ES345 Club

[Robin Nahum]

Seeing reference to a 335 club got me thinking that we need a club for ES345 owners.

The 345 with varitone, and often with stereo output, cost $10 more than a 335 in 1959 and had the very handsome split parallelogram inlays, but brought with it a whole lot of questions. These included:

• what if I don't want to shlep two amps
• the Varitone looks kinda neat but do I really need it
• it didn't come with a Y-lead. What do I do?

In other words, this was the thinking person's electric.

My first was a '66 with the anorexic neck.



A previous owner had tried to mono-ise this by joining the two actives. This doesn't work. After I had the original circuit restored, I managed the stereo output by running a stereo lead to a breakout box but then discovered that the sound is out of phase if you run the two mono leads into two sides of a silverface.

I solved the 345 into one amp question by using a Barge Concepts VFB-X which is essentially a mixer disguised as an effect and driven by an expression pedal.

http://www.bargeconcepts.com/x.html

While the tone of my '66 was great I found the neck with its 1 5/8" nut (characteristic of late 60s Gibsons) too skinny and traded it for a 2002 Memphis Custom Shop:



This has a neck with a fatter C profile and a 1 11/16" nut.

It comes with two outputs - one for each pickup. The upper one functions as a mono output if used by itself.

It also comes with the '57 Classic pickups with which I was not happy (except for a short period at the store) as they lacked smoothness. Pete Biltoft wound me a pair of low output buckers. My tech installed them as this is a fiddly job that requires pulling the tone circuit out through the pickup holes.

At the time of writing, I am on holiday and practising a lot (yay!). I have discovered that the bridge pickup is a good choice for a more fusion-y lead tone and that the Varitone is very useful for attenuating the output when both pickups are on. There are also a couple of useful settings for colouring the tone.

I have done two other mods:

• fitted an aluminium stop bar at the recommendation of my tech. I think it improved the tone.
• replaced the cheapo strap buttons with Dunlop StrapLoks. This is a heavier guitar and not one which you would want to drop.

[blonde52]

I wish!