The Gibson S-1 is a solid bodied

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

, made by the

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was forme ...

. Notable players include

Carlos Santana Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán (; born July 20, 1947) is an American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of Rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured ...

Ronnie Wood Ronald David Wood (born 1 June 1947) is an English rock musician, best known as an official member of the Rolling Stones since 1975, as well as a member of Faces and the Jeff Beck Group. Wood began his career in 1964, playing guitar with a nu ...

Keith Richards Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943), often referred to during the 1960s and 1970s as "Keith Richard", is an English musician and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-princi ...

, and

Angel Olsen Angel Olsen (born Angelina Maria Carroll; January 22, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter and musician from St. Louis, Missouri who lives in Asheville, North Carolina. To date, Olsen has released six studio albums: ''Half Way Home'' (2012), ...

. Only 3,089 of them were sold before the model was discontinued in 1980.

History

The S-1 was introduced as part of Gibson's attempt to break into the

single-coil A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal. Single coil pickups are one of the two most po ...

bolt-on neck Bolt-on neck is a method of guitar (or similar stringed instrument) construction that involves joining a guitar neck and body using screws or bolts, as opposed to glue and joinery as with set-in neck joints. Methods The "bolt-on" method is u ...

guitar market, which was then dominated by Fender. It began production in mid-1974, and debuted in 1975 with endorsements from

as well as

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

guitarists

and

. However, the nontraditional construction and Fender-like characteristics led to disappointing sales, as they previously had with the similar

Gibson Marauder The Gibson Marauder was an electric guitar model produced by Gibson between 1975 and 1979. Designed to compete with guitars made by Fender, it had limited success and was discontinued after only 7,111 had been sold. History The Marauder was int ...

. As a result, both the

Marauder Marauder, marauders, The Marauder, or The Marauders may refer to: * A person engaged in banditry or related activity ** Piracy ** Looting ** Outlaw ** Partisan (military) ** Robbery ** Theft Entertainment * ''Marauder'', the second novel in the ' ...

and the S-1 were discontinued in early 1980. The S-1 enjoys an afterlife as a

vintage guitar A vintage guitar is an older guitar usually sought after and maintained by avid collectors or musicians. The term may indicate either that an instrument is merely old, or that is sought after for its tonal quality, cosmetic appearance, or hist ...

. Its main proponent as of 2020 is

, who gravitated towards the instrument for its ability to produce a variety of tone colors.

Description

The body of the S-1 was broadly similar to the

. It was made of a solid Les Paul Jr-like body with a maple

Flying V The Gibson Flying V is an electric guitar model introduced by Gibson in 1958. The Flying V offered a radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its siblings: the Explorer, which was released the same year, and the Moderne, which was designed ...

neck bolted on. It was adorned with Schaller made "Harmonica" style tune-o-matic bridge and the standard Gibson stopbar tailpiece. However, the S-1 was unique in its elaborate electronics and wiring. It featured three "see-thru" single-coil pickups designed by Bill Lawrence, which could be used together to generate

humbucking Mains hum, electric hum, cycle hum, or power line hum is a sound associated with alternating current which is twice the frequency of the mains electricity. The fundamental frequency of this sound is usually double that of fundamental 50/60 Hz, '' ...

sounds. The pickups were controlled by a combination of a toggle switch and a "chicken head" rotary switch. The rotary switch had four positions which allowed different selections of pickup combinations: 1) neck + middle, 2), middle + bridge 3) all three together, and 4) neck and bridge out of phase. The toggle switch bypassed the entire 4 position rotary switch circuit and made one straight connection to the bridge pick-up. Because of its unusual pickups and unique wiring scheme, the instrument was capable of a wide range of distinctive sounds. When interviewed about her 1979 S-1 with Ebony finish,

commented that "it has all these tones to it. If I wanted to make it super bright, I could do that for certain songs… I just love my guitar"

References

External links

Gibson guitarsThe Vintage Guitar Website - Gibson S-1 full specs
{{guitars S1

History

Description

See also

References

External links