You can't just play any kind of music on an archtop, can you!

[FloridaGull]

Indeed - they are all-laminate, made of wild cherry. I think the red one above has a flame maple top...

[pb+j]

Originally Posted by Daddyo

Can a laminate archtop with 2 pickups actually be called an acoustic archtop? Could you not plug into an amp and record the sound of it using a microphone and get any kind of usable tone? No. My point is the archtop is too broad a term. Most hollow body archtops today are really electric guitars so they have a wide palette of tones. An actual acoustic archtop even with a floating pickup is more limited. By the OP's broad term "archtop," the musical genres covered are broad. But if you narrow it down, there are limitations.

I would say yes, but of course some laminated guitars are more sensitive than others. An ES 175 has a pretty significant acoustic tone, even with a plytop and two pickups. Nobody doubts that a plywood Kay bass is an acoustic instrument--you find them in bluegrass jams all over the world

[Silly Moustache]

Even if you look at archtop guitar on Wikipedia you'll see a Gibson electric guitar.

To me this is not an archtop - it is a contoured body concealing a 4x4" block on which they have stuck some electrickery.

Obviously there are many fine musicians that have produced wondrous music on such instruments, but to me they are still - essentially electric guitars.

The "real" archtop however is an acoustic instrument - and was developed for a specific purpose - i.e. not a solo finger-picked guitar like the flat-topped guitar of the '10s & '20s but an alternative to the plectrum banjo as a rhythm instrument in jazz/dance bands.

Therefore all the design work went into producing a staccato rhythm instrument - and NOT a melody instrument.

A luthier friend of mine had just completed his first archtop guitar and wanted to compare it to a couple of items that I have at my Acoustic Music club. I took my 1934 Gibson archtop and a late '90s Eastman. Those who played the Gibson could not really get anything much out of it - because - they were accustomed (as am I) to responsive flat-tops, and I could see furrowed brows as they thought of polite things to say about an unimpressive vintage guitar.

I then showed them that it required a heavy pick - 2.00 m/m or more and that it required a certain style of playing - so I used a thick buffalo horn pick and thumped out a few basic closed chord sequences and it came to life and as it filled the room - I could see the effect on their faces. (I'm not talking about thrashing it - just playing it more definitely than one might play a good quality flat-top).

The Eastman is made for more generalist use and can respond to more gentle playing. This proved more popular, but I suspect that if played acoustically in a big band it would not cut through as well as the old Gibson.

If you think about it - in a flat-top we seek lightly braced thin tops for maximum tonal response, but in an archtop - it is pretty much the opposite - a hefty lump of (exquisitely carved) spruce that doesn't move until it receives a certain amount of energy put into it.

Of course you can electrify an acoustic archtop by adding a "floating pick-up which is suspended from the neck extension and so not restricting the movement of the top, but semi-acoustic electric "archtops" with p/ups screwed (screwed!) to the top are not really acoustic guitars but look like them because of their position along the evolutionary trail of the steel strung guitar - the addition (or extraction) of cutaways bear witness to the change is intended use.
You pays your money and takes your choice. I'm a traditionalist (a funny term for an Englishman to use about American instruments all less than a hundred years old) and I find the designs of flat-tops, archtops and mandolins as they would have been seen between 1920 and 1935 just "right" because they were made for very differing and specific applications.

Yes you can play any type of music on an archtop but you will find that the genre for which is was designed will show its qualities best. Same goes for 0,00,000 style guitars, and Dreadnoughts really doesn't it?

The odd one out is the "OM" which was a flat-top designed for a banjo player for dance band use and I don't think it really worked but excels as a finger-style instrument.

Ever marvel at the gut string guitar work in Marty Robbins' "El Paso?" I did. It floored me when I learned it was Grady Martin on an arch top. You can do whatever you want with whatever you use if you have the right hands.

[Kojo27]

Originally Posted by Mooh

Swing, blues, jazz, and any combination of those. Plus anything else that sounds new or refreshed by it. Fiddle tunes sound pretty cool on an archtop to my ears. Songwriting with it can lead a writer down new paths too. Fingerpicking works, even classical, particularly baroque pieces.

Ha! It's ironic to me that just today I've played, on my Loar LH-600, about thirty minutes of the venerable old fiddle tune, _Blackberry Blossom_, about ten minutes of _Soldier's Joy_ (not Clarence White's breakneck version, but one in D, no capo, that I like to improvise on a lot, such a cool tune. And, for more irony, I played a bit of a classical guitar "EZ" piece (but pretty, if I could play it better - lol) by Paganini, his Andante in A (transposed to D) and adapted, obviously.

The Loar guitars, imho (I also have an LH-700, which I gotta sell) fit great into a bluegrass band, or sound great solo. I like 'em for this stuff cuz they're so INCREDIBLY loud! The LH-600 might be a bit louder (or maybe more played in) and by itself, with the bass it also carries (not great, but good for an archie), it kinda takes up the range that's normally missing in a bluegrass band (the Cello part - it's "empty" in a traditional BG lineup) - and, as Ricky Skaggs has found out, really makes that ensemble sound way bigger.

Also, as Mooh points out, you can't forget Travis/Chet picking on these guitars. I played Freight Train, just goofing off - screwed up the ending, so played through again: this is a so-so recording done on a tiny handheld Sony mp3 recorder, don't expect great sound, but the 600 is fun, imo, for this music : ) Hope you like! https://app.box.com/s/f0u3zt46onwbcsok3iv2

KJ

[Kojo27]

Originally Posted by Daddyo

Can a laminate archtop with 2 pickups actually be called an acoustic archtop? Could you not plug into an amp and record the sound of it using a microphone and get any kind of usable tone? No. An actual acoustic archtop even with a floating pickup is more limited. By the OP's broad term "archtop," the musical genres covered are broad. But if you narrow it down, there are limitations.

That's interesting Dad - part about true acoustic archtops - are you saying they become more limited *because* of the floating pickup? How do you mean that, sir? I have one, has fair grade (not great, but fair) of carved solid spruce on carved solid maple b&s, with a Kent Armstrong floater -- and it does pretty good as an acoustic guitar... I'm just not sure what you're getting at, I guess. : )

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by StuartDay

...traditionally arch-top guitars have been used for jazz, big band, swing, blues, and any combination of those...but once you become comfortable with that I believe the arch-top offers some very subtle and nuanced tonal characteristics which you can't find in flat-tops (and vice versa of course) and that can expand your range as a player...archtops can be used for much more than Jazz and it may give you some ideas to play around with...

Although largely forgotten now there was a whole school of "serious" archtop guitar playing that flourished from about 1925-1940, even as the Loar-style instrument was rising to prominence in the world of popular music. Drawing on influences from the pre-Segovia American classical style (Foden, Bickford, et al.) and late-Romantic composers as well as jazz, a number of players attempted (unsuccessfully) to advance the status of the archtop plectrum-style guitar to "legitimate" status in classical-music circles via transcriptions of the works of major composers as well as original compositions. FYI several of these are available on YouTube, and even after eighty or more years they still retain their artistic merit; one can only wonder what might have happened had the first-generation acoustic archtop (with its roots in the violin family), rather than the Torres-style instrument and its successors, gained acceptance as the standard "classical" guitar. FWIW Mel Bay publishes a collection of these transcriptions/originals under the title Masters of the Plectrum Guitar - I'd recommend it highly to any serious archtop aficionado...

[StuartDay]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Although largely forgotten now there was a whole school of "serious" archtop guitar playing that flourished from about 1925-1940, even as the Loar-style instrument was rising to prominence in the world of popular music. Drawing on influences from the pre-Segovia American classical style (Foden, Bickford, et al.) and late-Romantic composers as well as jazz, a number of players attempted (unsuccessfully) to advance the status of the archtop plectrum-style guitar to "legitimate" status in classical-music circles via transcriptions of the works of major composers as well as original compositions. FYI several of these are available on YouTube, and even after eighty or more years they still retain their artistic merit; one can only wonder what might have happened had the first-generation acoustic archtop (with its roots in the violin family), rather than the Torres-style instrument and its successors, gained acceptance as the standard "classical" guitar. FWIW Mel Bay publishes a collection of these transcriptions/originals under the title Masters of the Plectrum Guitar - I'd recommend it highly to any serious archtop aficionado...

very interesting. Thank you. I always love learning more about the history of these amazing instruments.

[kayakman]

I play anything my heart desires...on my Campellone Deluxe,all accoustic archtop!I am a happy fellow...It was well worth the money spent...

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by pb+j

Steve Howe played a Gibson ES-175 with Yes

He played one, but its sound was all wrong for me, even when I liked Yes. It always sounded grating and harsh to my ears.

[Sandy Shalk]

That Stuart Day has a fab acoustic tone.

[DesertTwang]

Check out Dave Rawlings. If it wasn't for him, I may never have gotten an archtop myself.

[tdq]

Kojo27, curious as to why you want to sell the Loar LH 700 and keep the LH 600? I've played a 700 but the 600 is way more manageable for me, price wise. I haven't tried a 600, but I have a 300. I was under the impression that the 700 was the superior guitar to the 600, at least spec wise. I wondered what the difference is, to you.

[Richard Mott]

Silly Mustache's post on archtop history was great, very thoughtful. Esp. this part:

"The "real" archtop however is an acoustic instrument - and was developed for a specific purpose - i.e. not a solo finger-picked guitar like the flat-topped guitar of the '10s & '20s but an alternative to the plectrum banjo as a rhythm instrument in jazz/dance bands.

Therefore all the design work went into producing a staccato rhythm instrument - and NOT a melody instrument."

My only thought is that this feels true about the early history of the archtop, but genesis is not destiny. D'Angelico began in the 1930s following the Gibson approach, but by the 1950s and maybe earlier was producing "a lap piano" archtop that was capable of lots more things. D'Aquisto took this even further with X-braced European maple that produced supple melody-oriented instruments. His later designs, especially the Centura were almost ethereal sounding.

With those latter developments, the archtop evolved beyond the staccato rhythm production of its early roots. The D'As and those that followed them produced guitars suited to anything. I was listening to some of the Four Seasons archtops being played on John Monteleone's website, and wow! More than four to the bar on those. --Richard