Thin/small bodied archtop suggestions

[upsidedown]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Going out on a bit of a limb here, may I recommend a carbon fiber archtop that fits the OP's specs in price and size?

My daily go to guitar is currently my Emerald Kestrel

That's a beauty!

Can I ask, how exactly is the pickup attached to the fretboard?

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by upsidedown

That's a beauty!

Can I ask, how exactly is the pickup attached to the fretboard?

The neck pickup is attached to the top by a couple of rubber or fiber pieces. It appears to me to be 3 pieces of some kind of fiber or hard rubber maybe an in ch or an inch and a half long and a half inch or so wide and maybe 1/4" thick that are probably glued to the top and then to the pickup. I don't think the pickup is attached to the end of the fretboard, but can't be certain. It seems to be quite stable though.

The piezo pickup consists of 6 separate pieces instead of a saddle. I can see the individual wires going down into the body of the guitar and there is a preamp somewhere inside, with separate volume controls for each pickup discreetly mounted inside the F hole closest to the player. The piezo pickup, Emerald says, is a Ghost pickup and the humbucker is a custom Krivo. Both pickups work together with a single 1/4" connection on the side of the guitar along with a 9v battery compartment for the Ghost preamp.

You can select which pickups you want on their 3D custom design page. There is apparently also a midi pickup available. I assume it would present the Roland 13 pin plug configuration.

I purchased this guitar on their 25% off 25th anniversary sale, during which they put all their in stock instruments on sale, so I didn't get to use the 3D customization page. I took what they had in stock. I am glad I did because I probably would not have chosen to include the Ghost piezo pickup. I think that pickup adds a lot to the overall sound, so not choosing to add that would have been a mistake in my opinion.

The wood in the top is a paper thin veneer that really looks nice and, as I understand it, does little or nothing to alter the overall acoustic sound of the instrument. It is essentially a part of the carbon fiber, so it is not at all exposed to the elements.

I also own two Emerald X20 models, one is a 6 string and one is a 7 string, and neither has that wood veneer. These I bought locally used at very good prices compared to buying new.

I also have a 7 string traditional wood archtop made by Jimmy Foster, who died in 2011 so there aren't any more of these being made. I see these occasionally on reverb.com in the $12k range, so I intend to hang on to this one because I wouldn't be able to replace it if I later had seller's remorse.

Tony

[upsidedown]

Thanks. Checked out a few videos of the Emerald. Very nice.

-- please see PM.

[tbeltrans]

Here are shots of how the Krivo pickup is installed. Hope that helps.

Tony