Gibson Electric Guitars

The founder of Gibson, a certain Mr Orville H Gibson has the distinction of being the inventor of the arch-top guitar. He started making stringed instruments in the 1880's and founded his company, based in Kalamazoo in 1894. His mandolins and guitars had hand-carved tops and backs with the sides cut from solid wood rather than being bent into shape. Notably his instruments eschewed internal bracing of any kind because he believed that it adversely affected the tone produced.

In 1902 Gibson was joined by a few business "suits" and soon became the best-known mandolin manufacturer in the world. Orville Gibson stopped taking an active role in the company in 1903 and passed away in 1918. Following his departure some of the build methods were changed, most notably the solid-sawn sides were abandoned and the pick-guard was lifted to "float" over the sound-board.

As guitars began to overtake the popularity of banjos and mandolins, Gibson rose to the challenge of providing the best product for that marketplace. A lasting contribution of that phase of design is the adjustable metal truss-rod (now ubiquitous amongst modern guitars). In 1935 Gibson introduced the ES-150, the first arch-top electric. The pickup on this model became known as the "Charlie Christian" after the ES-150's most celebrated user.

After the war Gibson pushed ahead with electric guitar development. In 1947 the ES-350 was introduced. This carried the innovation of a cutaway that allowed free access to the upper frets. This was followed in 1949 by the ES-175 which came to be Gibson's first really successful guitar. A new innovation at around this time was the introduction of a separate pickup selector switch.

In 1950, stung into action by the introduction of Leo Fender's Broadcaster, Gibson started work on a solid-bodied design. A now-legendary guitarist called Lester William Polsfuss (perhaps better known to you by his stage name, Les Paul) had been tinkering with solid bodies and pickups for a while and in 1946 had actually made an overture to Gibson which, at the time, was rejected. But faced with the threat of Fender's evident head-start, Gibson contacted Les Paul and offered him an endorsement deal to use their fledgling solid guitar. In 1952 Gibson launched the legendary Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. The construction was largely a mish-mash of existing Gibson design elements, but the solid mahogany body with a carved maple top was the signature innovation that created the Les Paul sound.

In 1954 Gibson released two more Les Paul models, the slab-bodied, single pickup Les Paul Junior and the rather more illustrious Les Paul Custom. The Custom had an all-mahogany body and was finished in black. The fret-wire was of a lower, flatter profile than the Goldtop and as a result the Custom became known as the "Fretless Wonder". Possibly the most important step forward made on the Custom was the use of the Tune-o-matic bridge. A year later the Les Paul stable was completed with the Les Paul Special, essentially a two-pickup Junior. Also in 1955 Gibson made important advances with slim-line hollow-bodied guitars, the ES-350T for example was picked up and used by Chuck Berry.

At this time guitar pickups were prone to interference and hum. At Gibson's factory a gentleman with the delightful name of Seth Lover took inspiration from noise-reducing choke-coils being installed in Gibson amplifiers and developed the "hum-bucking" double coil pickup with out-of-phase wiring on oppositely poled magnets. In 1957 Gibson began installing its PAF (Patent Applied For) humbuckers on all its guitars.

By 1958 Gibson had acquired Epiphone, continuing to produce some Epiphone originals but mostly producing Epiphone versions of Gibson models. This year also saw the release of the radical Explorer and Flying V models and the all-time classic 335.

Amazing as it may sound now the original Les Paul designs saw a drop in sales in the late 1950's. Gibson tried a few different design ideas that finally resulted in 1960 in the SG (solid guitar) series.

In 1963, in a conscious effort to compete directly with Fender-style guitar design Gibson came up with the Firebird series of guitars and bass. The Firebirds were Gibson's first through-neck (rather than set-neck) guitars and featured distinctive mini-humbuckers.

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Gibson Electric Guitars

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