Used Vintage Gibson 1966 ES-330TD – Brazilian Rosewood

Sonic Evaluation

I'm having trouble writing this evaluation because this guitar is sitting six feet away from me as a stand, and I can't seem to stop staring at it and daydreaming about playing it on stage. It's so clean and the finish looks cool that it feels like a time portal into the late sixties or early seventies. In fact, shag carpeting is growing spontaneously in my office...a lava lamp has materialized...and the needle just dropped on Dark Side of the Moon even though there's no record player.

Jokes aside, this guitar really is incredible enough to open portals across time and space. It sounds expansive, three-dimensional, and sweeter than spun sugar. It's as if time rounded off all of its harsh edges, leaving only the pleasant frequencies. Even when you play aggressively, it never sound harsh--just mean. It's also super touch-sensitive--almost like a great acoustic guitar.

The overtones...my goodness, Wildwoodians, the overtones. This guitar has a magnificent array of sparkling even-order harmonics. It sounded so beautiful I felt compelled to close my eyes while I let a chord ring out and see what visuals came to mind, and it evoked an image of a dark-blue night sky filled with stars (I always seem to reach for metaphors in the natural world when a guitar takes my breath away like this). It has THAT kind of sparkle. Nevertheless, you also hear a strong, woody fundamental underneath all that glorious chime, which keeps everything beautifully balanced.

As Wildwood's resident bridge pickup enthusiast, I have to say this one exceeded even my lofty expectations. It has a focused snarl in the mids, a round punch in the lows, and open chiming highs with all the sparkle you can handle. It somehow makes you feel like yo'ure playing a million notes when strum a big chord without losing any clarity, and single notes feel like they could punch through a wall, Kool-Aid Man style.

When you flip to the neck position, you get maybe twenty-five percent less sparkle, but you gain a much wider EQ, with MORE MORE MORE in the lows and mids. Despite the broadness of those frequencies, the guitar still sounds lively and and sunny with superb clarity, so it makes for a wonderful rhythm sound as well as a thick lead sound.

Basically, if you're looking for a P-90-equipped hollowbody or if you just enjoy guitars dripping with vintage mojo, you'll love this '66 ES-330. Just be careful you don't get sucked into a time portal--they're murder on your sleep schedule!

Condition Report

This ES-330 is quite clean! It has less wear than we typically see on guitars of this vintage, although it still has a few battle scars, the most noticeable of which is on the back of the neck. Still, it's nothing particularly egregious. The hardware has tarnished lightly, too. Everything appears to be original, including the plastics, the electronics, and the frets, which have have received maintenance over the years and measure .101 inches by .034 inches. The pickups sound fantastic, and they measure 7.77k in the bridge and 8.50k in the neck. All in all, this is a super sweet example of a vintage ES-330! It comes with a non-original Gibson gator-print hardshell.