Hello folks,
I hope you'll forgive and humour a question which I imagine may be a bit naive for veterans of this brand. I had a look around some older posts to see if I it's been asked already but nothing popped out immediately so here goes.
For many years I've adored the canonical sound of a Gibson 335. I appreciate that there have been variations and iterations over the years of build / components / pickups but with this said, I think it's fair to say there's we could average these out and get something we might call a classical 335 tone.
Were money no object, I might take the no-risk option and pick up a standard Gibson USA edition but I don't have enough money to justify that kind of outlay.
I've taken a look at some affordable alternatives, namely Epiphone and Sire. Of course, some concession to build and components has been made, as great value as these guitars may be. I might be able to stretch to a Eastman T386 or T486 if they're the right choice for me. Having looked at some videos and checked the specs, I can see they're close to a 335 but perhaps significantly, use different pickups to the standard Gibson USA's. I'm not so bothered about tuners and knobs etc, it's my focus here is mainly about the tone.
So here's my question: If I really like the way a standard 335 sounds and would like to get pretty close to this but via an Eastman guitar, what is my best move? Are any of the Eastmans close enough out the box that all but the most discerning would say "yup, that's basically the 335 sound" or would there need to be a pickup retrofit to achieve this? Or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts.
I hope you'll forgive and humour a question which I imagine may be a bit naive for veterans of this brand. I had a look around some older posts to see if I it's been asked already but nothing popped out immediately so here goes.
For many years I've adored the canonical sound of a Gibson 335. I appreciate that there have been variations and iterations over the years of build / components / pickups but with this said, I think it's fair to say there's we could average these out and get something we might call a classical 335 tone.
Were money no object, I might take the no-risk option and pick up a standard Gibson USA edition but I don't have enough money to justify that kind of outlay.
I've taken a look at some affordable alternatives, namely Epiphone and Sire. Of course, some concession to build and components has been made, as great value as these guitars may be. I might be able to stretch to a Eastman T386 or T486 if they're the right choice for me. Having looked at some videos and checked the specs, I can see they're close to a 335 but perhaps significantly, use different pickups to the standard Gibson USA's. I'm not so bothered about tuners and knobs etc, it's my focus here is mainly about the tone.
So here's my question: If I really like the way a standard 335 sounds and would like to get pretty close to this but via an Eastman guitar, what is my best move? Are any of the Eastmans close enough out the box that all but the most discerning would say "yup, that's basically the 335 sound" or would there need to be a pickup retrofit to achieve this? Or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts.
