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What would the range of top thickness be for the optimum acoustic tone for an archtop guitar?
Less than 3mm, like a Johnny Smith?
It's seems to be a complex art.
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04-13-2025 06:59 AM
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There is no single answer GuyBoden. For instance a smaller body reacts and projects differently from a larger body. Wood choice and arching will also profoundly effect the way the top moves (and how much air it moves). Each player has a "touch" and range of amplitude their touch can effectively utilize, for example a finger style player can get more useable volume and range of harmonic sound activated with less string movement but an instrument that is optimum (thinner more responsive thickness) can be saturated by a heavy response of .14 strings played by Freddie Green.
Strings too will determine what the "sweet" range of sound and how much force needs to be applied to get the most sound.
Action too is going to effect the force vs sound curve. Higher action will be able to impart more amplitude but at the cost of a player's optimum playing zone.
Sorry to give such an elusive answer, but I truly believe the best match is when a player knows their own style and preferences and looks for a match of building construction. As an example, I tried a John D'Angelico New Yorker. Big and thick. It was a cannon with a thick pick and a hard and steady strum. I couldn't deny that it played like butter and sang with an uncanny articulation and clarity. But it wasn't at its best where I needed the action, string gauge and tension to be. It was perfect for larger band situations and played acoustic.
If you're going to play the guitar with a pickup, it's going to effect the touch you need, and the optimum thickness will change with the structural needs of supporting a built in humbucker or the more responsive attack you can get with a thinner top and a floater.
Eastmans and my late model Jimmy D' have very thin tops, relatively. I know some people with a heavier pick hand technique who find the Eastman responsive but not full enough for their style with a heavier mix of chord work. But they're perfect for me playing chord solo fingerstyle. I've also had pick players surprised at how much more they got from a top that is markedly thinner than what is accepted as conventional. This has to do with arching too.
The higher the arching is, the thinner you can go with the same amount of load. You can support the weight of a human on a popsicle bridge if the arching and load engineering are right. But one caveat and why thinner arching is more difficult to work with: Mass is linear and stiffness is exponential. That means you can remove material when approaching an optimum stiffness to weight ratio, a balance that will give you response less force. The more material you remove, the more you converge with that balance. You remove material and it's a linear function, you take wood off, it slowly makes the top lighter with each stroke. But stiffness is exponential to a piece of wood. You will not change stiffness for a long time of removal until you reach a fragile zone. Stiffness drops. The top comes alive. The sound opens up and it just gets better with planing... and then you reach the balance. Perfect! But two more strokes and you're way past where you were and the top is gonna get floppy faster than you can blink. And 6 weeks (or 6 months) of carving and sweat are down the tubes. THAT's why guitars get over built. Because the price of underbuilding, just a TINY amount, is catastrophic. How far do you go to the edge of the cliff to get a great view?
So yeah, 3mm? That's perfect. If you're building a guitar where all the factours fall in with that constant. A LOT of variables in building a good archtop. An indescribable number of things go into building a great one.
And one final post post... an instrument will change profoundly in its first 2 years of its life. It it's played a lot, it'll open up a lot. If it's just admired and cherished, it won't mature and it may even be detrimental (the actual curing time for lacquer, not to mention wood resins in a freshly carved top is LONG- compliancy and flexibility need to be worked into the node lines of the top and it is playing that does that), so what is optimum for a green guitar is not the same as the guitar after it is played in. An initially stiff and unpleasantly "forward" sounding guitar is a good sign in my book, because that "bark" mellows into definition and clarity when the body matures. But that requires the loving care and contribution of the player. So again, it gets more complex. Sometimes too much is just right when you take into account what love and care can add to the mix. Literally.
This is my observation based on experience and heartbreak and the joy of playing a good build. Good luck.
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So setting myself up for a stoning by the guitar worshippers: I regraduate tops. Yeah, I take instruments I feel to be overbuilt and I carve them remove material, scoop a reverse curve, scrape away wood where it's impeding a balanced nodal vibration. In other words, I can build a "tap tune" into an overbuilt guitar. The difference is astounding. But don't try this at home.
Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Just saying that one man's perfect build is another's project guitar. It's not just about the numbers when it comes to getting the most out of a piece of bookmatched wood.
And yeah, the regraduation is the easy (and fun) part. The nightmare is the refinishing that follows. Ugh!
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This. Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
And that's probably also a reason why acclaimed builders (can) raise their prices so quickly. Learning to walk that tight line can be a costly trial-and-error process...
It does make one wonder why more builders don't use a violin-style glueing method where the plates can be taken off. Not that I am aware of any violin luthiers who routinely fine-tune their plates after an initial playing-in period, but they could.
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Because a violin family instrument is played in a suspended (under the chin) orientation, and it doesn't matter if the end grain is unprotected because it's not a point of contact. In a guitar, the sides are in contact, in an average guitar's life it's constantly worn, banged, dinged, and traumatized through use, and that vulnerable end grain exposure that you can see in a violin's beautiful ledge becomes a fatal liability. Originally Posted by RJVB
Compromised end grain exposes the top to checking and inevitably lets the grain oxidize and split and split grain spreads like wildfire. End grain must be protected at all costs. In a violin, varnish on a protected non contact edge is fine and it allows for a finer varnish. On a guitar, it needs to be built as if the instrument is a weapon of war, so we bind it, seal it under coats of lacquer or drop it in a poly dip. To protect end grain.
You wouldn't believe how many times I wish I could just pop a back. Yeah.
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Be careful to distinguish between tone and volume.
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I have to wonder what "optimum acoustic tone" means. Acoustic archtops were originally designed to be loud and percussive, as a rhythm instrument in a big band. Is that what you're looking for? Originally Posted by GuyBoden
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Good point, that's probably not "optimum acoustic tone" for my ears. Originally Posted by dconeill
More like this sound.
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And optimum volume means thinner tops and backs? Which in turn leads to more and easier feedback when electrified?
I think I prefer the thicker plates of Gibson Johnny Smith vs the newer the Benedetto thinner ones which in turn translates to a flat top like response.
Less midrange and more pronounced bass and treble.
Im just a player and these are just my experience over the years and many guitars. So I defer to the experts who actually build and work on these.
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Optimum for acoustic tone is not likely to be optimum for amplified tone and playing. And what is optimum for me is not likely to be optimum for anyone else. How deep is the ocean and how high is the sky? The OP's question has no answer, or rather, an infinite number of answers. There are so many variables it's just not possible to say.
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The tops of carved tops guitars are graduated to a pattern. Normally each builder has a generally pattern and then varies depending on the customer wants or the builder. The 2 guitar builders I worked with had a set of 5 templates for the final graduation that occurs from the just inside the rim edge to the centerline. Each overlay was smaller than the previous and the wood was thinner with each template.
The braces and how they are carved is another aspect that is equally as important. Infact, I see may braces that are flat on the side facing out at what is 180 degrees. This baffles me because both Barker and Hollenbeck would then carve and trim the braces as they worked on the top. It was not a science it is art. Tapping and using tuning fork to see how the top responded and making adjustments. Not tuning to any specific note but using a folk to see where the top responded the best. Hollenbeck want the top to be most responsive over the bridge and saddle. Thickness of plates in general does not say a huge amount and it is all over the place.
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Erm, no?! Originally Posted by dconeill
To the best of my knowledge this is not the idea Gibson and Loar had; rather they wanted to create a versatile all-round instrument.
Using Chapdelaine as an illustration is a good example; Michael Watts has similar recordings. They illustrate the comparison between archtop and classical guitar that I've seen from enough people to think there's some truth in it (re. the immediacy of sound, the dynamic range, or even the theory that the archtop could have become a kind of "American classical guitar").
It happens they are good at being loud and percussive, they were probably always too expensive to catch on it other genres (Maybelle Carter notwithstanding), so they ended up being earmarked big-band/jazz "boxes" ...
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I know you know as well as I do Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
that the end-grain is oriented in a way that it actually gets a fair amount of abuse in violins and cellos, from humidity (from neck or calves, though that less in modern cellos) as well as from on the instrument's right shoulder, from the left hand. Plus, that nice overhang serves as "feet" and as a bumper, and shows the signs of that in most well-played older instruments. From what I've been told it's both the sides ("sticking into" the plates from the underside) and the purfling that act as barriers against cracks developing from the outside.
There are a few builders who use the violin method. I have no idea how their instruments age, but yeah, I can see how this approach isn't ideal in mass-production instruments. But I think we're also not really discussing those here...
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I thought about this a bit more. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Not that I've played a boatload of archtops, but the only one I ever played that sounded anything like your example was an Andersen Ovalhole, around 25 years ago. AFAIK Andersen isn't making archtops anymore.
Archtops are very complicated things. Rather than concentrate on a particular detail as the key to a particular sound, I think you have to look at the entire instrument. Maybe even at particular builders. And don't forget to bring your wallet, and your next-door neighbor's, too.
If the tone you're looking for is that of the posted example, I think you would profit by looking at some flattops. I've heard a number of flattops that have a sweet sound like the posted example. Something to look into, anyway.
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It is indeed almost inevitable to compare the sound of the two types of instruments if you're in fact looking for a more all-round instrument than a "jazz box". And there are evidently boatloads of recordings of very sweet sounding flattops. A somewhat affordable, "mass" production instrument that Is the Taylor 612, esp. the 12-fret version. It the familiar-to-us maple B&S, a good size that doesn't become overly large (more on that later) and the 12-fret design makes for deeper lows and a warmer sound than you'd otherwise get/expect. *) Originally Posted by dconeill
But ... if you want to go large-body in a flattop to get more volume or more bass, you inevitably get a cavernous quality to the sound, which can even sound hollow (and once you've heard it like that...) To refer to Michael Watts again: he has 1 or two videos where he plays the same piece on an archtop and a flattop by the same builder (possibly Grimes, or Kim "something", I can't remember now). Evidently he sounds fabulous on both, and I'm sure you wouldn't notice anything less than that in the flattop sound if you heard it in isolation. As it is, the 1st reaction is of a much fuller sound, and then I start to hear that hollow/cavernous, noticeably-not-immediate nature of the sound. It's as if a significant part of the sound remains inside the box, to be restituted sometime later.
I think it's this (or these) video(s) that made me realise what I like in my own archtop: the fact that it sounds like the big guitar it is, but also like a small guitar. A best of both worlds thing.
And probably the main thing that made me want to buy an archtop : the trebles tend to have much more of that sugary sweet sound with which someone like Mark Knopfler can make his e-guitar sing than the nasal, jingly sound they usually have on a flattop.
*) A nice though much less affordable cross-over:
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I'm glad you wrote this, because I have a guitar that I think needs to be played in. It's an old instrument but I wonder if it was every played a lot. It sat in a store window for decades, I know that for a fact. It sounds pretty good (it has the bark), but nothing like another older, similar guitar I have, which has tone for ages. That one sounds gorgeous, this one not quite. Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
But I think it can be played in. It just takes time (and love), at least that's how I'm proceeding with it.
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this incredibly technical (not to say geeky) topic has become a very big deal for me since i acquired an Elferink Tonemaster a few months back.
It's top and back plates are both thicker and more arched than anything I've played before, and it behaves so well in all the important musical ways that it has convinced me that the thickness of the top AND the depth of the arch is crucial.
Forum member jads57 often makes the point that he prefers the thicker tops of older gibsons to the new benedetto style carve - I am convinced he's absolutely right about this after three months with my game-changing Elferink.
am i right to think that a thicker plate with a more pronounced arch is going to use up more wood than a thinner one with a shallower arch? if so - could the change in construction from e.g 50's to e.g. 90's be driven by economic considerations (as so many things are) ?Last edited by Groyniad; 04-16-2025 at 06:39 AM.
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Archtops are cut from bookmatched wedges. Once two wedges are cut from the cross section of a tree, much like you can take two wedges from a tall wheel of cheese, they are glued together seamlessly to make a single arched piece of wood. The peak of the glued halves is the centre line and the arch top, high arch, low arch, thick top, thin top are all within the potential of that wood. Originally Posted by Groyniad
You take a piece of marble, and you can carve a statue or a pillar; finding the potential within is what determines how well that block of marble is utilized.
Costs the same in wood to make a totally unplayable disaster of a floppy guitar and a D'Aquisto masterpiece. Comes from the same thing...basically.
The economic considerations are more based on what demand there is for a particular sound and the Masters who sculpt instruments that are in demand.
Once a builder has the vision and skill to realize a sound they imagine, to know the nature of the wood and use variables and parameters skillfully enough to make a piece of luthierie art, players revere them and they become the state of the art. The piece of wood is not a determining factour for all intents and purposes.
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Originally Posted by GuyBoden
This looks and sounds amazing - obviously - but it doesn't sound like an archtop to me. If i couldn't see the guitar i'd say it was a classical guitar with unusual strings - but maybe that's just the music that's being played.
i used to listen to a solo joe pass album on which he used an acoustic guitar (was it dedicated to charlie parker?). that sounded great.
but my favourite solo guitar is certainly Pete Bernstein - and part of why i like it so much is that he gets (his fab. version of) the classic archtop sound.
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Remember how I said that a good acoustic archtop can have similar qualities as a ditto classical? Originally Posted by Groyniad
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It might be of conversational interest that there is an evolution in guitar building philosophy and practice that is ongoing to this day. Originally Posted by RJVB
The diversity of guitar sounds and feels, materials and sounds address an increasingly diverse taste in music.
As Jimmy D' started working with people like Jim Hall and James Emery, musicians with a "chamber music" sensibility, his guitars became more suited to acoustic complexity and nuance. So his graduations got thinner, F holes became sound ports, all wood fittings became his preference and the new generation of guitars emerged, guitars that had the range to bridge the worlds of classical composition with the tonal traditions of jazz.
When this happened, the top thicknesses not only got thinner, but the higher archings he was partial to also reflected new graduations of thicknesses at the centre of the peak (thicknesses of tops are not uniform, but rather can be thinner at the edges, thicker below the bridge to efficiently radiate the energy from the bridge foot throughout the entire vibrating top evenly.) When a top is efficient throughout the frequency spectrum, it needs to be able to realize the harmonics within a note to get a rich sustain. Those harmonics are the trademark of classical guitars, rich and full in the sustain. In an archtop, dealing with a much thicker top to support steel strings, it's easy to overbuild for the sake of structural integrity, but much more daring to take it thin enough to produce a ring like a bell. In fact, the physics of the bell, that arched shape flairing into a surface that can turn vibration into air moving over miles, that's the idea in the the arched shape. Maximum efficiency, minimum impedance mismatch.
So in short, the sounds you like are dependent on the music you want to hear. You chose your builder for that reason. It's not a matter of thickness as much as it is how that wood is sculpted to release the sound you want.
Just something to consider and think about when next looking for a guitar. Just one idiot's opinion.
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What was that quote from BSG, about everything happening has happened before? Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
IIRC Rob MacKillop has an article on his archtop website about this "fusion" happening during the vaudeville era, and it's also the basis for the hypothesis of that AGF member (a Steve de Rosa IIRC) that the archtop could have become equivalent to the classical guitar.
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Well it certainly is an interesting thought exercise to conjecture what would have come to be had Andre Segovia had the instruments of Jimmy D'Aquisto's late model acoustic instruments during the time that Segovia was defining modern classical guitar. Originally Posted by RJVB
The last models of the D'Aquisto legacy had more in common with a concert cello than even its archtop guitar roots, or that's the way I hear it. They not only looked different but they felt and sounded different. Apparently and obviously not to everybody's liking, but then again, knowing that the traditional jazz niche was safely covered, Jimmy was adventurous enough to know there was great potential in the design that was not realized. For him it was the acoustic quality and I'd argue that his greatest contributions were in revolutionizing the archtop design and opening up the possibilities for the next generation-of builders and players.
I have the last 7 string Jimmy D built and yeah I can play Stella on it, but it also has the fine nuance that brings out voice leading and clarity in close voicings that more modern players make their music of.
Maybe he had an idea that was greater than the genre specific needs of a specific type of music. One of these days instruments of this sensibility might be available to players that have the ears not to think genre specific. When that happens, I hope Jimmy hears it wherever he's listening from.
I would love to be able to put a Jimmy D in the hands of Rob McC.
Just sayin.
Wish they had an acoustic mic on this performance. It was what these guitars were made for.
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Funny you mention Segovia Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
He (or rather, his 1st US tour) plays a crucial role in that hypothesis on the AGF too...
IIRC he really didn't care for steel strings though.
This would have been more to his liking, possibly:
(but that's a pressed top IIRC and not purely acoustic recordings)
The last models of the D'Aquisto legacy had more in common with a concert cello than even its archtop guitar roots, or that's the way I hear it. They not only looked different but they felt and sounded different. Apparently and obviously not to everybody's liking[/quote]
Which explains where there only a few direct clones but very few builders are following his designs?
Wish they had an acoustic mic on this performance. It was what these guitars were made for.
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In terms of recording and classically-inspired technique you can hardly do better than this:
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Re: classicals ... one of the 1st pieces I worked on with the new teacher who took over at my music school was one of Leo Brouwers simple études. I can't remember which one right now, but it's almost entirely in 16th notes and has an open 1st string as a bit of a drone. Anyway, he was curious about my other guitars (and got kind of jealous about the power of my resonator
) so one day I took the LH-650. He tried it, wasn't impressed, and then I played the Brouwer piece on it, just for giggles.
And he *loved* that, actually made me repeat it. It really changes the piece, but in a good way.
The funny thing is that despite the similarities you could say that the 2 instruments are mirror images of each other. Where a classical guitar is more about a lush (if not boomy) bass register with enough sustain that it needs to be kept in check and sweet but much more subdued (high) trebles, a steel-strung archtop is almost the exact opposite.
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