Gibson ES-339 Review – Worth the Money?
The Gibson ES-339 is a semi-hollowbody instrument that is a cross between a Gibson Les Paul and a Gibson ES-335. While the ES-335 is beloved by guitar players for its rich semihollow tones, its body size is comparable to an archtop guitar and is cumbersome for some. Enter the ES-339, which weds the Les Paul feel with the ES-335 sound.
The ES-339 body and top feature a maple/poplar/maple laminate while the neck is made of mahogany with a rosewood fretboard and 22 frets. The bridge is the tune-o-matic and stop tailpiece variety, and the instrument is also outfitted with Kluson tuners and ’57 Classic Humbuckers in both the bridge and neck as well as chrome hardware. Some ES-339 special features include “Memphis Tone” electronics and a 30/60 neck profile.
What does “Memphis Tone” involve? It’s truly simple, actually. Commonly, when you turn a guitar’s volume knob down, you will lose high-end. The “Memphis Tone” controls allows the guitar to keep the instrument’s tone consistent as you control the volume. Furthermore, the reduction in volume is even and smooth.
The 30/60 neck profile features a 60′s style neck with an extra .030″ front to back, which helps preserve the classic semi-hollowbody tone while also providing great playability.
Upon unpacking the ES-339, the first thing we noticed was how comfortable and playable this guitar was compared to its big brother, the ES-335. We’ve never played a semi-hollowbody that felt this good before!
All of the sounds of a nice Gibson semi-hollowbody are here, though. We played everything from Eric Clapton to Larry Carlton to B. B. King, and it all sounded superb!
While feedback is a problem much of the time, there are those moments when you want to be able to control it (just ask Ted Nugent), and we found the feedback easy to control and very musical. This just added to the instrument’s overall versatility, which is saying something, since this guitar can cover a lot of musical ground.
The “Memphis Tone” control is a notable plus as well and permits some really useful settings from the volume and tone controls. Normally, I just set all controls on “10″ and leave it, but this circuitry will force you to play around with your guitar’s controls (in a good way).
It was refreshing not to feel compelled to swap out the pickups right away as well. The Classic Humbuckers definitely did the trick, as did the 30/60 neck, which made for some effortless chording and fast runs.
We can’t conceive of anything to improve on this guitar. The fit and finish were flawless from the factory, and is a testimony to the quality of the Gibson Custom Shop. We recommend this instrument strongly.
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