Poor Sounding Acoustic Archtop Guitar

**swingtoneman** · 06-19-2025, 10:38 AM

If you have a poor sounding acoustic archtop guitar ('F' hole) by fitting a pickup would that make it a good sounding electric guitar? By covering up the 'F' holes would that make a difference to the electric sound? Anybody done this?

**dconeill** · 06-19-2025, 11:12 AM

The relevant phrase is,
"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

If you have an acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting, if you put a pickup on it you'll have an electrified acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting.

Covering the soundholes will change the resonant frequency of the body, and therefore will change the acoustic sound of the guitar, which therefore will change the electric sound of the guitar with a pickup on it. Whether the change will be for better or worse is indeterminate.

So, it's unlikely that adding a pickup and/or covering the soundholes will make a poor sounding guitar into a good sounding guitar.

But all that said, if it's your guitar, what have you got to lose except some money, so give it a try and see what happens.

On the other hand, if you're thinking about buying a particular awful guitar with the goal of transforming it into a good guitar, save your money and keep looking for something that's actually what you're looking for.

**ArchieHollow** · 06-19-2025, 11:34 AM

Have you had a proper set-up (intonation, neck relief, break angle, etc.)? Guitar itself might be fine, but needs adjustments to bring out its best.

**sgosnell** · 06-19-2025, 12:30 PM

I think the answer to all the above is "maybe". Every guitar is different, and the only way I know to find out is to do it and see what it sounds like. I've done that on multiple guitars, and I haven't seen any definite correlation between acoustic and electric tone.

**Cunamara** · 06-19-2025, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by dconeill

The relevant phrase is,
"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

If you have an acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting, if you put a pickup on it you'll have an electrified acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting.

Gibson ES-175, Gibson L-5CES… neither of these usually have a great acoustic voice, but they are the gold standard for amplified archtop guitar. And many really great responsive acoustic archtops howl like banshees at a conversational level. Your premise is not that strong, unfortunately.

Now can you make an old Harmony or Kay ultrabudget archtop sound as good as an L-5 or ES-175? Probably not. So there is also something to what you say.

**dconeill** · 06-19-2025, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by Cunamara

Gibson ES-175, Gibson L-5CES… neither of these usually have a great acoustic voice, but they are the gold standard for amplified archtop guitar. And many really great responsive acoustic archtops howl like banshees at a conversational level. Your premise is not that strong, unfortunately.

Now can you make an old Harmony or Kay ultrabudget archtop sound as good as an L-5 or ES-175? Probably not. So there is also something to what you say.

The OP didn't ask "can I take a fine-sounding, iconic electric archtop and make an acceptable acoustic archtop out of it?", so I didn't venture an opinion on the question the OP didn't ask.

The OP also didn't ask "will I have feedback problems if I put a pickup onto an acoustic archtop?". I didn't answer that one either.

The OP did ask "can I take an unacceptable acoustic archtop and make a good electric guitar out of it?". That's what I answered.

**Cunamara** · 06-20-2025, 11:57 PM

I did not answer a question as to whether the OP can take "a fine-sounding, iconic electric archtop and make an acceptable acoustic archtop out of it." You fantasized that. I pointed out that there are a lot of fine-sounding iconic electric archtop guitars that don't sound good acoustically. This is exactly the situation they were asking about.

You said

If you have an acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting, if you put a pickup on it you'll have an electrified acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting.

This is a weak premise. The ES-175 and the L5CES are both well known examples of guitars with a not particularly good acoustic sound that sound great amplified. In nearly 50 years of playing guitar, the best sounding amplified archtop I have ever played is my Gibson ES-175. But I wouldn't attempt to play it acoustically on a gig. On the other hand, I have a great acoustic archtop guitar that I have struggled for nearly 20 years to get an amplified sound that I like. I've been through seven pickups and as many amps trying to find something that sounds the way I want.

So my answer to the OP's question is that maybe one can take an archtop guitar with a not particularly good acoustic sound, add a pickup and make it sound good amplified. Gibson has managed to do so. Might not even need to tape the soundholes up; most people don't tape up an ES-175 or L5CES, for example.

The OP did not ask about feedback, you are correct if being perhaps willfully obtuse; the point was that many excellent sounding acoustic archtop guitars amplify terribly with a pickup. Feedback being one of the biggest problems for a responsive acoustic instrument when played through an amp and a pickup. Indeed, the better the acoustic quality of the instrument, the more problematic amplification is going to be. The corollary of

If you have an acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting, if you put a pickup on it you'll have an electrified acoustic archtop whose sound you find wanting

would be that archtops with a great acoustic sound will sound great amplified, which most all of us know is just not true.

Without exhaustingly testing it, my belief is that there are archtop guitars with a poor acoustic sound that will also sound poor amplified. But to be honest, the only way to find out for sure is to try. Adding to the vagaries of this is that what one person thinks is a great amplified archtop guitar sound, someone else thinks sounds like ass.

**sgosnell** · 06-21-2025, 12:03 AM

Solid-body guitars sound pretty poor acoustically, but can sound very good amplified. Some can also sound pretty bad. Acoustic and amplified tone are not the same, nor even tightly correlated. A really good sounding acoustic archtop can be a poor choice for electric use because of feedback. Good sounding electric guitars generally don't sound that great acoustically. But none of this is written in stone, and it's very possible for a guitar with a good acoustic tone to have a good amplified tone. The reverse is also true. I don't believe there is a strong correlation between the two.