Gibson ES-175 vs ES-775 vs L-4 vs Gibson Tal Farlow?

[Burrellesque]

I did see a 50's ES-350 for $5000 once, missing pickguard and replacement tuners and a fair bit of wear. Still better than $9K for a modern build. What are they thinking?

Is the current Tal Farlow a thin laminate build? Are any current Gibsons true to the 50's vintage construction?

[silverfoxx]

I did see a 50's ES-350 for $5000 once, missing pickguard and replacement tuners and a fair bit of wear. Still better than $9K for a modern build. What are they thinking?

Is the current Tal Farlow a thin laminate build? Are any current Gibsons true to the 50's vintage construction?

My TF is a 2013 model and would say that it is not a thin laminate, as Max405 has said he uses his
own as first preference for gigging , I suspect for the reasons it is less prone to feedback than a L5 and
works quite well in a small band combo. As others suggest it is a very good option at half the price of
an L5CES, although I am fortunate in owning both. There has been a lot of discussion on which is better?
a 175, a L4Ces or a TF, and I don't seek to resurrect that, except to say I don't own a 175, but do have
the other three aforementioned. It's all a matter of personal taste, but i'm pleased to see some interest
recently in the TF, which IMO is an underrated instrument.

[silverfoxx]

Vinny.
The quote from Gibson is patently ridiculous, surely
a limited run of an RI 1950,s 350 , say of 100 is within
their scope, I'd bet Buscarino to a banjo , they'd sell
quite well, from this forum alone I would guess that
there would be considerable interest in a reissue of
the 350 but at a reasonable cost! Just my 2p's worth

[vinlander]

My 1996 Tal is not a light build neither, but its laminate top is still thinner than my tinkered Emperor Regent which Incidentally I finally could sold yesterday evening. That guitar was my Poor Man's attempt at a Tal, but despite all what I did, it lacked a lot in the resonance and overtones qualities. Could never make it sound like a Gibson really because it aint one and certainly not a Tal.
I dig the unplugged tone of my Tal despite its heavy built. Its an electric guitar and not meant to be played unplugged but still, it already sound so much better than even the Emp Regent which was supposely more acoustic oriented...

[vinnyv1k]

Long live the TF guitar ! And thanks Tal for the cool axe.

[helios]

Samples of: L5, L4, Tal Farlow, ES-175, no quality ES-775 video found:

[2bornot2bop]

My TF is a 2013 model and would say that it is not a thin laminate, as Max405 has said he uses his
own as first preference for gigging , I suspect for the reasons it is less prone to feedback than a L5 and
works quite well in a small band combo. As others suggest it is a very good option at half the price of
an L5CES, although I am fortunate in owning both. There has been a lot of discussion on which is better?
a 175, a L4Ces or a TF, and I don't seek to resurrect that, except to say I don't own a 175, but do have
the other three aforementioned. It's all a matter of personal taste, but i'm pleased to see some interest
recently in the TF, which IMO is an underrated instrument.

I remember for several years after owning an L5 I poo-pooed the idea of owning a TF based upon its looks. I couldn't get past the curly Q and the pick guard shape. Then one day a TF became available locally at a ridiculous price. So I closed my eyes and made the plunge on that TF. Upon first listen I recall thinking I'd never been more wrong than to prejudge a guitar on looks alone. Based upon its performance it's now my number 2 in the Gibson lineup. That tone cannot be denied.

[GNAPPI]

STOP posting those sound clips!!!

I'll take one of each... and a mortgage :-)

[vinnyv1k]

Wasn't there a brand new in the box Tal Farlow for sale a few years back that was basically never opened and the ship too address was Tal's home in Sea Bright? I vaguely remember that.
I wonder what happened to that one.
JD

Tal was dying from esophagus cancer when he received it. I don't think he ever played it.

[Dennis D]

Samples of: L5, L4, Tal Farlow, ES-175, no quality ES-775 video found:

Any suggestions appreciated - -all I'm getting is blank black boxes.

[Bluedawg]

Any suggestions appreciated - -all I'm getting is blank black boxes.

They all sound great


My favorite in these videos is the Tal .... could have more to do with the quality of the recording and/or the choices of whoever did the EQ in the video edit than the guitar ... but I've also played some great Tals that would have come home with me if I had had the finances at the time

It could also be that the Tal is the only one of the guitars in the videos that I don't already have

[Bluedawg]

I can see the videos at home, but at work I'm just getting black boxes ... probably due to the security devices in my work network

[vinlander]

I can see the videos at home, but at work I'm just getting black boxes ... probably due to the security devices in my work network

Or you are using Internet Explorer at work maybe and something else at home, seems browser related at least for me and some others too

[Bluedawg]

Or you are using Internet Explorer at work maybe and something else at home, seems browser related at least for me and some others too

Yes ... you are right ..... the videos show up in Firefox at work .... but not IE

I'm using MS Edge at home ..

[Dutchbopper]

I would take these videos with a grain of salt. My Tal sounds very different. My 175 too. Different amp, different fingers.

DB

[Dutchbopper]

Is the current Tal Farlow a thin laminate build? Are any current Gibsons true to the 50's vintage construction?

No, the reissue Tal is built rather heavily. Just like the others already stated. Still, it is a good sounding guitar. A few years ago I took my Tal to compare it with a 64 Tal. The 64 was built way lighter and sounded a bit less mellow. Mine was slightly darker and fuller. But the 64 did not sound much better IMHO. Gibson did a very good job with the Tal. I see no reason to pay 9k for a vintage one.

My 63 Kessel is of a way lighter built than my reissue Tal too. Unamplified it sounds almost like it has a carved top. A very responsive instrument and a fine vintage guitar with a great electric sound too. But my Tal - which is a way stiffer guitar - still sounds more like what you hear on the old Tal recordings. I really don't know how they did it ... but I'm glad they did.

DB

[goldenwave77]

No, the reissue Tal is built rather heavily. Just like the others already stated. Still, it is a good sounding guitar.
DB

I'm not sure lightness is so great for an electric instrument. It seems to me that Gibson ES guitars share a heftiness and solidity that is beneficial.

There are plenty of lightweight Benedetto-type instruments that sound great by themselves, or at low volumes, but put them in a mix, or at louder volumes, and the delicate sound kind of disappears or gets lost.

I bet that if you put an L5, or a Tal, or a 175, or an L4-CES on an oscilloscope, that it would show fewer overtones, than the lightweight acoustic archies. I think Gibson was the first to figure this out.

[mr. beaumont]

I'm not sure lightness is so great for an electric instrument. It seems to me that Gibson ES guitars share a heftiness and solidity that is beneficial.

There are plenty of lightweight Benedetto-type instruments that sound great by themselves, or at low volumes, but put them in a mix, or at louder volumes, and the delicate sound kind of disappears or gets lost.

I bet that if you put an L5, or a Tal, or a 175, or an L4-CES on an oscilloscope, that it would show fewer overtones, than the lightweight acoustic archies. I think Gibson was the first to figure this out.

TBH, the Benedetto and Benedetto style instruments I've heard do nothing for me, plugged in or not.

As for Gibsons, well, they're weird as they don't always follow the rule, particularly the 175. I've played heavy ones that were great, heavy ones that were meh, light ones that were amazing, light ones where I looked at the price and said "heck naw."

So I conclude, a good Gibson is just plain good.

[GNAPPI]

I gave up on trying to figure out what dynamics make one git sound better than another. It's a fools errand for me to do it.

Jeff's comments on the 175 I agree with 100%

[Flat]

This is available on Reverb for a ton of money. But damn...




Now back to our regular programming...

[2bornot2bop]

a newly posted Tal Farlow guitar performance video by Andy Brown

[agentsmith]

I'm not sure lightness is so great for an electric instrument. It seems to me that Gibson ES guitars share a heftiness and solidity that is beneficial.

There are plenty of lightweight Benedetto-type instruments that sound great by themselves, or at low volumes, but put them in a mix, or at louder volumes, and the delicate sound kind of disappears or gets lost.

I bet that if you put an L5, or a Tal, or a 175, or an L4-CES on an oscilloscope, that it would show fewer overtones, than the lightweight acoustic archies. I think Gibson was the first to figure this out.

I discussed this with jimmy d'aquisto at a workshop about 35 years ago. The 50s and 60s gibsons were very light and had thin tops. They started making heavier builds because they were getting too many warranty claims for things like sunken tops. So it was a marketing level decision.

[goldenwave77]

I discussed this with jimmy d'aquisto at a workshop about 35 years ago. The 50s and 60s gibsons were very light and had thin tops. They started making heavier builds because they were getting too many warranty claims for things like sunken tops. So it was a marketing level decision.

I'm sure this might be true, but I'm talking about something even more basic, as a sound and design philosophy.

I believe Gibson ES guitars are not meant to be, just acoustic guitars that are amplified. They are designed to be electric instruments.

Even an L5-CES, the double-pu model, sacrifices something, acoustically, as compared to a dedicated, acoustic only full archtop. But when you electrify the full acoustic archtop, by putting a floater on it, to me, it just doesn't work that well...it can end up sounding thin and boomy. But an L5-CES, plugged in, is just like a Lincoln Town Car tooling down the highway...comfortable, smooth, and if you drive along at 100 mph, you won't feel a bump. And a lot of people think the second PU, embedded, in the top is actually beneficial to the sound you get.

We're talking gradations here. My L4-CES is acceptable as a pure acoustic instrument, for practice. But it pales beside a Benedetto-type acoustic archie that I have, unplugged. The latter is nuanced, and really responsive...but plug it in, and all of a sudden, the richness of the L4-CES comes through.

Wes M.'s playing, to me, almost sounds like a Hammond organ player....big, rich full sound, without a lot of individual note articulation, not like Johnny S. who had a very different sound, and a very different approach to the instrument. I think there is fast Johnny S. single note stuff that Wes M. could never play, but he figured out a method of playing that is very rhythmic, and slidey, and very, very appealing.

I think of Johnny S. as the ultimate studio-sound player. And I think a Johnny S. guitar sounds great in a small group setting, or maybe even by itself...but in a big band, a Tal F., or 175 may well be a better choice.

Sometimes I think expensive, fancy, acoustic-y guitars should come with a warning label: "Not recommended for use outdoors, with excessive amplification, or in a big sound mix." (You could probably go over to a classical guitar forum, and get people into a fistfight over the issue of amplifying, a classical guitar. After all, riots broke out in Spain in 1927 over Segovia's use of the fingernail, which was "ruining" the beauty of classical guitar playing.)

People have tried all sorts of fancy gizmos, coil taps, switchable pu's, etc, to make guitars into all purpose tone machines, but they always seem to fall short. Same things with amps...sometimes simple is really good, for that simple thing.

[agentsmith]

i agree goldenwave, i'm just pointing out it was a lucky accident like fender guitars and tube amps.

The problem with boutique guitars is that the very nature of the beast is a huge distortion of the economy and values of the very best electric guitars. The boutique market caters to the high end market and people in that market treat it like a luxury item, adding "tap tuned", AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA grade tops, exotic woods, fancy inlays, yada-yada. This is necessary when you need to sell a guitar for $10k to even make a little profit. Unfortunately, all these "improvements" detract from the sound IMO. I haven't played a single boutique guitar that sounded and played as well as my '63 barney kessel or even my '89 gibson 175.

And part of the reason is that we have a cognitive expectation of what jazz guitar should sound like. Doesn't make one better but it does create an expected tonal response curve that baby boomer age buyers are expecting when they play and hear an archtop guitar.

This is also why you see younger players playing solid bodies or semis. They didn't grow up worshipping wes, joe pass and george benson in the same way as the boomer generation. Time and music marches on...

[goldenwave77]

[QUOTE=agentsmith;738427]i agree goldenwave, i'm just pointing out it was a lucky accident like fender guitars and tube amps.

And leave us not forget the luckiest accident of all time: the Les Paul Guitar, the original design for which had been taken out of production.

Then along comes Jim Marshall (who decides to mod a Fender bassman design, cause he can't get replacement parts in the UK--another accident) who "invents" the Marshall amp sound, and then Clapton does The Bluesbreaker album, and suddenly the Lester becomes "the guitar" to have, for a certain sound. And it turns out to be a heavy rock tonal monster....