The Gibson Blindfold Test Unveiled

Dutchbopper · 12-16-2012, 07:38 AM

We have a winner! JasonC could identify 3 out of 7 models. Quite an achievement!

Here is the Test Unveiled (video):

Dutchbopper: The Gibson Blindfold Test Unveiled

Thanks for listening.

Regards,

Dick

**kris** · 12-16-2012, 07:48 AM

I think I am not a Gibson Boy...:-)

Dutchbopper · 12-16-2012, 07:53 AM

We have a new winner by the way. One of my facebook friends just identified 5 out of 7 correctly!!!!!!! Amazing.

**PTChristopher** · 12-16-2012, 08:44 AM

Wow, what a great "test" and video.

I think that if I had guessed and gotten a single one right, it would have been by chance - which may have put me in very good company?

I am sure some will think, when watching the reveal video, "Ooooh, I can really hear that L5!" But as your fun experiment suggest: No, you can't.

This has to be one of the most interesting and fun ideas ever here. Talk about a fun way to cut through the BS, and hear some fine playing at the same time.

I'm sure we will get back to the alleged important differences between PAF's or whatever - but for a short while anyway, this is really a wonderful demo.

(EDIT: Not that there is anything wrong with enjoying the so-oft-discussed micro differences between components, if that floats one's boat)

Thanks very much.

Chris

**FrankyNoTone** · 12-16-2012, 10:38 AM

Well, I liked the 335 out of the bunch and that exposes my true rocker colours I guess

I'm still looking at versatile semi-hollows to get more than my toe into jazz yet still be playable for blues and rock.

**oldane** · 12-16-2012, 11:27 AM

I would never have been able to tell which guitars it was. Of the bunch, I like the sound of the 125 and the Tal Farlow best - in that order. But we are into really minute differencies here, and a change of pick, picking position, flatwounds / roundwounds, newer / older strings. Thomastik / D'Addario etc. could easily have changed that. And those factors may well be more responsible for slight tone differencies I hear in those clips than the actual guitars themselves. And of course it could all have been tweaked with a slight twist of a tone knob.

The 125 has a P90 whereas the others has humbuckers (the JS has a mini humbucker). It's interesting to hear how little difference the pickup type makes. The same can be said for carved spruce / laminated top.

If anything, I may be able to hear the lack of the hollow body resonance of the 335 - maybe - but then, I didn't hear the clips when they were blindfolded so it may be my imagination.

That 350T - is it one from the 1980s with the 25½" scale (the older ones from the 1950s had the shorter "Byrdland" scale).

**Bill C** · 12-16-2012, 12:45 PM

I got the actual models all wrong but "carved top", "semi" and "laminate" stood out very clearly - very distinct sounds.

**kris** · 12-16-2012, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by oldane

I would never have been able to tell which guitars it was. Of the bunch, I like the sound of the 125 and the Tal Farlow best - in that order. But we are into really minute differencies here, and a change of pick, picking position, flatwounds / roundwounds, newer / older strings. Thomastik / D'Addario etc. could easily have changed that. And those factors may well be more responsible for slight tone differencies I hear in those clips than the actual guitars themselves. And of course it could all have been tweaked with a slight twist of a tone knob.

The 125 has a P90 whereas the others has humbuckers (the JS has a mini humbucker). It's interesting to hear how little difference the pickup type makes. The same can be said for carved spruce / laminated top.

If anything, I may be able to hear the lack of the hollow body resonance of the 335 - maybe - but then, I didn't hear the clips when they were blindfolded so it may be my imagination.

That 350T - is it one from the 1980s with the 25½" scale (the older ones from the 1950s had the shorter "Byrdland" scale).

+1

Dutchbopper · 12-16-2012, 12:47 PM

My ES 30t is from 1992. It has the 25.5" scale, just like the Tal and the L5.

That 350T - is it one from the 1980s with the 25½" scale (the older ones from the 1950s had the shorter "Byrdland" scale).[/QUOTE]

**Encinitastubes** · 12-16-2012, 04:39 PM

This exercise has been very helpful; I'm not so obsessed about the last 6 ounces of my 175 anymore.

**docbop** · 12-16-2012, 05:14 PM

What little GAS I had is pretty much gone after that. I got one sometimes two right. To me test showed plugging in is the great equalizer of guitars. That differences are pretty generalized solid, semi, hollow. Now my GAS is all about fulling a dream, versus the quest for a sound. I'd like an L-5 one day because you say jazz guitar and that is the image that has popped into my mind for decades. Till then my Ibanez GB keep me feeling warm and fuzzy.

**va3ux** · 12-16-2012, 08:48 PM

Years ago Dick had a Samick HJ-650. It was before the time when everyone started recording videos but I remember a couple of MP3s on Dick's Soundclick page that were made with that guitar. If Dick had thrown the $300 Samick into the blindfold test (I know the guitar is long gone), claiming it was another Gibson, I'm willing to bet that no one would have picked it out as , 'not-Gibson'.

I'm with Chris (PT Chris) : there is so much hype and BS and lore surrounding guitars and pickups and their tone.

**kris** · 12-17-2012, 03:55 AM

Gibson's are great guitars but todays great jazz guitarist are looking for something different.... in.ex: John Scofield,Kurt Rosenwinkel, George Besnson,Pat Metheny,Pat Martino etc....

**oldane** · 12-17-2012, 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by kris

Gibson's are great guitars but todays great jazz guitarist are looking for something different.... in.ex: John Scofield,Kurt Rosenwinkel, George Besnson,Pat Metheny,Pat Martino etc....

Something different ....... something like an endorsement deal?

**Bill C** · 12-17-2012, 06:13 AM

Originally Posted by docbop

To me test showed plugging in is the great equalizer of guitars. That differences are pretty generalized solid, semi, hollow.

To my ears there was a very clear distinction between the hollow laminates and the hollow carveds. I agree the semi also had a distinct sound.

**kris** · 12-17-2012, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by oldane

Something different ....... something like an endorsement deal?

I am not sure it is endorsment deal.
All of them can buy expensive toys...:-)I think...

**jasonc** · 12-17-2012, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Dutchbopper

We have a winner! JasonC could identify 3 out of 7 models. Quite an achievement!

Here is the Test Unveiled (video):

Dutchbopper: The Gibson Blindfold Test Unveiled

Thanks for listening.

Regards,

Dick

Yay...what do I win? An all expense paid trip to my own house?

The funny thing about this test is that I was sure I got the ES-175 right but I guess not. I was also very confident about the Tal Farlow. Those seem to me to have a very distinctive sound. Anyway, thanks for the quiz and thanks for all the videos of your playing I enjoy them very much.

**kris** · 12-17-2012, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by jasonc

Yay...what do I win? An all expense paid trip to my own house?

The funny thing about this test is that I was sure I got the ES-175 right but I guess not. I was also very confident about the Tal Farlow. Those seem to me to have a very distinctive sound. Anyway, thanks for the quiz and thanks for all the videos of your playing I enjoy them very much.

Hi Jason,
You made beautifull guitars!

**oldane** · 12-17-2012, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by kris

I am not sure it is endorsment deal.
All of them can buy expensive toys...:-)I think...

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know about Rosenwinkel, but the rest of those you mentioned has endorsement deals and has guitar models named after them.

There are many anecdotes implying that sometimes even top jazzmen earn less than we imagine.

When Wes Montgomery rose to fame with Riverside records and recorded with some of the top jazz players, he still didn't make much more than he did, when he worked at the Mallory factory and gigged locally home in Indianapolis. Orrin Keepknews told him with tungue in cheek that "Before you were a bum and broke. Now you are a star and broke. That's real progress." The big money didn't flow in his direction before he began to make those pop records.

Milt Jackson quit MJQ at one point, claiming that now he wanted to get out there and make some biiiiiig bread like the pop stars did. John Lewis, somewhat hurt, told him that it wouldn't work. "We are musicians, not pop stars" as he said. Nevertheless Jackson tried, but Lewis was right. Jackson didn't make anything bigger than a normal decent living out there and eventually he came back with MJQ again.

**Keira Witherkay** · 12-17-2012, 01:46 PM

Great topic and related discussion ,

people hear different things even if the same guitar and amp is used by 2 different players , i always maintain the tone ( including how amp and guitar is eq'd and set up ) varies so much between players that if the player bonds with an instrument they can get "their " sound out of it when amped up,

its also what audiences / listeners expect the guitarist to play ... Great example , I did a gig here for a musicians society , where after the show the founder of the society said " wow that gibson of yours sounds awesome " ok sure it as adark stage and under lights but mmmmm i was playing my epiphone emperor regent but he expected a gibson so heard a gibson ,

so what i'm saying is guitar choices of different models and variety of pickups/tops and amps ect are for the players benefit not the audience if we talking live shows,

**Encinitastubes** · 12-17-2012, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by kris

Gibson's are great guitars but todays great jazz guitarist are looking for something different.... in.ex: John Scofield,Kurt Rosenwinkel, George Besnson,Pat Metheny,Pat Martino etc....

Not sure how different their guitars are. Aren't those players essentially playing Gibson-style guitars made by a company other than Gibson? I can't imagine that the difference between Methany's Ibanez and his old 175 would be much more different than the difference between the Tal and the 175 that the OP posted. Also, isn't Martino playing a Gibson these days?

**teamster** · 12-17-2012, 06:34 PM

I got em all wrong.

**ChrisDowning** · 12-17-2012, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by oldane

Something different ....... something like an endorsement deal?

Musicians are working folk who are bright enough to realise that most guitars when well set up will do the job. I remember a few years ago meeting up with a famous guitar builder who told us he'd been invited to chose a guitar for a well known artist. The guitar had to come from a very well know brand's budget, Asian range - so he took down 40 instruments in the warehouse and started working on choosing the best. He said a very few should have been turned into firewood - but would actually be sold to some unsuspecting suol who bought the brand name alone. But unbelieveably two were comparable to instruments worth TEN times the list price. One of those was given to the sponsored artist. Of course his or her instrument isn't an average instrument. But the artist has not had to compromise with a poor playing instrument - and the brand is very happy with a name player being apparently seen using their budget series model.

If you actually get out into shops and try instruments, you will find those elusive 'top two' out there. But you have to brave enough to ignore the brand AND have the time for the search.

**jasonc** · 12-17-2012, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by kris

Hi Jason,
You made beautifull guitars!

Thanks, Kris.

**bigbox** · 12-19-2012, 07:37 PM

I think, although many properly set up guitars played skillfully will sound good, instruments are limited tonally to what tones are available to them.
What I mean is this- 175 sounds great but it cannot sound like L5 and Eastman can sound good but different tones from similarly built/set up Gibson.
Wes could've played any guitar and made it sound like Wes. He chose the L5 until the day he passed.
Pass on the 175 better tones than on that Ibanez.
Tal on the Tal Farlow.
Very cool idea guessing the tones.