psyx
Hey guys, when I saw this I was so blown away that I had to share it...
There was an amp like this floating around the forum some years back... But really, wow... Gibson tried in those years to do something different. They discontinued the LP and brought us some iconic gear, but this is truly exceptional.
singemonkey
Yep. A lot of people don't really get that it was Ted McCarty, the Gibson president, who oversaw the most fruitful time in Gibson's history. His designers made the Les Paul (Les merely stipulated the colour) and produced the Flying V, the Explorer, the 335, 345, and 355, the Firebird, and the SG under his direction. That's pretty much all of Gibson's most famous guitars.
Not everything they came up with was brilliant though. On this 355, the sideways vibrato tailpiece is considered a bit of a nightmare, and the varitone circuit is (rightly IMO) said to produce a huge range of tones, none of them good. But apart from that, these are probably still the most sophisticated electric guitars ever made–with moulded wood laminate, multi-piece construction. I can't think of any other type of electric that's as difficult to manufacture. And their basic sound is beautiful. Freddie King is probably the most famous ES355 player.
They got left behind with amps though. Everybody at this point was looking for more and more power.
