#Gibson es 125 jazz upgrade#
Concurrently, its piezo pickup’s shortcomings in terms of sound and installation prompted Gibson to upgrade its offering. This approach appealed to a growing number of players – and Electro Rickenbacker’s achievement did not go unnoticed by established guitar makers. Unlike Gibson’s piezo, it was designed to pick up the strings’ vibrations, thereby producing a novel electric-guitar sound as opposed to a merely amplified sound. Available to the public from August, 1932, on bespoke Spanish and Hawaiian electric guitars, Beauchamp’s pickup is a watershed, both in terms of technology and musicology. The inception of the electromagnetic pickup developed by George Beauchamp for Rickenbacker/Electro would bring about changes in Gibson’s posture. Incidentally, this allowed Gibson to highlight that the proposed electric outfit “does not change tone of instrument for regular playing,” as it was exclusively meant to provide more volume. But its application to amplifying guitars was primitive to say the least, all the more so as it relied on capturing the vibrations of the guitar top rather than of the strings. The pickup was of the piezo type, a technology known since the end of the 19th century. The pickup and amp advertised in 1933 were both supplied by one of Chicago’s music powerhouses, Lyon & Healy. In view of the limited sales potential of electric instruments, Gibson’s strategy into the ’30s was to market a ready-to-install pickup unit with cord and amplifier rather than offer a bespoke electric guitar with a built-in pickup. Gibson ads and literature show these early efforts can be safely dated to the beginning of 1933 – not the mid ’20s, as the company and/or some of its old-timers liked to believe. The ES-150 was not Gibson’s first electric, nor its first electrified guitar, as the company’s initial moves to participate in a slowly emerging electric market go back a few years earlier. Here are the hitherto untold details of the genesis of the instrument that enabled Gibson to become the pre-eminent maker of professional-grade electric guitars. But a detailed look at the circumstances of the model’s birth 75 years ago shows that Gibson was, in fact, pushed into taking the ES road because of demand from major retailers. The story of the ES-150, Gibson’s first commercially successful electric guitar, has been told many times, and its association with legendary jazz pioneer Charlie Christian is a staple of the Gibson lore. This Mont-gomery Ward model 1270 was one of the first three shipped on December 23, 1936. Spiegel’s early 34-S model, with mahogany back and sides.