My Gibson ES-339

[MojoJim]

After much shopping on Ebay I bought this beautiful Gibson ES-339 from a professional jazz guitarist in New York. I'm still learning about it but so far it's fantastic. I don't have a name for her yet. I've been ignoring the muffled cries I hear because I know it's just my Strat confined to its case for a while.

Post ES-339.JPG (27.27 KiB) Viewed 24457 times

My treasures on display. Fender American Standard Strat, Gibson ES-339 and Martin 000-28ec.

Post Guitars.JPG (44.11 KiB) Viewed 24457 times

Here's my niche in the spare bedroom/office where the practicing and recording takes place. My audio interface (Firestudio Mobile) is just to the right of the speaker at the left of the desk.

Post Room.JPG (45.2 KiB) Viewed 24457 times

I've decided to upgrade my screen name from the dorkey and unpronounceable JimRR to a more blues-like MojoJim. For continuity my name for a while will be MojoJimwasJimRR. (No space or dashes allowed in screen names.)

[Blindboy]

Woah! Nice axe!
That is the fully hollow one with no center block, correct?
I like archtops.

Like the new Bluesname too.

[Golfxzq]

OMG... Co-Co is so JEALOUS

That is a gorgeous guitar and quite the set up you have there. Is this the control center for those eight nuclear plants?

Congrats ...

p.s. The new screen name sounds really cool... not "geaserly" at all!

[MojoJim]

BB - No, this one is a semi-hollow design and has a center block. It's modeled on the classic ES-335 but has the small body of a Les Paul. Since I'm a little guy I needed the smaller body. People claim that Gibson surrendered almost none of the semi-hollow body sound of the ES-335 when they introduced this smaller ES-339. I wanted some of the beautiful hollow, ringing melodic tones you guys get from your hollow body guitars.

Golfxzq - Yes, the new PC is tucked in the left side of the chair well. 8 processors, 9 GB of RAM, 2 x 1 TB of disk - and all for a very reasonable price (with employee discount) as an off-the-shelf model. But I still have to disable the wireless adapter and a few other things when I record or I get dropouts. The von Neumann architecture of the PC is just not really right for real time activities.

[VikingBlues]

BB - No, this one is a semi-hollow design and has a center block. It's modeled on the classic ES-335 but has the small body of a Les Paul. Since I'm a little guy I needed the smaller body. People claim that Gibson surrendered almost none of the semi-hollow body sound of the ES-335 when they introduced this smaller ES-339. I wanted some of the beautiful hollow, ringing melodic tones you guys get from your hollow body guitars.

Golfxzq - Yes, the new PC is tucked in the left side of the chair well. 8 processors, 9 GB of RAM, 2 x 1 TB of disk - and all for a very reasonable price (with employee discount) as an off-the-shelf model. But I still have to disable the wireless adapter and a few other things when I record or I get dropouts. The von Neumann architecture of the PC is just not really right for real time activities.

One beautiful guitar MojoJim - congratulations.

I've seen nothing but good things abut them - the "real deal". Never tried one, but I don't want to get disatisfied with the Hagstrom - I can't afford it! There's a lot to be said for the smaller body semi when they've managed to not sacrifice tone like with the 339 - some of the bigger ones it fels like you're a kid trying to use an adult size.

Wrestling with the PC to avoid recording dropouts? - sounds horribly familiar. I think a lot of musicians end up with a Mac because of that.

[12bar]

What a nice axe!
Your strat really will have a bad time now - I know this form mine when I got my semi-hollow (but lately I re-discovered her again).
Have fun with your 339!

[weelie]

Looks great! Would love to own one. They are light, they are inexpensive (for a hollow Gibson!), they are just right. Haven't even tested one, afraid I'd have buy one.

My Epiphone Alleykat is closest I will get right now. The high fret access is a tad limited though. And I am not a big fan of black, but the Alleykat just wasn't available in sunburst anymore.

[BadBluesPlayer]

Nice Axe, Jim!!

[wildwood]

Very nice MojoJim...

A friend of mine has one similar to yours and keeps asking me to buy it from him. He must need the cash 'cause I can't see parting with something as sweet a that. He's a jazz musician...

[Strummer07]

Hey Mojo Man !!

what a great photo and what a fab set of axes

Gibbo / Fender / Martin ..................Wow!!

The only problem is that looking at that Photo and straight off I have broken the 10th commandment !!!

Thou shalt not covet !!.......but you cant help look at a photo like that .....................and NOt bloody well Covet !!

I'm cool with the Fender , I am OK with the Gison ES 339 ( 'cos I have one !! ) But I failed on the Martin !! ... I could have resisted an 'ordinary' Martin ...but add the 000-28 ............I was on the edge of Resistance ..................chuck in the 'ec' .....and I was cooked !!! ...Toast !! .. Serious envy !!

I might have to start the drip "I need one of those" Campaign with Mrs Strummer quite soon !!!

Good luck on you and enjoy those geetars ....I'm sure you will .and my suggestion is don't put the Fender away in a case ...otherwise it will sit for a good while .... keep it out , get a wall hanger so you can appreciate it while its just 'hanging' ( Its way better than a nice chinzy print as wall art ) and you'll get a 'single coil' call every now and then !!

[elborgo]

Nice collection ;)

I'm especially jealous of that setup! One day i hope that I'll have the same

[MojoJim]

Strummer, BBP - We can have our own "339 Owners" subforum now. I'm so pleased to have one.

I first held a Martin 000-28ec years ago before I retired and decided I wanted to learn to play. It was one of those "love at first strum" experiences. I thought about it from time to time until after I retired. First I bought the Strat because I couldn't justify the cost of the Martin to myself. Eventually I got over that and went on the hunt. I found a guy on Ebay in South Carolina who was caught in the real estate collapse and had to sell his toys. I talked to him a few times and became convinced that he had really taken care of the Martin. I bought it at a good price and it's in perfect condition.

Yes, I have to be a bit careful around Mrs. Mojo about the cost of the guitars and other gear. I remind her that I could have taken up a really expensive retirement activity - like golf (sorry, Golfxzq). What we don't talk about is whether the guitar money is the same money that was reserved for our grand retirement trip to Europe. Of course it's not - but I don't want the thinking to drift in that direction.

I'm set up now. I've got more software and electronics that I will be able to learn in years of study. And I've got more guitars than I'll be worthy of even with years of practice. I'm a happy man.

Actually, if I just had a Blues Jr. amp instead of this Peavey VYPYR 30...........

[Strummer07]

Lovely response Mojo Jim .....you and I are in similar circumstances methinks !!

I might have to start the Campaign soon !! .Mind you I do have a rather lovely Takemine Acoustic .so I am going to have to work around that 1`st !!

I hankered after the Blues Junior for ages .. tried it out in all sorts of stores .where you don't really make too much noise .and the store is big too. But when I got one and tried it at home ...Man its Loud !! .Stunning sound , great looking .....but unless everyone , including the neighbours !!was out ( and I live in a detached house and the guitars are in an annex ... still too loud, especially at night when I tend to play !!) .................I couln't really use it much

I certainly could not turn it up to get a nice crunch tone .................

In the end , after finding I used a small 5 watt Vox amp, the DA5, more than the FBJ, I realised it was just daft to keep it gathering dust ...so its gone ......... I've now got the Blackstar HT-5 .Its not a BJ .but at least I can use it !!

If your rather nice guitar room can handle big sounds, or you can play in a sound proofed garage or basement and your wife is OK with earplugs......................go for it.

Otherwise a FBJ could stand for a potential source of marital disharmony !!

I'll post a piccy or two when I get a mo .....You're right we should start a Gibbo Corner !!

Now should it be ALL Gibbo's .or just semi's ???

[12bar]

I'll post a piccy or two when I get a mo .....You're right we should start a Gibbo Corner !!

Now should it be ALL Gibbo's .or just semi's ???

Can I join if it's only an Epi? It has the Gibson label on the headstock...

[MojoJim]

Strummer - good advice about the BJ being loud. I live in a quite small older house in the back corner of a subdivision. My neighbor's house is very close and they have a small baby. Plus, with my kids out on their own it's very quiet in the house. I don't think a loud amp will work at all. One of those 5 watt amps sounds right.

It's generally very peaceful here. You can see in my photo that the "music room" looks out into the woods. While I sit here practicing I watch the parade of wildlife. I get the usual squirrels and racoons - but also armadillos, skunks, possums, porcupines, rabbits, deer, feral cats, nutrias (down in the creek), foxes and goats (I don't know where the goats came from). One day a coyote pranced out of the woods, went between the houses and trotted down the paved street. I think he was just taking inventory of the neighborhood dogs for later hunting. It's quite a show. I'm sure Blind Boy and others that live in rural areas have their own wildlife stories.

Some evenings all the creatures come out of the woods and sit in the grass outside my window listening to me practice. They think it's a summer concert series. I make them bring their own popcorn. I enjoy having an audience but these guys are tough. Nothing seems to please the possums. Some of the 'coons have started bringing their own guitars but the're not very good players. I guess this is a little off-topic. Sorry.

12bar - I think our club should be a "big tent" type of club (as they say in American politics). Room for everyone.

[Blindboy]

Some evenings all the creatures come out of the woods and sit in the grass outside my window listening to me practice. They think it's a summer concert series. I make them bring their own popcorn. I enjoy having an audience but these guys are tough. Nothing seems to please the possums. Some of the 'coons have started bringing their own guitars but the're not very good players. I guess this is a little off-topic. Sorry.

Whoot!
Nothing ever pleases possums.
By the way, I want to join the Gibson club. I dusted off my old SG last night at the open mic for some nasty bottleneck.

[MojoJim]

Well, I've had my Gibson ES-339 for a couple of months now. I've got enough guitars now and I've been playing them long enough to begin to notice differences.

I've got a couple of questions that folks on the forum may be able to help me with. Strummer07 and BadBluesPlayer have exactly this guitar so I look forward to hearing their experiences - but the questions may be more about Gibson guitars in general.

I love the tone of the Gibson semi-hollow body but I find my Fender Strat easier to play. I've been trying to figure out why.

The Gibson has binding on the fretboard and on the end of the fretwires. I understand that when they glue the binding on it is as high as the top of fretwires and then they use a flat file between the fretwires to lower the binding to the level of the fret board. The fretwires themselves are domed but when they use the flat file they leave the fret end binding rectangular in shape (not domed). Gibson could have filed (or sanded) the binding to match the dome of the wire - but they didn't. Or they could have sloped the end of the fret+binding down to meet the fret board smoothly (like my Strat and my Martin) - but they didn't do that very well. The result is that when you slide a finger along the E string the rectangular corners of the hard binding catches your finger. I can work around this by arching my finger a bit more but this seems like something Gibson should have done better.

Is this typical of Gibson guitars?

Also, there are file scratch marks on the binding between fret wires, the binding is sometimes at different levels from fret to fret and the binding sometimes has been filed to a slope between fretwires. This guitar comes from the Gibson Custom Shop in Memphis. I knew they had quality problems when the started up in 2007 but this is a 2009 model. I would have thought quality problems would have been fixed. Is quality generally a problem with Gibson?

Is rounding off the fret-end binding material something I should try myself - or should I get a guitar tech to do it?

I also find it hard to keep the ES-339 in tune. When tuning I sometimes get the tell-tale "ping" of the string slipping in the nut.

I have read that the ES-339 uses a plastic nut and that owners replace that with a bone nut. I have also read that filing a new nut to accommodate the strings is best left to a guitar tech. Is that right?

The strings seem a little harder on my fingers - but I have 10's on the Gibson vs. 09's on the Strat. It's probably just a matter of my fingers getting used the them.

The lower bout on the Gibson is heavy. If I raise the neck up for easier playing the guitar wants to slide backward off my leg. It's not a big problem but I can see if I get distracted the guitar could wind up on the hard floor.

Both my Strat and my Martin are better balanced for sit-down playing. Does it make sense to add some kind of weight to the headstock to improve balance? Or is that a bad idea?

I love the sound of the Gibson but I pick up the Strat for the first time in a couple of months today and found it felt silky smooth in my hands. And that got me to thinking of how to improve the feel of the Gibson. Any suggestions will be welcome.

[Strummer07]

Hi Mojo Jim , good to hear from you .been a bit quiet on the board all round lately.

Read your note a couple of times .and it even got me inspecting my own Gibbo ES339 !! .under a very bright light !!

and I still just love it !!

The ES 339 and the Fender are very different , in almost every way , feel, sound, balance, ..I think that is what I like about the contrast.

However , I find the ES339 much easier to play , slightly shorter scale length I think does it for me
I prefer the square edged ( with the binding ) fret board to the more rounded edges of the Fender .....High and low 'E' occasionally slip off on the Fender

However the Fender is better shaped to sit on your knee when you play it sitting down , and its better weighted to sit level. I agree the Gibson does tend to sit heavy on the lower bout side. Also the shape of the guitar does not balance quite so well on my knee .the point of balance on the knee is not the point of balance of the guitar ........So, I always play it with a slim ( 50'2 style) guitar strap on it , I started with a wide one but that tended to get caught up somehow on the top "horn" .the slim one does not.

Standing up .its fine , but tbh , I don't play standing up a whole lot.

Personally, I've sort of got used to it now , It is a different guitar and will feel and balance differently ...............I wouldn't dream of adding any weight to the headstock. The Guitar strap keeps it in position as much as I need it to.

I've had to look at my guitar real hard to see what you meant about the way the binding is shaped around each fret end .mine does it too, but I have absolutely no problem with it. Never even noticed it until you mentioned it. Mine causes no problem whatever and is not rough on either edge..........and I've run both fingers up and down bothe sides. Not rough in anywway and it does not catch my fingers.
No problem with the sanding of the binding in between the frets

In fact I've had only two gibsons .. an Acoustic J45 which was lovely and this one .and the build quality has been spot on in both cases.

No Problems with tuning , the 'G' string is the most difficult to keep tuned , but its not a big problem, I find I have to continually tighten the small intonation screws on the G and the B strings as they tend to work loose and buzz a bit .but actually a small dob of clear nail varnish and this was soon sorted.
If you are having continual tuning issues ...................It sounds like your nut might be a bit tight ( as the Actress said to the bishop ..Boom Boom !!) and perhaps could do with some easing ( You would need a pukker set of small guitar files for that) BUT !!! ..frankly all this stuff I would leave to a guitar tech. Many folk will do it .....any good luck to them....however !! for me a Pro set up is what any great guitar deserves ....for a about $150 bucks .its about £100 quid over here you can get a full fret dress ( fretstone), get him to round off your fret ends, if they are causing you a problem and get the nut changed for a bone one and cut properly ( I would not attempt that ever !!)

Strings 9's to 10's .........I found it a whopping difference when I changed to (10's on the Strat ) but now I've got used to 10's I would not go back ....9's feel very puny to me now. Love the 10's on the Gibson, which is what it came with as new.

I think I've addressed most of your points/concerns ..But if you want more of photo's etc , just shout .

I just hope you can learn to love your ES339 as much as much as I love mine !!

I just have to add a small piccy !! just 'cos !!

[VikingBlues]

I love the tone of the Gibson semi-hollow body but I find my Fender Strat easier to play. I've been trying to figure out why.

The Gibson and Fender types are very different and the world seems divided into those who get on better with one or other of them. I've had probably about the same number of each of Gibson and Fender style guitars, and I've with one exception always found the Gibson style easier to play. Unfortunately for the purposes of this thread I don't know why.

The Gibson has binding on the fretboard and on the end of the fretwires. I understand that when they glue the binding on it is as high as the top of fretwires and then they use a flat file between the fretwires to lower the binding to the level of the fret board. The fretwires themselves are domed but when they use the flat file they leave the fret end binding rectangular in shape (not domed). Gibson could have filed (or sanded) the binding to match the dome of the wire - but they didn't. Or they could have sloped the end of the fret+binding down to meet the fret board smoothly (like my Strat and my Martin) - but they didn't do that very well. The result is that when you slide a finger along the E string the rectangular corners of the hard binding catches your finger. I can work around this by arching my finger a bit more but this seems like something Gibson should have done better.

Is this typical of Gibson guitars?

I've only had one real Gibson guitar and I couldnt fault the finish (an SG Standard). I do see comments quite frequently in reviews over the past few years which suggest the finish might not always be perfect. In a review of a Gibson in a magazine bought this week there's a comment about faults in the finish which the reviewer tries to forgive by saying "you can make an argument that this is what we call character". It could just be though that the style of finish is just different to the Fender style you're used to and so doesn't feel comfortable yet.

I also find it hard to keep the ES-339 in tune. When tuning I sometimes get the tell-tale "ping" of the string slipping in the nut.

You could find that graphite shavings from a pencil into the nut slots might be enough to stop the ping phenomena - I've had that and the graphite has worked wonders. The bone nut is better than plastic but only has a tonal impact when open strings are being played - I think - maybe?

I have read that the ES-339 uses a plastic nut and that owners replace that with a bone nut. I have also read that filing a new nut to accommodate the strings is best left to a guitar tech. Is that right?

I've done nut filing and fitting back when I was into building my own guitars - you do need to buy a decent set of files to have a chance of it working properly and I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to try it on a Gibson. Also it only makes more economic sense to buy files if you're going to use the files on quite a few guitars and not just one.

The strings seem a little harder on my fingers - but I have 10's on the Gibson vs. 09's on the Strat. It's probably just a matter of my fingers getting used the them.

I would recommend you should persevere with the 10's - the shorter scale Gibson means that 9's will be quite a bit more "floppy" than 9's on a longer scale Fender and will lose a lot of the fullness of tone of the 10s.

I love the sound of the Gibson but I pick up the Strat for the first time in a couple of months today and found it felt silky smooth in my hands. And that got me to thinking of how to improve the feel of the Gibson. Any suggestions will be welcome.

Wish I could suggest something on this! I've never managed to find a Strat style guitar that I've been happy with playing so it's difficult to come up with anything.

I better leave the proper advice to come from those that have the same type(s) of guitars as you. It's such a difficult task to work out why a particular guitar "feels" so much better than others. Give two different people the same two guitars to compare and they'll like as not have divided opinion on which feels best. Sorry about this Mojo Jim - having read this back I don't think I've been a lot of help.

[BadBluesPlayer]

Jim - I hear ya about the rough filing work around the fret ends. It could be better on mine - a 2007 model. It smoothed out over time. The neck on mine feels a little wider than a strat neck, so that could explain the difference in playing. I like the short scale of the Gibson, but tht's just my preference.

I use some graphite in the nut slots when I restring. I just stick a pencil tip in the slots and twist it around a little to rub off some graphite into the slots. The slots are cut a little tight, but mine holds tune really well. I just make sure I'm bending the strings off and on while I'm tuning to set the strings tight around the tuners.

The guitar is a little tail heavy when I sit, but it also feels good with the lower bout between my legs, like the way a classical guitarist holds it. It is pretty well balanced when I stand, just a hair neck heavy sometimes.

I think the guitar has a Corian nut. I don't really play open strings much, so I'm not inclined to mess with mine. Besides, the Plek machine cuts the nut when it dresses the frets, so it really shoul be properly cut.

Gibsons and Fenders are just different as far as how they play. It takes alot of work to get used to two different necks.