Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

RJLII

Members
  • Posts

    37
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by RJLII

  1. My 335 was made in Memphis, but I don't believe it has the "Memphis" wiring. All indications from the Gibson product page are that it has the '57 Humbuckers and regular volume/tone setup it's had since day one. Perhaps the guitar I played was a 359 rather than a 356? I could have had a brain cramp. In any case there were two distinct issue I had with the sound. First was the brittle nature of the tone (with all pots set on 10). I played it through a '65 Blackface Deluxe Reverb like I normally use. There was plenty of articulation in the notes but it lacked the "woody" undertones I was looking for. As I suggested in my earlier post, this may be due to the ebony fingerboard. My ear hears the same sort of thing on many Les Paul Customs with maple tops (the all mahogany versions sound better to me). I had a 40th Anniversary Les Paul with P100 soapbars and an ebony fingerboard and it was somewhat sterile sounding to my ear as well. YMMV. The second issue was what I perceived to be a flaw in the wiring. When the volume pots were turned down it turned the volume all but off at about 5 or 6. Tone was the same way, as there seemed to be no additional highs rolled off after about 5 or 6. I'm chalking it up to a chance occurance on the one instrument. I've had the same thing happen on seemingly identical Les Pauls, where one sounds lousy and the next one on the wall sounds phenomenal.
  2. I was poised to purchase a CS356 as depicted in Wondo's response above, but was sorely disappointed in the tone. I had researched the purchase quite a bit and walked in the store with the intention of walking out with the guitar. I did an A/B comparison with a figured top ES-335 and it was "game over". The 356 tone was rather thin and brittle by comparison, perhaps due to the ebony fingerboard? There were also issues with the wiring, where the pots were basically on/off switches for volume and tone. The salesman suggested it was a special "Memphis" wiring and pot taper setup that he had seen on other guitars. Hmmmm? Does this make sense to anyone else? It was really a shame, as the 356 played nice otherwise and was a real stunner to look at. Instead I left with the ES-335 figured top as shown below. No complaints other than I really prefer a rim jack like the 356 has.
×
×
  • Create New...