Gibson

In the world of hollowbody Gibson guitars, this ES-195 has secured a spot as one of the more unique instruments to come from that lineage. With its single cutaway design and Trini Lopez-style headstock, this guitar truly does stand out. It includes many neat features like humbucker-sized P-90s that give you the classic midrange definition that comes from this pickup all without the need to modify the pickup cavity. In addition to these pickups, a V7 Bigsby tailpiece introduces another layer of creativity to be had while playing this fascinating instrument. These guitars were only made in the year 2013, and as such have become somewhat of a collector’s item for Gibson enthusiasts.

Upon first sitting down with this instrument, it was immediately noticeable how balanced the weight was. The thinner hollow body compensates nicely for the solid maple neck and enables the guitar to sit comfortably in your lap or hanging from your shoulder while playing. To add to this, Gibson features a “C” neck carve on this guitar that is incredibly manageable. Not too thin, not too thick – just right! It makes playing everything from power chords to complex jazz voicings a breeze. The volume and tone knobs are spread out enough that they do not interfere with the Bigsby’s real estate.

Switching gears and focusing on the tone and sound of this guitar, some very interesting and inspiring things came to light after spending some time with it both acoustically and plugged into an amplifier. On both the acoustic and amplified fronts, this guitar has a very compressed and punchy sound. It does not exhibit as much “openness” as some of its counterparts, but this can be viewed as an advantage in many scenarios. This feature makes it an excellent guitar to wind some distortion or gain onto. When the amp was turned up, the compressive nature of the wood mixed with the tube saturation made for a wildly cool rock tone. One that still has enough air in it to realize it was a hollow body, but solid enough to deliver that “smack” that all love in a great rock sound.

The pickups of this guitar also exhibit some unique characteristics. The first thing that came to mind when playing this guitar was the harmonics that these pickups highlighted. Many overtones in the upper midrange of the sound are very pronounced and add just the right amount of bite to the tone. The bridge pickup in particular had these harmonics in spades. They lie right in the range that makes these pickups easily cut through a mix. The neck pickup, however, had a burly and dark tone to it. When some tube distortion was introduced into the signal, the neck pickup became quite hairy and tough sounding. This is a great feature for someone looking to explore some dark, fuzzy guitar sounds. All together, these pickups have all the flair of P90s, but with a bit of a nuanced edge inside this unique instrument.

It is imperative to note that this guitar does have a maxed out truss rod. It plays great in its current state, but any further truss rod adjustment in the future is not possible. This guitar is being sold AS-IS. That being said, it was kept in astoundingly good condition by its previous owner and only exhibits minor blemishes on the Bigsby and fingerboard. We rate it as EXCELLENT condition.     

• Single Cutaway Hollowbody Shape
• Laminated Flamed Maple Body
• Cream Plastic Binding
• Gloss Body Finish in Trans Amber
• Maple Neck
• Rosewood Fingerboard
• MOP Split Diamond Fingerboard Inlays
• Trini Lopez Style Headstock with Black Veneer
• “C” Neck Carve
• Gloss Neck Finish
• Humbucker-sized P-90 Pickups
• Floating Rosewood Bridge
• Gold Tune-o-Matic Roller Saddle
• Gold Bigsby V7 Vibrato
• Six-in-a-line Gold Grover Mini-Rotomatic Tuners
• Raised Black Pickguard
• Bone Nut
• 1 11/16” Nut Width
• 24 ¾” Scale Length
• 22 Frets
• Hard Case