es330 and es335 tops

Does anyone know if a Gibson es330 top (& back) is carved solid wood or plywood? If I understand right, the es335 top is plywood, not carved solid.

Recall that the es330 is completely hollow body & does not have the wood block in the interior that the es335 does, and that the 330 has P90s, while the 335 has humbuckers. I believe that 330s are no longer in regular production.

I have a 1961 es330 that my parents bought me new back then and a late '80s es335 that I bought used more recently. I've read in several places that the 335 has a plywood top, but I haven't heard anything about the 330. I thought I heard that the carved solid wood tops are more expensive to make and are/were usually used on Gibson's more expensive jazz guitars. But I'm not sure if these things are true. Anyone know for a fact?

AFAIK all of that ES-3xx body style have pressed plywood tops. There may have been a limited release deluxe model with a carved top, but I'm not aware of it. And of the hollow jazz boxes, only the top of the line models have carved tops.

The pressed plywood design lends itself to efficient mass-production methods. Once the jigs are made they can crank them out pretty fast. Carved tops are very labor intensive, and more so if they are done right.

Jeff

I've heard that a sound post (basically a dowel) between the top and bottom helps. You need a special tool to set the sound post in place. A violin shop will have one. It takes about 5 seconds with the right tool. I know. I played the 'cello when I was in high school.

I'm not up on ES-335's but I'm thinking there is a possibility that one that old could be solid carved wood. If you email Gibson, they might be able to tell you, especially if you have a s/n and approximate date.

AFAIK, all the normal production ES-335 models are *laminated* (I don't like the term 'plywood' because it sounds like house siding, which layers of maple veneer is not.)

As for a post / block under the bridge taming acoustic feedback: My experience is that a block a bit wider than the bridge, and 1/2' - 3/4' thick from top to back will go a *long* ways towards settling the feedback down. Not as much as the big center block in a 335, but a significant and worthwhile addition. (I've had a couple of guitars that were like that from the factory, and you could play them pretty damn loud before they'd start to 'howl' back. Where I've found many completely hollow guitars useless to me for any high volume music style.

Incidentally, that acoustic feedback, when under control, is why I love 335 type guitars. Endless sustain without gobs of gain. Just loud / clean + a bit of power tube saturation and speaker break-up until the guitar resonates with the speakers on most any note played... puts a smile on my mug.

Regards, John King

Best notch filter is a parametric filter Rane PE15, can be found on Ebay for $100.

I haven't tried it, but it seems easy:

inflate a ballon in the cavity. When you are done, pop the ballon. No permanant modification, and a customizable damping effect. Low tech to the max!

Johnny Smith once said: stand with the amp on the neck-side of your

<snip>> Incidentally, that acoustic feedback, when under control,

First time I played mine on stage at volume, thought it was possessed. Seemed like it was howling, breathing, coughing, and spitting. Thought it would start flying around the room. She's my main guitar now.

snip

I remembered it through the haze as a 345, but no:
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm? newsid=1916

So what are we to believe, the picture or the copy?

Ain't nothin' wrong with good laminates - if any of 'em were carved none of us could've bought 'em, much less taken them on club stages or even ski lodge roofs of the '60's where anything could & did happen.

John gave you the most experienced block version trick & dimensions. Balloons help considerably but are less effective in thinlines than for deeper bodies that still have to sound hollow & woody (jazz), which a block cuts 'way down on. Open-back combos & cabs also are more prone to unwanted hollowbody f/b than closed/ported ones. None of the hollows do great for the higher volumes of rock & blues no matter what we stuff or plug into them, though a good block converts one into something more controllable & often great f/b that's more like a semisolid. (But someone will shriek about Ted & his Byrdland, yes?) Experimenting with block size & mass has been productive for some, & in the '60's when 330's were out of favor & cheap used but were 335's costly, a number had bigger blocks permanently installed<gasp>.

Only 40 yrs ago many played hollowbodies of one sort or another & learning how & where to stand in relation to the amp was part of the deal. It's still a big part of the f/b control picture & as guys like John will surely concur, one's best position for either getting or avoiding f/b varies with where one is working on the neck. After awhile, continually moving to avail oneself of this while playing becomes instinctive & automatic, and isn't the 'choreography' some observers may think it is. It is part of the art of performing with a semi or hollow, and if you don't think about it too much, you'll end up doing it.

FWIW my economical semisolid working axe (Alleykat) does the wonderfully controlled f/b thing up/down the neck that a few good 335's did when we were lucky, right out of its case. Yet it's body plank is massive, its laminate top (which I believe is mahoghany fake-finished to flame maple) is thick enough to stand on, and its massive centerblocks make a 335's seem insubstantial, and yet it's acoustically as loud or louder than most 335's. As ever, it's hard to predict what semisolid will sound like based on how it's made, as I'm sure John will agree. I wouldn't trade it for a 335 worth 6 times as much unless I had a deposit on another one & the resolve to sell the 335. :-^) But that's only because I had my 355-ya-ya years of true love. It's minusses? It weighs abt twice what a 335 does, I had to throw the orig neck p/u in a drawer after owning it a week, all its original electrics except its wonderful bridge p/u were junk, and its maple neck needs frequent readjusting.