gringopig's guitars
2024 Gibson ES-330
The Gibson ES-330, cousin of the Epiphone Casino is finally back in the Gibson catalogue for 2024. Released in 1959, the fully hollow ES-330 was a cheaper version of the ES-335 and was also made under the Gibson owned Epiphone brand in the 1960's when Epiphone was still a brand that was considered to be a quality USA made guitar. The Casino is best known as The Beatles owned and used 2 but the ES-330 was the basis of the model.
So this one was advertised by Gibson as being an 'exclusive' model, being in factory ebony and sold only via the Gibson.com website. Other finishes were released too including 60's cherry, blonde and sunburst; the blonde looking also very nice indeed but I was attracted to the hype of the 'exclusive' model and being easily manipulated, I bought it. It was slightly cheaper too mind you.
Click on gallery for larger version
The model features a fully hollow body, made like an ES-335 but with no centre block of any kind at all but sharing the ply construction and body shape of the 50's era 335. Notably, the ES-335 had a stop tailpiece and ABR-1 bridge up to around 1965 but the 330 always had a trapeze tailpiece throughout its production run - which lasted until the very early 1970's.
Rock and the associated volume put paid to the 330's popularity and the howling acoustic feedback of loud rock music wasn't what the players were keen on in the days of the Marshall stack and 100W amplifiers and the Jazz crowd still had the ES-175 and the other higher end Jazz guitars to play.
You might note also that the neck has small blocks. This was added in 1962 so this model mixes the body shape of the mickey-mouse era body with the smaller block inlays of the 60's. They changed the shape of the cutaway 'ears' to be slightly narrower in the early 60's.
Also, look at the body neck join. It joins at the 17th fret. This was changed in 1968 to be the same as the ES335. Look at the images below, both courtesy of ATB guitars to see what changed:
1962 ES-330
1968 ES-330
The distinctive inset neck went away and a few years later, the model was discontinued. Now, there have been re-releases of the ES-330 in Gibson and Casino forms through the years and of course the Epiphone Casino has been a stalwart of the Korean and now Chinese output, totally devaluing the brand I think with a boatload of inferior rattly junkers clogging up the used market and guitar shops but once, the Casino was more popular than the Gibson variant, largely due to Paul McCartney and most obviously John Lennon who both owned a model similar to this:
This was the model that John Lennon famously stripped of its finish to natural and played a lot in The Beatles - on the rooftop in 1969 for example and has become the most popular version. The Casino did feature nickel pickup covers and had an extended headstock later on and this look is the one Gibson chose for their now hugely deprecated brand Epiphone to sell. But remember, the Casino was originally made in the same factory as Gibson guitars and was the equal in every way.
The ES-330 was the instrument played by Grant Green the hugely influential Jazz guitarist who actually made Jazz listenable!
So to have the ES-330 back on sale is as unexpected as it is welcome and I couldn't pass it up. Especially in the cool looking black or ebony as Gibson call it.
Comes in a very cool hard case and I was expecting some QC issues as we are always being told that Gibson has 'issues' according to internet wisdom.
Well, I have to report no issues at all. The finish is excellent and it played great out the box. I gave a tiny bit more relief and raised the action a tad but that's just my taste. The pickups sound fantastic and it really impressed me.
I didn't know what to expect with a Gibson USA guitar due to being an insufferable custom shop snob but I was very impressed. The black finish gathers dust massively though lol
I am enjoying this a lot. It does feed back at volume so beware if you take this out in your doom metal band gigs!
I have a demo video below for you. Check it out!
