Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue Review & Prices
Our Scores and Tone Evaluation
- Heavy Metal
- Hard Rock
- Jazz
- Blues
- Funk
- Country
Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue
- Made in United States
- Expensive Wood
- Nylon Nut
- Top Brand Pickups
- Cheap Fret Wire (NS)
- No Locking Tuners
- No Neck-Through Build
- No Push Knob or Extra Switch Option
- No Weight Relief
- No Tremolo
- No Luminescent Inlay
- No Compound Radius Fretboard
- No 21:1 Tuner Ratio
- No Strap Lock
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Price: is the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue a Good Deal?
Its average competitor's price is $4000, which means that the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue costs around 150% more than the competition. It might be due to it having additional features, but know that you can find cheaper similar alternatives. This takes into account all guitars of the same category in our database with 6 strings and Fixed bridge that are made in United States.
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Your feedback
Not all guitars are created equal, and there are many important things they won't tell you about the guitar you're buying. That's why it's important to have different opinions. Here's what our visitors who have played this guitar say. If you've played it before, help others by voting for your experience below.
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Is The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue Easy to Play?
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue meets 6 out of our 8 criteria items for beginner friendliness, which means that it's a good guitar to start with as a complete beginner. This takes into account the type of frets, scale length, nut width, bridge type, fretboard radius, and neck profile to determine the easiest combination for new players to get used to.
New Player Friendliness
- Comfortable shape
- Easy-to-use bridge
- Tall frets
- Wide nut
- Short scale
- Comfortable neck
- Locking tuners
- Comfortable fretboard
Hand Size Comfortability
After taking into account the neck profile, scale size, fretboard radius, and nut width, we can conclude that the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue's construction favors people with relatively small hands.
Nevertheless, this comes down in the end to personal preference. Make sure you test this guitar—or another one with similar characteristics—before buying.
How Lightweight is it?
We found that the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue weighs between 8.15lbs (3.7kgs) and 9.3lbs (4.2kgs). This was recorded from some online retailers that publish the weight of the guitars they sell.
Scale Length
Scale length is the distance the strings will span between the bridge and the nut. It can tell you a lot about the overall playability and tone of the instrument. A longer scale length means longer distance between frets, brighter tone and more string tension—which means lower action, but more difficult bending of the strings.
Here's the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue's 24.75" scale length compared to other common sizes:
This is the scale length used in most Gibson guitars. If you like the playability of a Gibson, this guitar will feel pretty similar. It's a lot shorter than the typical Stratocaster (25.5'')
As you can see from the picture above, a shorter scale length also means shorter separation between frets. If you got really small hands, you probably will feel more comfortable playing this guitar than a Fender Stratocaster.
This scale length also allows for easier bends and vibratos because the strings will have lower tension due to the shorter scale.
Finally, another thing affected by scale length is tone. A shorter scale will give less room for the harmonics, thus resulting in a warmer, more 'bassy' tone.
Still, remember that you string gauge plays an important part in all of this. A lighter gauge will make it easier to perform bends, vibratos and will also give you a brighter tone.
Neck Profile
The neck profile tells you the thickness (neck depth) and shape in cross section. Every difference will completely change the feeling and comfortability of the neck. This is a highly subjective thing, but most players indeed prefer certain types of necks (like Cs and Ds) because they feel nice in most hands.
It has a Vintage type neck. This is a type of vintage neck, so it's thick and has a wider grip than most modern guitars. This is a very particular type of neck that usually only people with a specific taste for vintage guitars will like. We recommend you try this in person before buying if it's your first vintage neck. You might end up absolutely loving it or hating it.
Fretboard Radius
When it comes to fingerboard radius, personal preference will dictate which one is better for you. However, most people seem to agree that a more curved (lower) radius will make it easier to play chords while a less curved (higher) radius is better for soloing and bending.
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue has a 12" fingerboard radius. Here's an image comparing this guitar's fretboard radius to other popular choices:
This is the same radius that Gibson uses in most of their guitars. When compare to the other popular radius of Fender Stratocasters, you can see that it's a lot flatter. Guitars with this radius are usually made to bring a good balance between single-note and chord playing.
Compound radius fingerboards give the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue has the same radius across the board.
Playability compared to main competitors
Nut Width
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue has a nut width of 42.9mm (1.688''). This size is also known as 1 11/16'' and it's the most common size. It offers a good balance of string separation at the nut. It's the size that most guitarists prefer as it gives them just enough space to play open chords without muting the strings, but without spreading the strings too wide and making bar chords difficult to perform.
Frets
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue has 22 frets. Even though 24 frets has become really popular, there's still a good reason to get fewer frets; the pickup at the neck position will be further away from the bridge. This makes the neck pickup achieve a warmer tone. You might want this if you're playing Jazz or similar genres.
However, if you don't care about the warmer neck pickup, more frets will always be better. It's always nice to have the option to play higher notes if you want to.
It comes with nickel silver frets, so they won't last as long as stainless steel frets. If you use your instrument a lot, you might need to replace the frets after a few years. But this is unlikely as most people change instruments before this happens.
Fret Size
Finally, let's talk about fret size. Some people prefer tall frets because it's easier to press the strings and perform bends since there's less friction against the fretboard. On the other hand, some people like shorter frets because they like to touch the fretboard when playing, or because they got heavy hands and tend to press too much on the string and alter the of the note pitch accidently.
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue's frets are Medium size. With medium frets, you can feel the fretboard more than with jumbo frets, but it's still easier to press the strings cleanly than with small frets; notes might change their pitch just slightly if you press hard on the fret. Also, if you need to do some fret leveling after years of playing, you'll have some room to sand them down without having to replace them.
Playability Score
Does the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue Sound Good? Tone Analysis
Wood will have little influence in the final tone of an electric guitar. Instead, the hardware, especially the pickups, will be the most important thing to look at. Bur first, let's see the quality of the wood.
Wood Used in the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue
Limba Body and Neck: Available in either black or white, it's a type of wood with beautiful natural patterns decorated with long dark chocolate stripes. As a tonewood, it is comparable to Mahogany but with more mid-tones.
Rosewood Fretboard: Since the ban of Brazillian Rosewood, this has become a rare and expensive wood. It's not usually used for guitar bodies because of this, and also because it's heavy. Instead, it's used mainly for fretboards. Sometimes it's also used for necks because it's an extremely hard wood (even harder than maple). Its tonality tends to favor warm tones.
Pickups
This guitar comes with pickups from one of the top brands: Gibson Custom. So you can expect well built pickups with great sound that shouldn't need an upgrade anytime soon.
These are passive pickups, so you can expect a moderade level of hot output instead of the overwhelming output that distinguises active pickups in metal.
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue's configuration is HH. With this pickup combination, you'll get warmer tones and more output than using single coils. Humbucker pickups cancel the noise that single-coil suffer from, which also results in a warmer tone. This pickup combination isn't only for high-gain music like Hard Rock or Heavy Metal. Their warmness is also popular for Jazz, Indie, R&B, Blues and more.
More guitars with the same pickups
Versatility
It comes with the popular 3-way switch that is present in most guitars. For more versatility, guitarists tend to prefer a 5-way switch, although it all depends on what you want to use your guitar for.
Unfortunately, it doesn't come with more options for coil split or coil tapping. This makes it less versatile than some competitors.
Diagram
What music genre is the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue good for?
As a 6 strings, Solid Body guitar with HH configuration and Passive pickups, we'd recommend it for genres like Hard Rock or similar. However, you can use almost any guitar for any genre. This is just the typical type of music for this kind of guitar.
Sound Score
How well is the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue Built?
Where is the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue Made?
Knowing where the guitar is produced is a good way to know how well it's built. Some manufacturing countries are known for having higher quality standards. For example, most expensive guitars are made in the US or Japan, but there are some exceptionally great countries—like South Korea—that are building a good reputation.
The Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue is made in United States. Guitars made in the USA have the reputation of being the best instruments you can get. This statement isn't as accurate as a few years ago, but you should still expect top-quality from a guitar made in this country.
Bridge
ABR-1: The advantage of fixed bridges is that they don't require any kind of set-up. This makes it extremely easy when changing strings because you don't need to adjust anything besides tuning the guitar. Also, the fact that the bridge is directly attached to the body will help to increase sustain. The disadvantage is the lack of versatility since you can't create the same vibrato effects as with tremolo bridges.
Nut Material
Another important thing to analyze is the nut material, as it's one of the most important aspects that can affect the sound and playability of your guitar. A well-cut nut will make sure the guitar stays in tune and will make it more comfortable to play.
In this case, the Gibson Custom 1958 Korina Explorer Reissue has a Nylon nut. It's an extremely resistant material with very low friction, so it's great for guitar nuts. It will last for a long time and won't get your guitar out of tune. It's not found in most modern instruments only because it's difficult to work with for the luthier due to its hardness, so you'll find it mostly only in vintage guitars.
Neck Joint
The neck joint is the part where the neck of the guitar meets the body. There are three main techniques to attach both parts together: Set-In, Bolt-On and Neck-Through. The latter two provide different advantages, although neck-throughs are the most expensive.
This guitar has a Set neck joint. This type of neck joint consists of using different pieces of wood for the neck and the body of the guitar. Both pieces are then glued together. This is more expensive to make than a bolt-on neck, but it's cheaper than a neck-through guitar. Some people believe that this gives more sustain than a bolt-on neck due to both pieces having a 'better connection' than with bolts. Still, it's something difficult to prove.
However, this type of neck joint does have the disadvantage of not allowing you to easily swap the neck for another. This makes this type of neck joint less mod-friendly.
Build Quality Score
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