Flat top guitars sound lame to me
I hope the title of this thread isn't too snarky, because it's not intended as such. It's just an observation about how my perception of acoustic guitars has changed over the years.
Years ago, my main experience with acoustic guitars was with flat tops. When I started working at a guitar repair shop in 1995, I had the opportunity to work on some archtops - some nice ones, and some that were not so nice. My general impression at the time was that archtops were thin sounding and and had weak bass response. Around that time, friends were turning me on to some good jazz, so I got to hear how a good archtop sounds in the right hands, and my fascination with archtops began. I began to hear the beauty in their tone - the subtle responsiveness, the way they bark when you chomp out Freddie Green chords. No flat top can sound like that. I realized that archtops can sound heavenly if you play them just right. Since then I've acquired some good sounding vintage archtops, and sold off my flat top guitars. At some point along the way, my ideal for what an acoustic guitar should sound like has changed to the point that now, most every flat top guitar I play sounds muddy, tubby, dark, unresponsive, mushy and ill-defined. Now I wonder what I ever saw in flat top guitars... I still work on guitars for a living, and don't get me wrong - every now and then a flat top comes across my bench that just floors me. But the average flat top just sounds bad to me. Any similar experiences? |
Well my parents use to cook with MSG, until they found out that it's not the best thing for heart health. So they stopped cooking with it, and we got used to the taste of food without it. So much that we liked it, and anything with MSG tasted wrong to us. So possibly it's the same thing going on here... or maybe a change in musical tastes...
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If, by "lame", you mean has dynamic range, I would agree.
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Flat tops sound lame...if you expect them to do what an archtop does.
The converse is also true. It's why I own both. |
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I still like flattops too. My Altamira Gypsy Jazz guitar is an interesting hybrid. Much better volume and tone than most any flattop I've played. Every so often I bring it to our bluegrass jam and show the Martin pickers what a banjo killer sounds like.
It's funny how we get bound by tradition. Someone decided that Martin was the standard for bluegrass, but they just can't hang with a fiddle, mandolin, banjo or dobro. Everyone has to back WAY off when the Martin picker takes a break. |
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Stop making sense. ; -) |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQTCITJmvlQ Sure, I'd wholehertedly agree that it'd dominate a Martin dread, but is the Martin's role to hold the middle to lower ground while the others, as would the Altamira, add color above it? |
Gypsy jazz guitars: upper mids and all fundamental, very dry.
Nothing like them. VERY fun guitars, and as loud as anything. |
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The wand is powerless without the right magician. The guitar is powerless without the right musician. |
Folks, I really get the impression from this and other threads that some folks don't learn/understand the design history of steel strung guitars and the work that was done in the main large companies to design and redesign instruments to meet the rapidly changing demands of popular music
Gibson was a mandolin company that redesigned the mando after violin family standards then applied the same logic to guitars. The Style "O" then the L-3,L04,L-5 l-7 etc. After tyhe L-3 (wide thick neck, 13 fret, round or oval hole prbably with rhthm for mando and banjo orchesras. As the Dance/Jazz bands rejected tenor banjo, theL-5 was designed - fine wods, carved topad back, beautiful design - but not for a solo player, or a finder picker. My'34 L-4 is a case in point - remarkably similar to the L-5 but not so fancy. It is an orchestra instrument - not intended o be subtle but incisive- notmuch bass but plenty of high middle. It would cut through a piano, bass and drums easly. It stated many other makers to compete. Martin tried to introduce archtops but they were not successful,so they tried to redesign the 12fret 000 and dreadnought for ochestral work - not a total success as they had too much sustain and unadequate cut through. The The did as rewquested by a banjo player and made a "OM" with skinny neck to 14tg and called it the OM as they also called heir first attempts of14fretreads. Niether did the job well soGibsons and Epis got gthe gigs. My archtop is voiced for cutting through,but ythe much later Eastman AR805 same woods is voiced to a later smoother sound and more like a flat top. Ironically many liked the OM for fingerstyle (despite the rhythm neck) and it became a favorite for fingerstyle so . The new dread also did well for a strumming box during the folks scare. It's about the tool for the job |
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