Michael, thanks for that...
Sean is a great guy, educator and player and you’ll have a ball in Colorado in September. I enjoy and own both luthier made archtops as well as flattops. As you know, they excel at differing timbral aspects. I also am a fan of piezoelectric / magnetic pickup combinations. Like Sean said, the piezo adds 10-20% of the signal by adding acoustic ambience to the main magnetic mix. I like the Barbera Soloist transducer because it is quiet with string noise and requires no preamp in the guitar.
Additionally, there is a world of hybrid instruments that fall in between archtops and flattops (e.g. oval hole archtops with tapered rims and flat backs and flattops with carved backs). Mine are all 1-3/4” nut widths with 25” to 25-1/4” scale lengths. If you come to Woodstock or Artisan I’d be happy to let you audition some. Lastly, those black Kent Armstrong 12-pole piece humbuckers and 6-pole piece single coils rule...
