Hi, despite owning three lovely archtop guitars, I am, very much a float-top flat-picker.
I tried to master (or rather serve) swing and western swing rhythms but, frankly pretty much failed.
My first was a 1966 Harmony Monterey -
Just a pressed top etc., but if you are comping ...it works.
After a few other attemps ampts - I got this:
An Eastman AR805e - fully acoustic carved top, with a floating p/up.
A completely different sound - more open .... good for anything but definitely a rounder more melodic, less incisive tone than this:
This was the fist year (I'm told) that the L-4 went to f-hole design. It isn't a strummer, less of a soloing instrument but very much an incisive rhythm guitar for chopping out comping. (in 2011, my teacher had a 1934 L-5, compared the two and said he couldn't tell the difference tonally).
Am I correct in assuming that when the Gibson L-model F-hole guitars came out they were designed to be incisive rhythm boxes, and that we we proceeded through the decades - archtops (acoustics) were built more lightly and became more resonant ?
Thanks in advance for your comments.