Why do so few pros play boutique guitars?

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

There's a difference saying about guitars 'it's a tool" and 'it's just a tool'.Of course it's a tool but when you spend the kind of money a lot of guys do on a guitar,it's not just a tool but a work of art they own or maybe even a status symbol for some.I don't know anybody puffing their chest out about their new hammer or leaf blower.

A leaf blower is rather something to be ashamed of anyway IMO.

[mr. beaumont]

There's a difference saying about guitars 'it's a tool" and 'it's just a tool'.Of course it's a tool but when you spend the kind of money a lot of guys do on a guitar,it's not just a tool but a work of art they own or maybe even a status symbol for some.I don't know anybody puffing their chest out about their new hammer or leaf blower.

What about a really sweet table saw?

[Christian Miller]

There's a difference saying about guitars 'it's a tool" and 'it's just a tool'.Of course it's a tool but when you spend the kind of money a lot of guys do on a guitar,it's not just a tool but a work of art they own or maybe even a status symbol for some.I don't know anybody puffing their chest out about their new hammer or leaf blower.

Tbf hammers don’t cost thousands of quid.

At least I don’t think they do? Maybe they do? Maybe there’s some super level of hammers that I’m unaware of where people write essays about the grip and what the head is made of. But somehow I doubt it.

Otoh I can totally imagine a photographer banging on a bit about their fancy new camera. according to one photographer I know they do it all the time and he finds it the most boring thing ever haha, he says it’s more the hobbyists than the pros though, which makes sense. The pros just want something that works better for what they do.

I don’t honestly think actual jazz guitar players see the instrument they play as much of a status symbol? Maybe if we were playing old Les Pauls which have that rock and roll mystique and so on. But a good archtop is more like a cello, and has equally niche appeal, other jazz players. Your average guitar player wouldn’t know what an archtop is, let alone what to do with one, let alone part with 10,000 + for one. And as for your normal humans, they of course do not have a clue or any interest at all.

Tbf I do like to shock normie guitarists by citing archtop prices. But they are still relatively cheap compared to professional cellos!

While we might all take an interest in someone’s fancy new guitar and coo over it, have a go etc, I think puffing one’s chest out about a new guitar is maybe more for the hobbyists?

I don’t mean to be mean btw, good on them! Working musicians tend to puff our chests out about other stuff. We all know Jim Mullen is better than us on an old Aria Pro haha.

Players tend to buy and part ex instruments from each other anyway, or maybe get a trade discount from an indie maker, unless we commission a new build (which is a rare and slightly nerve wracking process.) It’s just the way it is, we have a different set of priorities. One such thing is ‘can I justify the expense of this new guitar for the gigs I’m playing?’ ‘Should I hang on to my old one, or trade in?’ And so on.

A big purchase usually necessitates a sale of something else. If you end up going down the straight-ahead route might end up with a single specialist instrument. Expensive yes, but so are several cheaper guitars…

But then I find the practice of posting pictures of a guitar without audio a bit baffling.


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[Christian Miller]

What about a really sweet table saw?

Now your talking

Maybe luthiers are really into stuff like that?


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[Flat]

Joe played L-4s, too (which are "fancy" 175s, sort of).

I had the great fortune to sit in on Joe's seminars at GIT around 1983, and I am pretty sure he had this L-4 (note the tailpiece). It is in the cover photo for To Jobim With Love, but I heard that he actually played the ES-175 on the recordings.

(To Jobim With Love is a really great CD, btw. My favorite Diorio recording.)

[nyc chaz]

Tbf hammers don’t cost thousands of quid.



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You kind of just made by point for me.Hammer's are just a tool.If you spend thousands on a guitar you are not buying it just as a tool.You are buying it for other aesthetic reasons whatever they might be.As you stated,people post their new guitar and people ooh and aah but most of the time we never get to hear it.People admire the look of it which makes it more than a tool,because by not hearing it we cannot judge it as a tool but only how it looks.I don't know anybody who spends big money on a guitar and just think of it as a tool,they also want it to be visually pleasing to them,whether it be a relic or a brand new shiny Benedetto.

[Stringswinger]

For me, guitars are a tool to make music with, and they are also artwork.

I have 21 guitars. I really only need two to use as tools (an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar), the rest is my art collection. Besides, being true to one guitar means being untrue to all the rest.

[Archie]

I’m not even sure what you’re talking about in many respects here.

First, Joe Pass continued to often play his custom thinner ES-175 right up to the end of his life. He didn’t “move away”. Herb Ellis only stopped playing his ES-175 publicly during a stint with an exclusive Aria contract, and went straight back to it afterward.

I also am not quite sure what you mean by D’Aquisto style 16”. Could you share some examples?

Lastly, what do you mean by “successful” and “popular”. I find it hard to imagine any archtop that has been more of either of those descriptors than the 70 straight year in production ES-175.


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You could argue (correctly imo) that Joe Pass’s Gibson custom is not a 175. A 175 is a full depth 16” archtop. So yes, he did move away from the 175. You could say it’s a thin-line 175 but it has more in common with an 165, as it had only has 1 pickup, which is another issue with the 175; it's heavy.
People will generally gravitate to playing the more comfortable guitar, lighter, thinner with not much depreciation in tone; less feedback, better upper fret access. These are all reasons to move away from the 175. Not to mention practicality (feedback) given that most Jazz is now played in small college and university rehearsal rooms.
Then there’s the price issue. It’s too expensive to take around. $3k + and a mac book pro is $2k

Regarding Herb Ellis, I did not say that everyone left the 175, I said the majority did.

A D’Aquisto style is essentially any 16” Ibanez post 1981. The main attributes would be a thinner body, venetian cutaway, smaller neck heel, lighter, easier to play.
Other examples of thinner bodied archtops are Peerless, Heritage 575, modern Chinese Guilds. Then you have gb10’s, 20’s, 15’s, 200’s.
Really the only full depth 16” archtops in production are more or less copies of the Gibson 175.

Re: popular, I would of thought Ibanez sell more archtops in a year, than Gibson do in a decade. Sure would be interesting to see the stats.

[John A.]

About 75% of the players you mentioned, moved away to a smaller body or D’Aquisto style. Imo people who still play a 175, are like people who still drive classic cars. I respect it, you’re doing what you want, playing what you love but you're making sacrifices to do so.

I play a 175-sized guitar (a Seventy Seven), don’t find it in the least bit uncomfortable, don’t feel I’m making any sacrifices, and don’t buy that analogy. I also play a 335-sized guitar, a strat, and Les Paul, which are all heavier than the Seventy Seven. I’ll grant that the Strat is actually more comfortable than the others, but I’ve never had any trouble playing multi-hour gigs or practice sessions with any of them.

I don't think there’s any getting away from the fact that the 175 is a cheap plywood box, no matter how many beautiful paper thin decorative veneers ‘Gibson’ put on it.

And yet it sounds great, so let’s hear it for cheap plywood boxes. Makes you wonder why people bother with expensive solid wood ones.

I just can’t get over how crude the necks are.
I’m not debating their iconic status but this isn’t the 1950’s.

Look at the heel on these 175’s! You could carve another guitar out of that. I’ll accept that the neck and heel carves do vary.

What’s wrong with those neck heels? Please explain (they just look like neck heels to me, and I have no eye for neck-heel refinement).

[bluejaybill]

As you know, for a lot of people on the forum it is not the tool of their trade. And I don’t judge people for buying and appreciating nice things. They have a different relationship. The guitar for them represents leisure time and the outlay of a lot of money for something inessential that they love. It’s a different thing.

Hence all this stuff about ‘would I play this guitar on a gig?’ honestly, while I know some pro players who won’t take their vintage guitars on the tube like I do, I think the idea of not playing a guitar on a gig would be weird - unless it had very specific sentimental value (I know some examples on JGO). They are tools for making music. (Maybe you could justify having studio only guitars if you had enough space and you were doing lots of recording.)

I’ve posted pics of my guitars occasionally. They are nice objects. Of course.

And yet if you said that to me, I’d agree with you. I think most players would.

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Some of us are somewhere in the middle. I was a pro player for about 15 years, and then I segued over to other aspects of the music business.

At that point the role of guitars changed for me, and I was focused more on studio work. So I needed a wider range of guitars that would cover the work I was doing. That's when I accumulated a small group of good guitars. I still performed live, but it was no longer my meal ticket, though I still used any guitar I had for live playing.

Now I'm not playing live so much, and many of the guitars I played live are frankly now valuable vintage things, I suppose I could still gig them if I had a project that they were need for, I just would feel more of a need to be careful with them.

Similarly I had a nice custom arch top made (Campy), and of course it's beautiful and sounds beautiful, and I've been recording a lot with it. I have another guitar, a laminate, the might be better for live gigging if one comes up (not so precious and more feedback resistant). In this I think I am like many pro jazz players, who have a guitar for gigs and maybe a special one for home, practicing and recording. Many of the classic jazz players had or have a D'Angellico that they left at home except for special recordings. Even Julian Lage has a special vintage telecaster that he has replaced with a Natcho duplicate. Nothing wrong with that.

So you might not see some of these players live with their "A" instrument, particularly if they are flying. Doesn't mean they don't have one stashed at home!

[jads57]

Times are different now in so many ways. Most of the traditional Jazz Pros had a more Le Sais Fair attitude about their tools of choice. Sure there were D’Angelico and D’Aquisto guitars along with a few others Bill Barker, etc. But for the most part it was Gibson and Epiphone and later Guild Guitars.

And none of these instruments were commanding today’s super high prices. I remember being able to buy a vintage Blonde 40’s L-5C Non cutaway in 1974 for $500. And others as well.
There weren’t that many wealthy people trying to acquire collectors Jazz guitars at that time.

So most of the players gravitated to the ES-175 or ES-335 to have one instrument that covered most all of their needs. There were perhaps only one boutique amp maker Benson. And Howard Roberts was the artist who introduced that.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Times are different now in so many ways. Most of the traditional Jazz Pros had a more Le Sais Fair attitude about their tools of choice. Sure there were D’Angelico and D’Aquisto guitars along with a few others Bill Barker, etc. But for the most part it was Gibson and Epiphone and later Guild Guitars.

And none of these instruments were commanding today’s super high prices. I remember being able to buy a vintage Blonde 40’s L-5C Non cutaway in 1974 for $500. And others as well.
There weren’t that many wealthy people trying to acquire collectors Jazz guitars at that time.

So most of the players gravitated to the ES-175 or ES-335 to have one instrument that covered most all of their needs. There were perhaps only one boutique amp maker Benson. And Howard Roberts was the artist who introduced that.

It's "laissez-faire attitude".

[jads57]

Pardon my French! I’m old and bad with spell check,Lol!

[Christian Miller]

You kind of just made by point for me.Hammer's are just a tool.If you spend thousands on a guitar you are not buying it just as a tool.You are buying it for other aesthetic reasons whatever they might be.As you stated,people post their new guitar and people ooh and aah but most of the time we never get to hear it.People admire the look of it which makes it more than a tool,because by not hearing it we cannot judge it as a tool but only how it looks.I don't know anybody who spends big money on a guitar and just think of it as a tool,they also want it to be visually pleasing to them,whether it be a relic or a brand new shiny Benedetto.

I think you are reaching a bit with this one tbh, or perhaps didn’t understand my post. There are many professional tools that cost large amounts of money. What about the tools used to create a guitar?

It’s perfectly normal to think guitars are purty. I think what I’m trying to get across is that the relationship between a professional musican and an instrument is primarily one of ‘what can this do for my music?’. Which is to say, it’s the tool of an artisan. You might have a lot of love for that tool, but that love is founded on how well it works for your music making.

I don’t know many pros who would buy a relic guitar. They get reliced if you like them anyway….

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[lorenkii]

Not sure if I count, but to get back to the original post, I find many boutique guitars much more lively and beautiful sounding at home, but less forgiving in a club. I still end up bringing a es-175 (or wishing i had) on most gigs. They’re predictable and they tend to work in more rooms and situations. Also, less cost and risk is a factor too.

[Christian Miller]

Not sure if I count, but to get back to the original post, I find many boutique guitars much more lively and beautiful sounding at home, but less forgiving in a club. I still end up bringing a es-175 (or wishing i had) on most gigs. They’re predictable and they tend to work in more rooms and situations. Also, less cost and risk is a factor too.

Interesting.

Yeah I find my Gibsons really reliably good sounding live. Predictable is a good way of putting it. It's not so much that they sound the best, but rather they sound consistent.

[DawgBone]

There's a difference saying about guitars 'it's a tool" and 'it's just a tool'.Of course it's a tool but when you spend the kind of money a lot of guys do on a guitar,it's not just a tool but a work of art they own or maybe even a status symbol for some.I don't know anybody puffing their chest out about their new hammer or leaf blower.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The whole vintage Anvil thing has gotten pretty big lately and truthfully some of those ARE something a blacksmith or other serious metal worker would def be bragging about on a forum. New Old Anvil Day.

[tbeltrans]

When I was working as a musician, it often (not always) seemed to me that the hobby players we met in each town had much nicer guitars than I or the guitar players in the other touring bands we hung out with in the town, had. Most of us stayed in the same shitty hotel until we worked our way up to getting rooms as part of the deal. Others traveled in buses. Met quite a few famous (or became famous later) musicians on those buses that they traveled in back then (1970s). Somehow, all the musicians gigging in a certain town at the same time would find each other and have some good jams. So I saw a lot of players with their guitars.

For many years now (since the early 2000s), I have not been playing out at all and I have a mint 1995 Gibson Citation and I never met a touring musician who had something like that (well, Ted Nugent played a Gibson archtop as I recall). So I became one of "them" (hobby player with a good job outside music) - in fine style.

Tony

[Archie]

I think you are reaching a bit with this one tbh, or perhaps didn’t understand my post. There are many professional tools that cost large amounts of money. What about the tools used to create a guitar?

It’s perfectly normal to think guitars are purty. I think what I’m trying to get across is that the relationship between a professional musican and an instrument is primarily one of ‘what can this do for my music?’. Which is to say, it’s the tool of an artisan. You might have a lot of love for that tool, but that love is founded on how well it works for your music making.

I don’t know many pros who would buy a relic guitar. They get reliced if you like them anyway….

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Don’t talk about large sums of money spent on tools to make guitars. You're giving me flash backs.

[John A.]

I’m one of those in-betweeners. I do some paid performing, and take music more seriously than recreation/hobby, but I don’t make a living at it. I’d have a hard time bringing myself to spend $5k on a guitar, and not because I couldn’t come up with that much money. I just don’t think it’s necessary, and I have been very happy with what I’ve found for much less.


I’m around a fair number of full time pro jazz players. I actually don’t think attitudes about fancy/expensive vs utlilitarian/affordable do break down neatly along pro vs amateur lines. I think there are frugal and extravagant people on both sides of the line.

[Archie]

I play a 175-sized guitar (a Seventy Seven), don’t find it in the least bit uncomfortable, don’t feel I’m making any sacrifices, and don’t buy that analogy. I also play a 335-sized guitar, a strat, and Les Paul, which are all heavier than the Seventy Seven. I’ll grant that the Strat is actually more comfortable than the others, but I’ve never had any trouble playing multi-hour gigs or practice sessions with any of them.


And yet it sounds great, so let’s hear it for cheap plywood boxes. Makes you wonder why people bother with expensive solid wood ones.



What’s wrong with those neck heels? Please explain (they just look like neck heels to me, and I have no eye for neck-heel refinement).

All fair points.

Of course this is personal opinion and I wouldn't begrudge someone loving them some 175. I play big 17” archtops so I’m being somewhat hypocritical .
I think for me, the top of the upper bout on the backside, just digs into my sternum and annoys me, so it is personal.
The neck heel on many 175’s (of course they can vary over the years), can be really big and cumbersome. They have a very pronounced curve to them, that comes out some way from the body, restricting upper fret access; which is odd given the choice of cutaway.
I think laminate jazz box’s are great, I just think Gibson should whack a D’Aquisto neck heel on there, if they want to charge $4k +.
But I get that some/many may like that style. It might be what they've come to know as ’that feel’ and it might not bother them at all. It might be that the ones I’ve run into are usually later examples post 90’s. The heel on the 70’s examples are much squarer and smaller.

The point I’m driving at, for at least myself, is that I wouldn’t be as happy, if all I was stuck with, was a 175. I’ve had a lot of fun with them but I’ve moved on. I prefer the D’Aquisto feel and sound. Whilst not as rich as the 175, when plugged in, it doesn't matter.

I’m hoping I didn't just open another debate on amplified tone

[Hammertone]

You kind of just made by point for me.Hammer's are just a tool.If you spend thousands on a guitar you are not buying it just as a tool.You are buying it for other aesthetic reasons whatever they might be.As you stated,people post their new guitar and people ooh and aah but most of the time we never get to hear it.People admire the look of it which makes it more than a tool,because by not hearing it we cannot judge it as a tool but only how it looks.I don't know anybody who spends big money on a guitar and just think of it as a tool,they also want it to be visually pleasing to them,whether it be a relic or a brand new shiny Benedetto.

Er, ah...

[Stringswinger]

@Archie, here is the heel on my 1997 ES-175DN. It doesn't get any better for me.

[Archie]

@Archie, here is the heel on my 1997 ES-175DN. It doesn't get any better for me.

That’s not a bad one SS; I’d be happier with that.

[John A.]

All fair points.

The neck heel on many 175’s (of course they can vary over the years), can be really big and cumbersome. They have a very pronounced curve to them, that comes out some way from the body, restricting upper fret access; which is odd given the choice of cutaway.

My Seventy Seven has a fairly bulky heel, which I think is necessitated by the chunky neck. It doesn’t bother me. Realistically if I can reach the 17th or 18th jfret on the E and B, that’s all I
Need

I think laminate jazz box’s are great, I just think Gibson should whack a D’Aquisto neck heel on there, if they want to charge $4k +.
But I get that some/many may like that style. It might be what they've come to know as ’that feel’ and it might not bother them at all. It might be that the ones I’ve run into are usually later examples post 90’s. The heel on the 70’s examples are much squarer and smaller.

The point I’m driving at, for at least myself, is that I wouldn’t be as happy, if all I was stuck with, was a 175. I’ve had a lot of fun with them but I’ve moved on. I prefer the D’Aquisto feel and sound. Whilst not as rich as the 175, when plugged in, it doesn't matter.

I’m hoping I didn't just open another debate on amplified tone

The only D’Aquisto I’ve tried is a Jazz Line. I don’t specifically remember the neck heel. IIRC, the tone was on the brighter side for a lam archtop, but a good sound.