History of the ES Series

Although I already own a Yamaha Electro-Acoustic Nylon NCX1200R and a chambered Epiphone Les Paul Ultra-III Guitar, I always wanted a semi-hollowbody ES-series guitar. The first Gibson Electric-Spanish guitar, the ES-150, debuted in 1936. Charlie Christian, of Bennie Goodman’s Sextet, popularized this hollowbody guitar. Due to its bar pickup, it had a warm tone that made it more suitable for jazz and blues than Hawaiian electric lap-steel guitars.12

The classic Gibson ES-335, introduced in 1958, was the first commercially successful thinline archtop semi-acoustic electric guitar. A solid maple block runs through the center of the guitar. On each side of the block are hollow chambers (“wings”) with an “f” cutout, like on violins. Amplified hollowbody guitars suffered from terrible feedback. The ES-335’s semi-hollowbody design significantly reduced this feedback while having a warmer tone than solid-body guitars like the Les Paul.3 Epiphone produced a ES-335 clone that it marketed as the Sheraton, which John Lee Hooker made famous.4

Gibson introduced the ES-339 guitar in 2007. It is a smaller-size version of the ES-335, closer in size to a Les Paul. The Gibson version includes a 30/60 neck, Memphis Tone Circuit electronics, and 57′ classic humbuckers with Alnico II magnets.5

Photo credit: Michael Connelly

Photo credit: Michael Connelly

Photo credit: Michael Connelly

Photo credit: Michael Connelly

ES-339 P-90 PRO Tech Specs

The Epiphone ES-339 P-90 PRO is a limited edition, reduced size archtop. The body is constructed from maple with a solid center block. The neck is from mahagony. The fingerboard is rosewood with mother-of-pearl dot inlays. I bought a cherry color guitar, which not coincidentally is my wife’s favorite color.

The ES-339 has new Epiphone P-90 PRO soapbar pickups, based on the old Gibson P-90 pickups that replaced the Charlie Christian bar pickup in the ES series. Seth Lover’s original P-90 pickups were acclaimed for their high end response, though subject to hum. (That hum is why Gibson’ PAF humbuckers quickly became the preferred pickup). The Epiphone P-90 PRO is a recreation of the single coil pickup. The Epiphone’s P-90 PRO single coil pickup has 18% nickel silver covers, new bobbins, Elektrisola magnet wire, sand cast Alnico V magnets, pole shoes, and tin plated brass base plates.6

As described by Epiphone,

Played lightly, P-90 pickups sound full, clean, and sparkly. Driven harder, they give off a distinctive growl and can distort with a voice-like quality that guitarists can play and define at will.

Additionally, the Epiphone ES-339 includes controls for each pickup’s volume and tone, a 3-way toggle switch, and a 1/4” output jack. I plug my ES-339 into my Line 6 Amplifi 150 Guitar Amplifier, which has over 200 different tones. Then, I connect the Amplifi via USB to GarageBand on my Mac.

Updated on April 18th, 2017