same, except that the body is made from solid poplar. Nice guitar, but does not posess the magic of the Deluxe IMHO. OK, I'll move onto the MIV-S Deluxe which I was lucky enough to own for a while, and then inexpicably sold on, much to my regret. These were pretty much my first electric guitars, and I falsely believed that similar quality could easily be found elsewhere.. How horribly wrong I was!! The MIV-S is similar in construction to the MIII, with a quarter-sawn, 24 fret neck. Explorer style headstock like the MIII. The fingerboard is ebony though, and the wonderful markers are white MOP whereas on the MIII they were dark pearloid. The body, which I have seen erroneously described as a variety of woods is African BLACK LIMBA. This wood is none other than dark KORINA, and boy do I know why those old rare Korina Exploreres and Flying V's are sought after! They were made from light coloured Korina, I believe, but I imagine the sound must be similar. The body of the MIV-S Deluxe is made from 3 joined pieces. No pick-guard. The pick-up ( all black ) & switching configuration is the same as for the MIII. The tremolo system is completely different though, and is fabulous, and made by STEINBERGER. The tremolo arm screws through the block, into a sort of Butterfly nut. When the arm is in the rest position, the butterly butts up against a metal block, which is fixed to the body of the guitar. The vibrations from the strings thus pass directly into the body, increasing the tone, resonance, and sustain of the guitar. In this position, the tremolo is blocked ( great for string changes ). When you use the tremolo, the arm swings forward, releasing the butterfly, and freeing the tremolo.. Fantastic! And the difference in sound is easy to hear between the two positions. The nut is also weird & wonderful, consisting of a 6 small swinging arms rotating on a centre spindle. The strings sit in them as though in a sort of pulley, and as they move in unison with the tremolo block, the string length does not change, and the guitar ALWAYS stays in tune..! Genius!! The machine heads are just as radical, and consist of threaded knobs which pull the string tight from the back of the guitar. No gears, and no play. Fabulous! The whole system being infinitely better than a Floyd IMHO. I set mine up with 10-46 strings, and it played and sang beautifully and stayed like it. Fantastic on solos, and just a lovely sound on everything else. Very different to the MIII Deluxe, but wonderful in it's own right. I said earlier that the MIII Deluxe was one of the best guitar ever made, and this is just as good, if not better. Sadly, utterly impossible to find, and I will never forgive myself for disposing of it. NOTHING can replace it's qualities. The MIV All-American, was a different beast. It had 3 humbucker pick-ups, the Steinberger tremolo system and machine-heads, a Poplar body. 24 fret neck, which I'm not too sure about, as it was painted black, so I don't know if it was quarter-sawn. The fingerboard was ebony I believe. The headstock was a different shape to the previous versions to avoid the mild problem of the MIV-S, where the strings pulled too much to the side of the nut rollers on certain strings. I believe this version was made relatively cheaply, and for me it did not match up to the others, which is a great shame, because it had the potential to be the best of them all. A Deluxe version in H-S-H with Korina body and quality neck would have been killer. There we have it. I believe that my descriptions are accurate. I'd be pleased to be corrected or enlightened on anything, and hope I have done the same for others... GIBSON MIII , M-III , M III , M3 , M-3 , M 3 , MIV Deluxe