The 13 Best (Mostly) Inexpensive Gibson ES-335 Alternatives

Welcome back folks this is Shane so firstly just to let you know this is part five of a series of videos much like this that i put together covering every different type of guitar from strats to telecasters to les pauls to prs and now to es335 so i had a lot of people request this video if you do enjoy it please give it a thumbs up a lot of time and effort goes into this video if we can get it up to a thousand thumbs up i greatly appreciate it it's not sponsored by anyone this list took quite a while to put together because i've tested hundreds of guitars even as a lefty or i picked them up and checked them out as a righty so this all comes from experience from guitars will be owned reviewed or played or even just picked up and checked out so i hope you like this list if you do enjoy it please give it a thumbs up let's get into it so the first guitar on this list is accessible just about anywhere in the world thanks to the magic of the internet and this is the harley benton hb 35 ch which stands for cherry it's a really beautiful instrument now harley benton have made a few design changes to this and modifications over some of the other 335s on this list which are a straight up clone these are slightly different the headstock shape is obviously a point of comparison but i also feature the toggle switch on the upper horn on the guitar instead of down near the toggle switches which makes it quite a bit different now if you ever owned a 335 i think that's actually a really great spot to be putting the toggle switch on that top horn nice and easy to get to out of the way of all the rest of the controls or any kind of interference so i really like the fact that they put the toggle switch there now visually these are quite similar in terms of the body shape and all that kind of stuff and that's the whole idea of this list we're going to find the least expensive or inexpensive alternatives to getting a 335 now if you're a beginner or an intermediate player and you're thinking about trying a different guitar there's never been a better time back even when i started 20 or 21 years ago or whatever it was there wasn't these kind of options out there a lot of inexpensive guitars were junk now that can be debated that there still might be some of that out there but if you buy a known brand these days you're generally in for a bit of a treat out of all the harley benton guitars that i've had my hands on personally or i've had in right-handed that i've looked at i've only seen one with issues and that was one that was shipped here that just had a few scratches and marks on it but no big deal it still played well this particular instrument if you're looking for a 335 it will tick all the boxes it has the f holes it has a block down the center it looks like the classic cherry design you can't go too far wrong with harley benton these days let me know if you've already got one of these or if you're thinking about buying one i'll also leave links to these in the description the next guitar on this list is the artist cherry 58 i love this guitar the first time i saw one was Brett Kingman playing one who is another australian youtuber phenomenal guitar player great guy and just a he's a monster he makes everything sound good and i heard him play when i was like man i'm gonna get my hands on one of these so i ended up getting one from artists guitars to do a review of and for 400 australian dollars these are definitely one of the best 335 style electric guitars out there these look probably more similar to an actual 335 than even the harley benton the headstock design is a little bit nicer on this one i reckon i'll leave a you can let me know in the comments whether you agree with that or not and it has the toggle switch placement in a more traditional area down near the volume controls now these have gotten even better since i've got my hands on one many many months ago i liked this guitar it was really cool i also owned another one which we'll talk about in a moment and there wasn't that much of a tonal difference and there wasn't that much of a feel difference these have a fairly chunky neck and the new factory that are producing these guitars are really really good i had a chance to test out a couple of les pauls from artists guitars after they changed factories and they were so much better than what they were back in the day now i've got a new one of these turning up at the house which is a black one so you'll see a review of that coming up in a few months there's a bit of a back order on them but overall the artist guitar cherry 58 if you can get your hands on one of these they're a really beautiful instrument i'd say you're seeing some samples of it on screen as well from my review video but they look the business they sound great and when i did a comparison up against the guitar it's worth about twenty five hundred dollars there wasn't a whole lot in it so that's why this guitar made the list third on this list is a guitar brand that i feel is highly underrated and that's reverend guitars they have a guitar called the manta ray which is very 335 in its design but it has a little bit more of a rock and roll modern look to it the horns on the top are a little bit more pointy and one of the things that separates this from your traditional 335 it has one f hole but it also has a base contour control which is completely passive i might buy a guitar that has any kind of active electronics unless it's a bass different story there but in terms of electric guitars i think these passive bass contour controls are fantastic it's basically like well basically like that's such a bad joke like a boost control in many ways you roll it up one way the guitar gets fatter and thicker sounding you roll the other way and it gets thinner sounding which is a really great feature to have on a 335 star electric and being that it's only got the one f hole you could probably play this a lot louder and dirtier without excessive feedback and i think that's a really cool touch reverend guitars are fantastic i wish i could find them more here in australia the only times i usually see them is just here and there at shops or at a guitar show they're about the only times that i see them it's a real shame reverend guitars are great they're a lot easier to find in the us i've seen them and i purchased one one time in florida as well so yeah reverend guitars are definitely great check out this manta ray links will be below up next on the list is gretsch now they make the streamliner model which is very es335 in its design except it's called the g2622 it doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well now they also make this in a lefty as well and i'll be doing a full review of this at lefthandedguitarworld.com as well if you want to check that out and you're a lefty you'll get a kick out of that so the interesting thing about this particular instrument over the others is there's a few differences one it has something that i'm not a huge fan of but it's not a deal breaker i've seen this number of times in person as well i don't like the block inlays i think they're just a little bit too large but let me know what you think and i don't like the block inlay on the first fret i think it's unnecessary but yeah let me know what you think of the block inlays on this instrument odds are you're seeing some pictures on screen so yeah i just think it looks a little bit strange but i love the fact you can get these in different colors to your conventional cherry or your tobacco burst kind of colors i love this green i think it looks really really cool now in terms of the pickups it's a different set of pickups in the neck we get a broadtron bt2s so these will give you a very different sound to that classic humbucker tone these will have a little bit more snap on the note so if you like a little bit of extra high-end this would be a really great choice so we get the same pickup in the bridge as well which is the bt-2s this will be more suited to various styles of guitars like a 335 can cover pretty much anything from jazz to blues to rock and roll even some seen some people play heavier styles of music on them but these pickups will give you a bit more of a classic rockabilly sound if you want to go down that avenue as well they're a bit like a hot telecast to pick up in some ways but they've got a very different character again so if you're looking for something with that shape that's going to sound great check out the great streamliners i think they make some really great uh instruments there's a few different models as well i'll leave some variations in the description below fifth on this list is an ibanez guitar now ivanis make plenty of great es-335 inspired electric guitars that also have their own vibe and they've been doing them for about 40 years or something one of my friends has a really great sg from back in the day it's a really beautiful guitar from ibanez and it just it sounds killer so i'm going to put this on the list there's plenty of different ones to choose from as well when it comes to ibanez but the as153 artcore art star in antique yellow sunburst now this particular instrument looks beautiful it looks really really good now this guitar is best known for jazz and blues you can of course use it for other styles of music as well but i think these super 58 custom pickups they put in this instrument are best suited for clean off clean to sort of gritty blues and that's about it if you can be playing anything heavier odds are you should probably look for something else but the pickups that they put in here are really really well suited for jazz and blues overall you're getting a really beautiful guitar something that's a little bit different as i mentioned best suited for jazz and blues from the arcore guitars i've had a chance to play they don't handle heavy amounts of gain at all unless you're plugging into say an audio interface and you don't have an amp behind you if you have an app behind you odds are something like this will take off but given that it is still a humbucker guitar you can give it a go but to my ear and the way that these pickups are voiced best suited to jazz and blues if you play other styles of music on as153 let me know in the comments below coming in at the sixth spot is another guitar brand that has made a couple of these other lists because they just make great instruments and they've been getting better and better but they've also been getting more expensive over the years as well so these are still under half of the price at least for me here in australia and mostly in the us as well if you're going to buy 335 these are still way way cheaper this is the eastman t386 now 386 reminds me of the old cpu days but anyway that's a whole other story now this is a very very traditional es335 style guitar that you can also see has a few appointments on it that make it stand out in comparison to some of the lesser expensive models not all of them but some of them now we get binding along the fretboard which looks really cool we also get binding on the f holes and i think this natural sort of cherry finish looks so much nicer than a lot of the others on this list i really think this looks like an old guitar just as it is it looks beautiful looks really really classy i also love the fact that the pick guard is a little bit more traditional in its shape i think it suits the aesthetic of this guitar a whole lot more now the only thing i don't like about eastman guitars and i'm not that much of a headstock snob i'll play any guitar and it's not a deal break for me but i don't really like the headstock on the eastman instrument here it just looks a little bit too squished at the bottom for me and or a little bit too wide at the top i'm not sure which is the problem there but it just looks a little bit odd now i've seen so many of these and i've played so many eastern guitars and jerry's lefty guitars over in sarasota florida and i've seen these at guitar shows here locally as well and they're just really beautiful instruments like i said they're getting more expensive as the years go by but you are buying a really nice electric guitar so this would make a really great alternative to an es335 if you're on or wanting to spend a little bit less we still get an ebony fretboard we get a maple neck we get the 12 inch fretboard radius the neck profile on this one is a traditional c as well so you are getting pretty much what you'd expect out of a either a 50s or a 60 style es 335 depending on which shape of neck you want to go for the 60s are a little bit thinner on the most part the 50s are just that little bit fatter we get the medium jumbo frets as well which is a great you know thing to have on the guitar you definitely don't want to be getting anything with smaller frets we get the goto stop tailpiece so they've got good hardware on this instrument as well swift craft connectors and switching and all that kind of stuff so these are quality instruments they are made offshore but who cares right? if the guitar is good it's good and these are definitely a great instrument another highly overlooked instrument in my opinion are eastman guitars i think because they started out maybe as a lesser expensive guitar there were already some more expensive ones like the el rey which is one of my favorites of all time yeah but they were generally like known for lesser expensive guitars but as the price has crept up the quality's crept up and some of the ones that i've seen recently the guitar show last year were some of the nicest ones i've ever seen the finishes were second to none so eastman guitars easily make this list this guitar will be well suited to just about anything that your traditional 335 can handle musically number seven on this list is the epiphone dot i love these guitars i've owned two of them i've also owned a gibson and i really felt like the epiphone dot ticked all the boxes i really regret getting rid of my first one it was my main gigging instrument for years it had a fat neck it was nice and simple the pickup sounded great nice and simple in its design didn't have any sort of blinginess to it but it was a cherry red and it sounded killer some of the best gigs i've got from when i first started playing were using the epiphone dot and it was just a beautiful beautiful instrument so yeah i can highly recommend these they've changed a little bit over the years they've sort of slimmed the neck down on a lot of them now but if you can find an epiphone dot used or even new you're still going to get a great instrument but if you want the fat and neck one you're going to have to go back a few years to see if you can find one because like not back in time only time machine but you're going to have to go find one on the used market or hopefully find one in a shop that hasn't been sold for years and years but they're really solid instruments the things i love about them the weight is good they handle overdrive great and one of the key things that no one talks about with 335s i'm going to throw out there is if you're playing loudly with an amp behind you you'll feel air coming out of the f holes this was something that freaked me out the first time i felt it i had a t-shirt on i could feel something hit my arm like i felt like a vibration i went oh did i just get shocked and it wasn't it was the air coming out of the airfoil so if you haven't experienced that get an amplifier crank it up behind you and there's certain frequencies that will trigger it and you get great sustain these are awesome instruments definitely one of my favorites i can highly recommend them the one with the thinner neck i didn't like quite as much as the one with the thick neck but the epiphone dots are really solid instruments and for the kind of money you're paying for them it's an absolute no-brainer check them out coming in at the eighth spot on this list is a brand that i always don't pronounce properly and i always hear about in the comments so i'm going to try it a different way today hugstrom is that close Hagstrom the Hagstrom viking i always say hagstrom viking and everyone gives me grief so i'm going to just say that these guitars are pretty damn good the things i like about them is their visual design very reminiscent of 335 we have a unique tailpiece system as well on this guitar which sets it apart from pretty much all of the others on this list and we have the toggle switch to change pickups up on the top horn i really like that i mentioned it before i think that's a really great addition and something that separates it these come in left and right-handed models as well which is really cool they're still very affordable you get them in a whole lot of different colors as well from the sunburst look to the cherry red to elvis white shoe look whatever you want to call that yeah it's strange to a black as well i actually think the black looks really cool now i'm going to point out a couple of things i've tried a few of these now and i don't necessarily love the neck pickup i find them a little bit too rolled out in the high end they just don't really capture that classic tone they're a different sort of sound these they call them the hj50 humbucking pickups but i find that neck pick up just a little too muddy but where these guitars shine both pickups together with the neck down just a little bit i've actually tried one of these in the live mix and the way that i ran it was just to leave it on bridge pickup and to use my volume control to get my cleaner tones or just wind it back up now these handle overdrive fine they also sound fairly nice clean as well but just like i mentioned before i'm not an overly huge fan of that neck pickup i've heard far better pickups even on less expensive guitars so that's not to belittle these guitars if you do already own one but i feel like yeah the thing that sort of lets them down is that neck pick up and after testing two or three of them it's something that i've i've noticed they just don't have the chirp i almost feel like it needs a high pass fill to put in them if they don't already if they haven't started including them because when you turn down on that neck pickup i find it pretty much unusable but that's my experience with it but in terms of just its visuals its tonal ability and and its quality and all that kind of stuff with my nitpicking aside these are a very solid instrument so the hug strum i'm going to try and pronounce it like that viking it's definitely worth a look if you're looking for something a little bit different coming in on the ninth spot is a brand that i've been a huge advocate for and i've owned a couple of them coming out of china which is the tokai electric guitars now they make clones of everything from tallies to strats to les pauls to 335s you name it takai also make them these are the original lawsuit guitars but their chinese ones are kind of like their budget version of the japanese instrument so i'm gonna keep this kind of short these are as good as the epiphones there's no real advantage to one or the other it's whatever you can find in your part of the world the easiest so if you can find a taco easier than you can say an epiphone dot they're basically the same guitar so yeah get whatever's cheaper and you'll get a really solid instrument so number nine tokai guitars coming in at number 10 is another epiphone and this one's kind of like a little bit more of a deluxe version over the dot it's the epiphone sheraton 2 pro now this pro model looks the business and this was the kind of guitar that guys like john lee hooker and noel gallagher played or play so yeah it's a really solid instrument you'll also see a lot of other blues guys who are touring professionals playing epiphone sheratons because they're extremely solid instruments now it's a few things that sets this apart from some of or at least the other epiphone that was on this list the epiphone dot we get the pro buckets so these can also be split coiled we get the push pull pot which is really cool we also get a graftec nut which is an upgrade over the prior one and we also get a five piece maple walnut neck the neck on these guitars just look absolutely beautiful and the pickups will be an advantage over just going for the traditional epiphone dot but if you're on a budget and you don't ever plan on say using the split coil then just go for the epiphone dot but the sheraton 2 pro if you like the visual of this with all the gold hardware the big block inlays the sort of extravagant headstock uh you'll definitely get a kick out of it these are really solid instruments they're beautiful to look at they sound great and yeah they're far far less expensive even new than getting something like an es335 so if you're in the market for a 335 you don't want to break the bank but still get something that's a high quality instrument with some tweaks as well being that this is kind of like the thin line version and it also has those push pull parts this would be a really great choice coming in at number 11 is orville or takai or greco so i'm going to kind of combine all these japanese brands into the 11th spot because they're all great if you can find an orville or a greco used which is the only way you'll find them they're a really solid instrument they're 335's rock when i bought my tockeye i actually compared it to a 2008 gibson es 335 and the taco left it for dead tonally fuel wise everything it was a much better instrument this was only in comparison to the 2008 gibson es 335 that i owned it may have been a 2007 but somewhere around there the pickup's muddy it was just yeah it was it was night and day so hearing them side by side really i went wow there's a huge difference and the price of the gibson was so much more i paid around fifteen to eighteen hundred dollars something like that for a used tokai 145l just a really solid instrument and same with the orvilles if you can find them anywhere just pick it up and play it and trust your instincts when it comes to those guitars really solid instruments so anything out of japan from that period is a really great choice this next guitar brand on the list is one of the best quality instruments i've personally had my hands on i've seen them not only here in australia but while i was away in germany it's a german brand called maybach or maybach depending how you want to say it if you say the aussie way or the proper way so they make a selection of instruments that are actually made in the czech republic which is their neighbor but they're a german brand and they're some of the most detailed instruments out there they make a range of relic guitars that will appeal to you if you're into the strat or tally design they also make three through fives les paul style electrics and some ones that are completely different to all of them so i'll leave a link to their website in the description below but if you can find one of their 335s they do have a new range of them coming out their website doesn't seem to to show them i haven't seen a nam video from 2020 of maybach guitars from steve from boston as well i'll link that up in the cards and you can check them out these guitars are about as close as you're going to get minus the headstock design and there's a few aesthetic differences as well when it comes to the colors and shapes that there's a couple of different es 335 style bodies as well as ones that don't have the horn and they're probably the most interesting looking ones out of all of them they're called the little wing series so hopefully jimi hendrix's uh lrc doesn't get onto them because they're notorious for that but yeah it looks like a 335 only it doesn't have the horns so these are the little wing arch top uh non-cutaway dirty lemon that's the name of the color and they also come in the havana tobacco aged look as well now both of these look pretty interesting when i first saw these instruments i didn't like the shape of them without the horns and then it grew on me i was like these actually look really great i'd love to check these out in person it's a guitar that i haven't personally seen these ones in person but i've seen a number of them on guitar search saturday videos that we've covered and rick's actually got a chance to play a couple of these in in a shopper called uh mj guitars really cool shop if you missed that episode i'll leave a link somewhere as well and you can check that out but yeah maybach guitars are really cool there's very few distributors that i've seen here in australia only one that i know of them probably more common in europe given that that's where they're made but yeah maybe guitars or maybach guitars definitely go check them out this little wing series is definitely something different i kind of like it let me know what you think of them i know they're a little bit different especially with the pickup combinations as well i'm not being traditional humbuckers in there all of their guitars but they do have those as well but yeah very cool design uh and yeah it almost looks like an acoustic but it looks better let me know your thoughts and lucky last on this list coming in at number 13 is heritage guitars now you might be saying hang on a sec aren't heritage guitars more expensive than gibson's they can be absolutely they're about 200 more expensive retail than their gibson counterpart and these are handmade in the us all that kind of stuff the kalamazoo factory if you know the history of heritage guitars they were kind of like an offshoot of gibson guitar so they're up there same type of quality some would argue far better but they are more expensive new but if you're buying them on the used market you can save yourself a fortune unless you're shopping at reverb.com where you'll end up paying top dollar free used instruments so look and that's i'm not saying that as a dig to reaver but this is what i've noticed if you buy them anywhere else they're far less expensive than the gibson counterpart i've always found that the the household name brands hold their value far more than some of these other brands unless you're in the know same with g l for example g l's just don't resell anywhere near as well as the fender counterpart and after dealing with both of those guitars over the years i tell you that's absolutely true and same when it comes to heritage instruments beautiful instruments if you can if you want to go out and spend top dollar on a new one go for it you're getting a very very solid instrument that's every way as good or better than the gibson counterpart but where you'll save yourself the money and get the best guitar that you can get for less money will be on these used markets so check craigslist check out all the you know if you're in australia gumtree ebay a lot of other options just look around for them odds are you'll find them for far less money than their gibson counterparts so yeah heritage guitars beautiful instruments i'm yet to own one i've played plenty of them but i'm yet to own one so let me know what you think of this list and if i missed something please let me know in the comments below just know this list comes through my own personal experience of either owning them testing them out playing them or reviewing them or i've even just picked the right-handed counterpart up and i've listened to a friend play them so yeah there's some guitars on this list that aren't made for lefties but all of them i've had some experience with over the years as well so let me know what you think of this list if i didn't miss something please let me know if you want to see other videos like this i'll leave the playlist in the description or also up in the cards as i mentioned earlier and you can check that out so thanks again for watching catch you soon see you!

Channel: intheblues

Views: 501,601

Keywords: The Best Inexpensive Alternatives to a Gibson ES-335, Cheap ES335, Inexpensive Guitars Buyers Guide, I Ranked Import Guitar Brands Worst To Best, Harley Benton, Artist Guitars, Epiphone Dot 335, Sheraton II, What is the best inexpensive ES-335?, ES-335 Guitars Ranked

Id: AmXhPH_WjY4

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020