Hi all, I'm new to this forum so go easy on me
I've been playing "Carter scratch" style guitar for several years and I'm finally trying to put together a unique (maybe strange?) one-man-band setup to play out. I'll be sitting over top of an 18" kick drum while also playing guitar, singing, and whistling. I mostly do old time standards (Carter Family, Dock Boggs, Clarence Ashley, Roscoe Holcomb) but I write some as well.
I want to play an archtop partially for the look, but I also love the sound of the late 20s Carter Family records. However I don't have tons of $$ to spend on an old L5. I want to use this
KK Sound pickup, and ideally run it through a
Sansamp Para Driver and into an
Ampeg PF-20t tube bass head and
PF-115HE cab (I already have all that stuff). I want to get warm, deep, thick sound, but also gritty and slightly aggressive (i.e. a little overdriven).
I recently picked up
this SS Stewart guitar hoping that it'd be a budget solution, but I've been wrestling with playability issues that I'm ill-equipped to fix and I don't want to sink hundreds into it (original bridge had buzzing on high strings, bought replacement but after sanding as much as possible the action is still too high for anywhere close to decent action and intonation). My question is this: can you recommend an archtop that would have the right sound for what I'm going for that would ideally be less than $1,000? If that's not possible, then at least less than $1,500? I'm open to buying a new guitar even though I'd really rather be playing something from the 20s-50s if possible. Thank you!