Gibson ES-Artist

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

Came across one of these the other day, and this is the first one I've ever seen in person. Another one of Gibson's "next big thing" guitars that didn't quite go as planned from what I understand, that's now a somewhat sought after rare guitar. I know it was a collaboration between Gibson and Robert Moog on the active electronics, has on-off toggle switches for treble boost, compressor, and expander, low output pickups, and some other odd little features you don't see on too many Gibsons like a brass nut and off to the side pearl fretboard dots. This one is all original (minus the case) from '79-80, definitely an odd guitar, but gets some really good tones.

 

If anybody knows anything more about these please share, if not then enjoy some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jdgm]

A black one is unusual. Also on the ones I've seen previously the back plate is bigger and L-shaped. I read somewhere that the Moog circuit boards were quite large and in some cases they cut them in two, so maybe there is another board hidden under the one visible in your pics. I am in UK and nearly bought one of these, but the price was very high so I thought better of it - if the circuit goes wrong it would be hard to get fixed.

These boards were also installed in Les Paul Artist and RD Artist guitars. They didn't sell well, too expensive and it seems no-one wanted an onboard expander and a compressor you can't adjust on the fly.

Nonetheless, the ES and LP Artist models are still lovely guitars; not so the RD which hangs too far to the left on a strap.

[Grog]

The RD Artists were first, they were never really popular. I have an artical from an old Vintage Guitar Magazine, "RD Artist, Ahead of their time, or Timeless Turkeys"! They are neat in their own way, the bass is extremely heavy! The expansion & compression circuitry was added to Les Pauls, the ES Artist & even used in the Victory Series.