Archtop curious

[Alan Carruth]

A good archtop excels at what could be called 'clarity' or 'resolution': you can hear all the notes in a chord. Inner voice changes can really stand out, which is one reason archtops are so widely used in Jazz. A good one will also have an 'even' sound: any note sounds the same no matter which string or position you play it at; again, really useful in Jazz, where they want you to hear the one note that has ben changed and not notice the fact that they shifted up five frets.

Many modern archtops have really large sound holes, which shifts the 'main air' resonance upward in pitch by a lot. This produces a 'forward' or 'projecting' timbre, with a loss of 'warmth'. The older Gibsons had smaller holes, and a lower 'air' pitch, and tend to work better for the earlier Jazz and acoustic stuff, IMO.

Round or oval hole archtops sound somewhere in between regular flat tops and F-hole models. I've used that on a few archtop Classical guitars with good results.

For structural and acoustic reasons you can only enlarge a flat top a certain amount before you lose sound. You seldom see a flat top wider than 17" and it can be challenging getting a 'clear' and 'balanced' sound out of anything much bigger than 16". This does not seem to be the case with archtops. I've seen those up to 19" across, and even more in some old Gibson harp guitars. They tend to sound fine, but are a challenge to play!

I'll never forget the time my first archtop came in for some setup adjustments before the owner went in for a big studio gig. Every fret was worn the same under every string, all the way up. I said: "I've never seen anybody play all the notes like that!", to which he replied: "Well, they're there...".

[zuzu]

Fun thread! And some mighty fine picking and singing Mr. beaumont and Robin, Wales! Well, I'm no longer curious, I will get an archtop. But don't hold your breath...I think my budget allows me to include some vintage archtops in my parameters. I usually prefer new guitars purchased from dealers with liberal return policies, but, several times throughout this summer I will be driving to or through big east coast cities. On those journeys I plan to explore the vintage archtop market in person, as I am not about to purchase a vintage guitar without trying it first.

The obvious difference in sound from a flattop and the tendency toward greater projection of an archtop is enough to sell me on the idea of exploring these guitars myself, but I don't want to get overly motivated about it. I am prepared to put down a fair piece of change for one, and I want to make sure it is exactly the one I want.

Thanks All !

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

...I'll never forget the time my first archtop came in for some setup adjustments before the owner went in for a big studio gig. Every fret was worn the same under every string, all the way up. I said: "I've never seen anybody play all the notes like that!", to which he replied: "Well, they're there...".

The mark of a musician, rather than a "guitar player"...

Probably real clean to boot - just some handwear along the entire length of the neck and age-related tarnishing of metal parts, minus the scratches/scrapes/gouges/divots/impact cracks/buckle rash etc. some folks like to call "mojo" - and I'll bet it had that elusive archtop "tone you could eat with a spoon" as well...

[rollypolly]

To the poster who mentioned looking at L-48s, it’s definitely one of those try before you buy guitars. Maybe you already are familiar with them, but they’re all laminate and the tone is not what you’d want to eat with a spoon, more like a baby spoon. It has its place, mostly for rhythm playing, very subdued and warm, like the archtop version of an LG-0. If you value tone I’d recommend a solid top instead.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by zuzu

Fun thread! And some mighty fine picking and singing Mr. beaumont and Robin, Wales! Well, I'm no longer curious, I will get an archtop. But don't hold your breath...I think my budget allows me to include some vintage archtops in my parameters. I usually prefer new guitars purchased from dealers with liberal return policies, but, several times throughout this summer I will be driving to or through big east coast cities. On those journeys I plan to explore the vintage archtop market in person, as I am not about to purchase a vintage guitar without trying it first.

The obvious difference in sound from a flattop and the tendency toward greater projection of an archtop is enough to sell me on the idea of exploring these guitars myself, but I don't want to get overly motivated about it. I am prepared to put down a fair piece of change for one, and I want to make sure it is exactly the one I want.

Thanks All !

The projection is an interesting thing too...

much louder out in front than to the player.

And do everything you can to not have the back of the guitar against your body. That back needs to be free to do it's job!

[RLetson]

A good archtop can produce more interesting and varied sounds than one might think, despite the way their typical tonal characteristics are usually described: loud, mid-rangey, with short decay. Those departures from the acoustic flat-top sound are part of the reason orchestral archtops found a place in swing rhythm sections--they fit right into a space that doesn't fight with the piano, bass, and drumkit, and in a small combo one can stand in for the drums while also comping like a piano. (BTW, the description in Al Carruth's first paragraph matches what I hear.)

I've owned five archtops over the last couple decades and played a lot more, and the best ones are as responsive* as anybody could want and capable of sweetness as well as thunk and brassiness. The mediocre ones are usually just brassy or brash, with insufficient low end. FWIW, much the same thing can be said of Selmer-style petite-bouche guitars--the mediocrities are way too dry, with way too much treble.

Mr. Beaumont's old Kay is a surprisingly good example of an inexpensive model (and nicely played, too)--the utility archtops I try are generally banjo-y. But then, they're also usually not well set up, and with way-too-light strings (often flat-wounds). One would have to play a lot of old wall-hangers to find a good one, but they're clearly out there.

A good archtop can be fingerpicked, though only a very good one will respond with the subtlety of a decent flat-top. I think my Tom Crandall is one such, and my Eastman 805CE is a close runner-up. Of course, tastes vary. I got to spend an afternoon at Tom's shop, playing all manner of classic orchestral archtops, and many of them sounded way too trebly to me--a lot like the sound on the Norm's videos. Tom's explanation was that that was the sound a lot of players were looking for. Later, Tom handed me a 1929 L-5 that floored me--it did all the rhythm stuff and begged to be fingerpicked as well. It can't be just a matter of the basic build formula, since I have a Loar 600-VS modeled on the old L-5 formula. It's a perfectly respectable rhythm guitar, but not a patch on that '29 example, or on a '32 L-10 that I played next. It's the way carving and bracing is managed in voicing the instrument.

In any case, the acquisition formula is the same as for any guitar: ears and hands, supported by the wallet. Though sometimes you need to hear *through* how a guitar is sounding to imagine how it might sound when properly set up and strung. That's a matter of lots of sampling and listening.

* A measure of how much right-hand effort is needed to produce a given volume and texture of sound.

[Alan Carruth]

That first archtop was an experiment of sorts, built for a friend. I'd been working with Carleen Hutchins on violins for a couple of years, and my friend helped me take the plunge into archtop guitars. He traded it off to his teacher, Randy Roos, in exchange for lessons, and bought another from me.

Randy said that it took him three months to learn to play it. Eventually he realized that he had to treat it more like a Classical guitar than most archtops, and when he did he found he could get quite a range of tones from it. In the end he sold off nine other guitars that he didn't need any more, and that was the only acoustic he played for years. Finally, he had me make him a flat top.

Randy did a lot of recording with that guitar, so it's possible you may have heard it, probably without knowing it.

One curious thing about that archtop was that, when I first strung it up, it sounded terrible. I'd been in the shop all day working on it, and brought it up to my dining room, which was warmer, to put on the strings. It sounded so bad I darn near threw it out in the snow and went to bed. The next morning it sounded so much better I was glad I hadn't. That's the only guitar I ever made that did that.

BTW, the B&S wood on that is some nice mahogany: it was what I had on hand, and I didn't want to pay the ransom for a 'real' set of maple for an experiment.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

... BTW, the B&S wood on that is some nice mahogany: it was what I had on hand, and I didn't want to pay the ransom for a 'real' set of maple for an experiment.

No explanation needed: FWIW Epiphone used mahogany sides/backs on their postwar Devon (TMK until the move to Philadelphia circa 1953), the original Heritage Eagle was all-carved mahogany (with spruce top as a special-order option), and the current Eastman AR610 - designed by late Epiphone guru Jim Fisch - is for all intents and purposes a modern-day version of a circa-1950 Devon. Personally, I always liked the tone: once they settle in a bit they have a mellow, "old" sound that often takes years for a more conventional maple guitar to develop - small wonder flattop players who prefer buying new favor them as transition instruments...

[Bluemonk]

Originally Posted by rollypolly

To the poster who mentioned looking at L-48s, it’s definitely one of those try before you buy guitars. Maybe you already are familiar with them, but they’re all laminate and the tone is not what you’d want to eat with a spoon, more like a baby spoon. It has its place, mostly for rhythm playing, very subdued and warm, like the archtop version of an LG-0. If you value tone I’d recommend a solid top instead.

If you've ever played a Roger Borys laminate, you may change your tune.

[mr. beaumont]

Laminate is definitely not a dirty word in the archtop community, though I normally equate laminate topped archtops as being predominantly electric guitars.

For a plugged in tone, laminate can often be desirable.

That said I have played laminate archtops with a pleasing unplugged sound, they just generally don't have the volume or projection of a solid topped archie.

[Dave Richard]

I own and have owned many NY Epiphone acoustic archtops, with both carved and laminate backs(all NY Epiphone acoustic archtops had carved tops). IME, the laminate back examples(the lower and mid-price models, Olympic, Zenith and Blackstone) have excellent projection and volume, the volume sometimes seemingly exceeding that of same or larger Epi models. Delightful instruments, all of them.

Other brands of laminate back archies can certainly be hit or miss.

[L50EF15]

Adding to the other posts about the different approaches between an archtop and a flattop, you might might find this interesting and useful:

https://youtu.be/EOaXOXE9ITg?si=x58i68c2G1qtAJAe

[Murphy Slaw]

Originally Posted by L50EF15

Adding to the other posts about the different approaches between an archtop and a flattop, you might might find this interesting and useful:

https://youtu.be/EOaXOXE9ITg?si=x58i68c2G1qtAJAe

That's a great 5 minute example.

[Nymuso]

Years ago I read that Grady Martin played an archtop on Marty Robbins' El Paso, but in reviewing current internet posts I see that claim is still being debated.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Nymuso

Years ago I read that Grady Martin played an archtop on Marty Robbins' El Paso, but in reviewing current internet posts I see that claim is still being debated.

Sure sounds like one to me.