david.beason
Active member
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2014
- Messages
- 259
After selling my 335 recently, I started thinking that I've always preferred the overall vibe of the 355 (and 345 for that matter) over the 335 and remembered seeing a really rare and cool one on Rumble Seat Music's Instagram feed a few months ago. After a pretty good bit of back and forth with Tobin and Jeff, my wife and I took the day off and drove up to Nashville early this week so that I could check it out in person before taking the plunge. It was only my second time at Rumble Seat and like before, the whole staff there was really great. The guitar tech even took it in the back and adjusted some things for me after I asked about them and it made a big difference in how it played.
Almost forgot to mention one of the coolest parts and honestly what drew me to this particular one. It's an uber-rare ebony block version. This is quite common on '62 Les Paul (SG) Standards and Customs, but almost unheard of on an ES. I was talking to Eliot about it and we were postulating that likely someone really liked the (then) new ebony blocks that were being put on the LP/SG and custom ordered one on this guitar. In digging around online, I can only find one more example (on es335.com talking about how rare it is).
It was advertised as having one PAF and one Patent Number pickup, so I was asking which was which and if there was any funny business regarding the stickers, etc. When the tech had it in the back, he took them out for me and noticed that they were both PAFs. I didn't complain. They sound fantastic individually, but are out of phase in the middle position. That's not my favorite sound, but I guess can give me the Peter Green thing if I want it and gives me something a little different tonally than the middle position of my '61 LP/SG Standard.
The varitone is a varitone. You know how that goes. I am able to get some great sounds on 1 (obviously), 2, and even 4 (with the neck pickup). One cool feature of this is that the varitone knob on these was also painted in gold to match the plate; however, a good amount of that has worn off from usage, so you just see the bare knob largely. For now, I'm just using my normal cable with a single amp and plugging it into the output jack just right (i.e., not all the way in) so that I can get both pickups engaged.
The neck feels great and is really worn in nicely. The binding has been rolled over the years so that you can see the fret markers from the front, which actually makes it feel really comfortable in your hand. The neck profile is on the thin side, but not as thin as my '61 LP/SG.
Spent some time last night getting it fully dialed in and I absolutely love it now. I had to flip some of the saddles (the treble strings) and still had to completely screw the G all the way back to get it intonated (with 10-48 and Eb), but it just did get there.
Yada, yada, yada... I took a bunch of pics.
Almost forgot to mention one of the coolest parts and honestly what drew me to this particular one. It's an uber-rare ebony block version. This is quite common on '62 Les Paul (SG) Standards and Customs, but almost unheard of on an ES. I was talking to Eliot about it and we were postulating that likely someone really liked the (then) new ebony blocks that were being put on the LP/SG and custom ordered one on this guitar. In digging around online, I can only find one more example (on es335.com talking about how rare it is).
It was advertised as having one PAF and one Patent Number pickup, so I was asking which was which and if there was any funny business regarding the stickers, etc. When the tech had it in the back, he took them out for me and noticed that they were both PAFs. I didn't complain. They sound fantastic individually, but are out of phase in the middle position. That's not my favorite sound, but I guess can give me the Peter Green thing if I want it and gives me something a little different tonally than the middle position of my '61 LP/SG Standard.
The varitone is a varitone. You know how that goes. I am able to get some great sounds on 1 (obviously), 2, and even 4 (with the neck pickup). One cool feature of this is that the varitone knob on these was also painted in gold to match the plate; however, a good amount of that has worn off from usage, so you just see the bare knob largely. For now, I'm just using my normal cable with a single amp and plugging it into the output jack just right (i.e., not all the way in) so that I can get both pickups engaged.
The neck feels great and is really worn in nicely. The binding has been rolled over the years so that you can see the fret markers from the front, which actually makes it feel really comfortable in your hand. The neck profile is on the thin side, but not as thin as my '61 LP/SG.
Spent some time last night getting it fully dialed in and I absolutely love it now. I had to flip some of the saddles (the treble strings) and still had to completely screw the G all the way back to get it intonated (with 10-48 and Eb), but it just did get there.
Yada, yada, yada... I took a bunch of pics.
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