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Groyniad, congratulations on a wonderful guitar. Where can I hear you play in Glasgow? Do you play a regular gig? I want to hear this beast !
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10-05-2015 07:52 PM
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Congratulations on your new guitar. I hope that it ends up being everything you hoped it would be and then some...
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Congratulation Groyniad!
looks like a stellar guitar! I guess this is the first time that I heard somebody buying a L-5 new. I am glad it worked out and you are excited about it! I am sure it is great. It looks gorgeous and that quintessential L-5 tone is just to die for.
let us hear it!
Enjoy the guitar in good health for a long time to come!
cheers,
Frank
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Originally Posted by FrankLearns
i've never had a new guitar before
because i'd tried three new ones before getting this one i knew what the new ones were like - and I was (and am now, even more) confident that i would not have to sell it on - so i went for it.
after a life time of second hand guitars its a real trip having one with no history (no dings etc.)
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Nice CES, I agree with your comment about the "weight of the tone" and I think it coms from the extra bracing. If you put your hand inside towards the pots, you will feel extra bracing coming off at right angles to the main braces. I think that gives it a very firm, strong sounding tone with a tad more sustain.
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I've bought many of my Gibsons new .....
I try to make sure I get a good deal ... around 40% off list or better is my objective when looking at a new guitar. I don't always meet that objective, but I usually come close.
I bought my L5 WES and L5 CES only a few years ago and was able to get good prices
and now the used ones on Reverb and Gbase and even here are listing at prices near or even above what I paid for mine new ....
So careful shopping can pay off
Another reason is that used archtops can be difficult to try out unless you live in a major metro area or near a store that specializes in them. I was able to play and examine my L5s before buying them. So that eliminates some of the headaches and risks of buying from an on line advertisement.
Also when I bought my new guitars the advertised asking prices for the used ones weren't much less .... so I felt if push came to shove I could get 80 or 90 percent of my purchase price back if I really had to sell them soon after I bought them.
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Oh yeah? Time will tell. Originally Posted by Groyniad
Anyway, a beautiful guitar. Enjoy it.
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oldane - time will indeed tell
i've had enough of the hunting - despite the thrill of the chase and all that
i got really into watches about five years ago and i thought i'd contracted another illness
but then i got 'the watch' and i've not looked at another since (and i only have one etc. etc.)
i want to be happy with a monogamous marriage - roving eye syndrome is totally exhausting, and if you don't watch out you never really settle with any of them...
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Remember, just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look at the menu. Originally Posted by Groyniad
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being true to one guitar means being untrue to all of the other guitars....
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Watches. Please, don't get me started. Originally Posted by Groyniad
But now that I think about it, I haven't bought any watches since I got a Speedmaster Pro three years ago. I have other watches, but if I was forced to keep only one, I think it would be the one, and it definitely gets "wrist time".
And you are right. It's an illness.
OK, that was a digression. Back to guitars .....
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I have 3 Gibson archtops, a Le Grand, a 175 and a bought new L5CES. If I were to just own one it'd be the L5.
I've recently sold a Roland Cube 80 that just didn't float my boat - I put it down to being a tube amp player for so long. I replaced it with a Fender George Benson and each of the three archtops really shine through the Fender, but to be honest the L5 just has "thee" sound.
As a youngster I had (and still have) a 88 es335. I'd take a squire strat as a spare to gigs, but the 335 was my main guitar and for years it was, for me, the best guitar in the world. It wasn't until I had a steady job that I started getting greedy and buying more and more guitars until in the end I don't know which one I like the most. They all do different things... there was a time when I'd make the 335 fit in to any genre and get away with it. I'd also spend more time actually playing the thing than tinkering or craving other guitars.
I'm still greedy for guitars :-)
PS, the watch thing - don't get me started lol! I found 'the one' and haven't been tempted for another yet.
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If an L-5 could be compared to a watch, what watch would it be?
I reckon a submariner. :-)
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Or an IWC Portoguese? Originally Posted by nickyboy
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Preach it. So true. Originally Posted by nickyboy
My L-5CES was the last of the six L-5s I've owned (currently own four). And it is the only one from the L-5 family like itself. The ones with floaters and of course, the pure acoustics are just different guitars altogether. In fact, no other guitar I've owned is like an L-5CES. Similar, sure, but not the same.
A well-known (departed) forum member is on record as opining that "There is just nothing like a Gibson L-5CES!!" ...and he was right.
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i effing love that statement!!!! Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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I have to ask the question. How different is an L5 CES to a Wesmo? I mean in sound....electric sound, not acoustic. Originally Posted by rpguitar
I'm getting the impression that they are totally different.
It seems logical for someone to think (as I did) "Ok the holy grail is a Gibson L5CES but I have no need for the rear pup so I'll get a Wesmo"
But from what I'm reading it seems that a Wesmo is sonically quite different.
I've never played an L5CES but I have owned a Wesmo.
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I have both a CES and a WES .. and they are different, but not completely different ...
The CES is darker and has more of the classic L5 sound that people expect.
The WES still sounds great ... maybe a little brighter sound ..
Some people here prefer the CES ... I like them both
And of course you can expect differences between individual guitars of the same make and model
I need to get them out and compare them again ...
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I have a '98 Wes (purchased new) and initially thought it a bit bright, but loved the way it played. A few years back, I read and chatted around (including with Jason Lollar) and decided to try a high wound Lollar Imperial. It was the missing link and warmed things up perfectly. I still never play with the tone pot above 3, though.
I really need a blonde L5 CES to fill out my stable. And, I'm starting to get the same idea about light vs heavier archtop construction. I have a Sadowsky JH, which is much lighter, but sustain is significantly less and makes me work harder when I play. I also have a GB10, which, though smaller, seems equal to the L5 in terms of construction and heft.... great guitar, great sustain, beautiful tone. If it were only 2 inches larger....
Congrats, looks beautiful, the burst is very different from mine, which has faded to more of a Viceroy brown over the years.
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Philco - we had a chat about this some months ago...
i was lucky to be able to sit down and try 2 new L5CESs and 1 new Wes. i hate the extra pickup - i don't like the way it looks, and most importantly, i don't like how much noise a whole extra pickup can make (sympathetic vibrations etc. etc.)
but it took me no time at all to decide in favour of the L5CES. it was an effortless choice. i played an L5p - then a Wes - then the CES. they got less and less resonant - more and more dead. and it wasn't until the CES that the optimal degree of deadness was reached. i like a 'fresh' sound - i have my CES tone control almost all the way open most of the time - but the amplified sound of the CES was immediately convincing. smooooooth AND lacking nothing whatever in definition (all the smoooothitude and all the clarity you could ever want etc. etc.)
within a minute i knew that no other guitar was going to give me that amount of amplified happiness. and the range of tones it generates (in combining the guitar vol level with the amp vol level as much as the tone controls on amp and guitar) - is just mind boggling. most of the sounds are just great - but some are, well, gorgeous.
i love the acoustic sound too. you've got to shut the pickups up - these were very very quiet, but even these need longer and stronger pickup springs. the point is that the acoustic sound is quieter and 'deader' than the wes - much more so than the L5p - but it still feels just fantastic. thick - like you're playing a goddam piano. and the back moves when you play very nicely.
incidentally i once had a chat with bill comins and he said something like this - most people want the sound of a 2 pickup guitar but they won't let you put the second pickup in cause they don't like how it looks and they say they'll never use it. but you need it to get that sound....'
he knows what he's talking about - but have you ever seen one of his with 2 pickups?Last edited by Groyniad; 10-07-2015 at 06:59 AM.
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I find this quite fascinating. Thanks for your detailed response.
It's hard to say what I feel about this because I fear insulting the owners who have instruments that they love.
Let me just say that I want to hear a very specific sound. It's just my taste at this point in time. Doesn't mean one guitar is superior to the other.......just my taste.
So without fear of insulting anyone.....
There are 3 clips above from the same player. He plays 2 Wesmos and one L5 CES.
I wish I knew if he was playing through the same amp for each demo because of course it could make my observations false.
But my observation is that the 2 Wesmos sound exactly like my Wesmo did.
You can hear a sharp spike in the upper mids. It drove me nuts. I couldn't get the plum sound I was after. Through my Deluxe Reverb that sound was exacerbated. So much so I removed the treble cap from the amp and started messing with different speakers. To no avail really.
Anyway.......now the 3rd clip with the L5CES does not have that upper mid spike. Much more plum.
What the hell is going on here? How could just having one more pickup in the rear actually change the sound like that.
Is this what Bill was alluding to?
Of course it could be other things. Different amp. Individual guitars of the same model just sounding different. Who knows? Maybe that particular L5 has THAT sound.
Oh to be able to try 3 or 4 L5's at the same shop through the same amp. I would love to play a guitar before I buy it.
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i know - i just could not believe it when a guitar shop in the uk suddenly acquired every single gibson archtop you could possibly want to try.
yes it is what bill was talking about.
you can either deaden the response by making the guitar out of plywood or you can deaden the response by making it out of the best spruce and maple and then sticking two heavy pickups into two holes cut into the top.
the L4 had the same magic as the L5CES - but not as much. the wes - for me - did not have very much of it. the L5 p had plum even without the damn amp.
the confusing thing of course is all those recordings by wes using a wes that sound better than anything else you've ever heard. but that's wes - so forget it. (no l5 wes owner could get upset about what we say when those recordings exist...)
listen to bruce forman's 'formanism'. bruce is a human being rather than a god - and he gets a mainstream human being sound - but its really great. if you've got decent hi fi it will come across much more clearly. keith murch has also done a youtube clip of 'darn that dream' in which the sweet smoothness of the instrument comes across very clearly.
the bracing is different on the L5CES (and that's the first comment about bracing patterns i've ever made)
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look - the Wes version was totally amazing too. it was part of the family - and they were a an amazing family. it really is nice to have had a chance to spend two hours going:
l5p
l5CES
l5wes
l4
l5p
l5wes
l5ces
l5p
l5ces
l5p
all brand new instruments - all through my own amp.
- the l5p and the l5CES gradually became the obvious favourites
the wes had the same magic in the feel under the pick that the others had. it just occupies - what seems to me - the least appealing niche in the family. its really nowhere near the l5p in terms of acoustic volume and usability - but its nowhere near the CES in terms of smoothness of amplified response (i'm going with 'smooth' because it seems quite easy to understand - whereas 'plum' has poetic appeal but its quite obscure). on the other hand the CES feels great unamplified even though its a bit deader and quieter than the wes - since neither could pass themselves off as acoustic instruments the bit of volume and vigor you lose with the extra pickup is not worth much.
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I couldn't agree more with what is being written here. I have tried several Wes models but I own and play a CES. They are definitely different. The CES has that classic electric sound we all know and expect. The WES sounds good in its own right, but has that "spike" you guys are talking about. In the end it's a matter of taste but I wouldn't trade.
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