VINTAGE BENCH TEST 1969 GIBSON ES-330 TDC
The ES-225 was Gibson’s top-end P-90-loaded thinline during the 1950s. But Ted McCarty and his team must have viewed it as rather old fashioned in the era of Bursts, Flying Vs, Explorers and the ES-335. Single-cutaway bodies were retained for the more downmarket ES-125 but, in 1959, the ES-330 assumed the ES-225 mantle, and the ES-335 body shape.
The new ES-330 was available in both double- and single-pickup versions, with the single pickup placed dead centre, making later upgrades a challenge. It also retained the trapeze tailpiece and tune-o-matic bridge arrangement of the final ES-225 models. As time went on, however, many
