Why aren't acoustic archtops more popular?
 

Is it because they are too expensive, or people simply aren't interested or no longer need them?

Gibson used to make a bunch of them but now we are left with the L7C and nothing else.

Feel free to share pictures of your archtop if you own one!

More than likely its because they're consider old guy's guitars.Being an owner of a few L7's and other archtops I still gig with mine.I just did a gig with a lap steel player doing jazz,western swing and some blue's plus other stuff.Played my L7 acoustically thru a mic and had a blast.Love the tone of a good archtop.

I think part of it being that people mainly use them to play various types of Jazz music. Jazz guitar is a hard style to learn and a good carved jazz guitar is very expensive so it really separates the men from the boys IMO. :)

I never played an archtop guitar whose tone appealed to me more than that of a flattop.

+1


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Interesting question. I love their look but they are pretty consistently on the expensive side. Also, I think of them as having a more percussive, punchy sound that works best for chords. This may be an incorrect inference from mandolins because I've only ever tried 1 or 2 archtop guitars and that was a loooooonng time ago. But as someone who flatpicks melodies, I've never thought of them as the right tool for that job. Maybe my prejudice against them is misplaced.

The main utilitarian reason archtop guitars were developed and used as extensively as they were during the Big Band era is that they had more "punch," volume porjection and could be heard over the massed brass instruments. While there are exceptions to the rule, most archtop guitars don't have the warmth of tone or sustain characteristics of flattop instruments - that gets sacrificed because of how the bridges on them transfer the sound to the top.

Now that there are other ways to get volume, such as electronic pickups, there's less need for the archtop's advantages, and its tonal attributes have turned it into what is now more or less a niche market instrument.

They're very cool for certain things, but generally are not as versatile as good quality flattops.

Generally - as noted, there are exceptions, and good players who favor them can do amazing things that you and I couldn't get out of the instrument.

As has been mentioned, cost is a factor, as well, though Godin has recently introduced a great inexpensive archtop that might do more than anything else to revive this design and reintroduce it to the general guitar-playing public.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

I love the way they look and sound, but they are just too expensive for me to realistically consider. I can get much more flat-top for my money than arch top.

Ditto. Love em and the hybrid versions some have come up with, as well. Just too costly for me personally to bite off - at least given that my main interest is fingerstyle stuff which benefits from various levels of "overtones" my limited experience with archtops has not shown me. Still - it would be cool to have a good one, and I may break-down sometime and do just that.

I just stumbled across the Godin 5th Avenue at...(gasp)Guitar Center and really thought it was a nice, and a very affordable archtop. However, I think the real allure is adding the P-90 pickup and I couldn't imagine buying one without it because my dreds just blow it away. That being said, there is something special about playing an electric that has a good acoustic response(just ask Ted Nugent). These 5th Avenues can be sweet and jazzy or just flat out raunchy with the right set-up. Tons of fun to record with, I suspect, with some effects software and a nice microphone. I will find out soon enough because I ordered one. Check them out.

http://www.godinguitars.com/godin5thavenuekingpinp.htm

http://www.godinguitars.com/godin5thavenuep.htm

Joe,
Fast forward to 3:40 on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Gho...eature=related

This is from Gibson's Golden Age of Archtops: A 1927 Gibson L-5, 16" with the Master Model label.

It does everything that flat top lovers say archtops can't do..........I paid $35 for it back in 1976.........

HE

The reason they are not widely used is because they are not very versatile guitars. As others have pointed out, they were mainly used to punch through the sound of big bands back in the day, and jazzers have long desired the archtop "sound". Most of the very first acoustics that were adapted with mag pick ups were archtops.

Acoustically, they do not produce the sound most flat pickers or fingerstylists desire. That is the heart of acoustic guitar sales.

Christian,
I think this woman is credited with starting bluegrass music or something like that........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewnfWoSQz3o

Flatpicking with her fingers.........She called it chicken-scratching or something like that.

Cutting through 2 other guitars, upright bass, snare drum and autoharp.

HE

Howard,

I cannot open the youtube link because of a firewall issue, but I bet I can guess who she is. I am not sure if your intent was critical of the statement I made about most flat pickers and fingerstylists not liking and not buying archtops, but they simpy don't like them and don't buy them and those players are the heart of the market.

If your intent was not critical - my apologies

You're correct: It's Mother Maybelle Carter playing her 1928 Gibson L-5, acoustically in a live ensemble setting. Wildwood Flower, of course.

Lot's of people played them back then but once they got pickups put on, the acoustic qualities really no longer mattered. In fact the deader they were made, the better they amplified with less feedback.

Good archtops were always more expensive than good flattops. They still are.

If you're familiar with Chet Atkins' early stuff, like Mainstreet Breakdown, you'll be interested to know he recorded that on a Gibson L-10, acoustic with a Bigsby.

I know you can't open it, but when you can here he is playing it in 1948:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ivv_p_RY_8&feature=fvw

Hand any good flat picker or finger picker A Good archtop and they love them.........They're just expensive, hard to find, or both.

My friend John Monteleone makes archtops that have every bit of the sustain that flat tops have with far more punch that any flat top has.........but they start at 30K.

And what about David Rawlings playing his 13" Epiphone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AchmYEqztWg

Best regards,
Howard Emerson