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In terms of playing an archtop as an acoustic instrument, I'm not really interested in that bright cutting sound. I enjoy listening to it, e.g., Jonathan Stout, but it's not what I want to play. Every so often on YouTube I run across someone kind of nailing the sort of thing I'm looking for, and here's another one. This is an Artur Lang guitar, and I don't believe I've heard one of those before. I have no idea what kind of post performance processing happened other than obviously reverb being put on it. I really enjoyed that this is finger style, which is what I've been moving towards for years.
Another nice example, a 1939 Gibson L5. A little brighter and maybe more traditional, but a very nice tone. This same guitarist also does a nice demonstration of a vintage D'Angelico.
And our own Rob MacKillop who gets a wonderful sound with his Loar:
I can get something like this electrified, with most all of my guitars whether solid body or archtop or even my flattop. Still working on getting it acoustically out of the archtop. Oh, well, what point is life if there aren't some challenges to grow?
[Edit: when I looked at this post this morning, all three videos were the first one. Editing the post, I see that there are different URLs for the videos as it should be. Did anybody else see it that way or is there just something weird about my browser on my device?]Last edited by Cunamara; 02-14-2026 at 02:24 PM. Reason: What the hell happened?
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02-13-2026 02:12 AM
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The sound projection of the guitar's acoustic tone is excellent in this video. That's the sound I like too, thanks for posting.
Playing with fingers gives a very different sound than the traditional "Big Band" big archtop plectrum strummed guitar. Not a better sound, but an excellent different sound.
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Are you recording yourself or trying to hear yourself?
The archtop projects away from the player. So you'll never get to hear the tone you are searching for if you're just strumming in a room. It's the nature of the beast.
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I am not terribly far off from the sound I want, and of course copying anybody else's sound is really impossible; we all have different nervous systems from which we cannot escape. The trick that I'm working on is being able to have that sound while playing louder acoustically.
I don't have a recording setup other than using my phone or tablet to record myself, and those are at best limited options in terms of fidelity. It does give you a little bit of an idea. I have a Zoom IQ5 (recommended years ago by Mark Kleinhaut, which he used for making videos back in the day and sounded great) that plugs into a Thunderbolt port. I used to use it with my devices for recording myself, but alas technology has marched on to USB-C ports and the old mic is now just sitting in a drawer gathering dust. It definitely did a better job than the built-in microphones.
I've made a couple of half assed forays into GarageBand but, to be frank, my interest level and patience in climbing that particular learning curve is really limited. It always seems like applications for recording music are what a computer programmer thinks a musician might do rather than how musicians actually work.
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I acutally like a brighter tone than most guys here probably would. I dont want to peel paint or anything but I really dont like that muted super dark tone, anti-treble sound, when Im playing. I like it when I hear others playing but I also like a lively tone when I hear it too.
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The tone in the first video is great but the condenser placed below the bridge, extremely close to the top, is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in getting that tone to the listener. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just wanted to highlight the mic'ing technique is a big part of getting that tone from a fingerpicked acoustic archtop.
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I like acoustic archtop tone. I also like electric and don't really expect them to meet in the middle. I like having several sounds available from guitars and am not looking for a single thing.
That being said, a couple of thoughts:
- Ports make a huge difference in what you hear. I'll never have one cut on a nice guitar that doesn't have one, but enjoy the ones with.
- There's mic'd acoustic then there's a few things in between before you get to an ES 175 sort of tone.
- I have a Sunrise magnetic on an oval hole archtop. Hard to amplify as the Sunrise is fussy, but it sounds good
- Armstrong hand wounds and even Rhythm Chief 1100 lean into the acoustic side more IMHO
- Amplification and EQ matter quite a lot. Not sure if strings matter as much fingerstyle as with a pick.
- And then there are Gibson's with humbuckers.. not so acoustic but a wonderful sort of noise
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Interesting point, I know nothing about mic placement.
Originally Posted by olejason
In retrospect the Lang looks like an 18". I've never played an 18"-er.
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Leaving aside the guitar choice, its all a matter of right hand technique. The first video sounds lovely fingerpicked while the other two are played with pick.
I come from classic guitar playing and all i can asure you is that the angle in which you attack the guitar, the relation between nails and finger and the shape and hardness of the nails makes the difference.
Fingerpicking cant compete with pick in terms of sound volume and projection, i guess that you can do both if you wish to, there are techniques to jold the picn while you play fingerpicking.
There is a common mistake or whatever that i see in many solo jazz guitar players: favouring impressive chords instead of continuity and singing of the melody, many times players stop the fluency of the melody to prepare the hand for a tricky chord that is part of the arrangement. I think that harmony is a very big part of jazz music, but if it takes away from the melody fluence i think it is a wrong choice.
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The voices of the three featured guitars are probably closer to one another than the recordings suggest. I was actually put off by the unnatural loudness of the first sample, with pronounced fretboard noises absent from the other two. I do agree that a good unamplified archtop sounds heavenly, but isn't it an introvert instrument which only small audiences can enjoy without some kind of amplification? I'm not a connoisseur of solo archtop recordings, but haven't most (Joe Pass etc.) been made with electric archtops?
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Nice to see one of my old videos in the mix. For the record I used a Rode NT4 mic (£300) into a Fostex FR2LE hard disc recorder. I downloaded that into my laptop and added some reverb - more reverb than I would allow myself to use these days.
I use a Gibson EH plectrum. I’ve been using them for decades now, despite the occasional waste of time and money in exploring others at a variety of price points. I buy the Gibsons in tins of 50, and use a fresh one for each recording, which makes a difference. I also alternate between the rounded edge and pointed end for tonal variety. And with each of those I also change the angle of attack for a variety of subtle tonal differences, and even use both free and rest strokes with it.
Now you know everything!
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Ah! Not everything. I use Philippe Bosset (sp?) ‘Soft Brass’ strings, 14’s. The best for acoustic archtops, imho.
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I have to use Martin Monels on my 700 because I generally use it in a band setting where it's amplified via a floating mini HB. I'm still on 13s - haven't progressed to 14s yet! Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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I think Monels 13 would be perfect for the 700. 14's are for masochists
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'Now' we know everything about you, Rob! Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I think Monels 13 would be perfect for the 700. 14's are for masochists
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When you fingerpick an archtop strung with round wound strings you'll always get a lot of finger-noise - UNLESS your left-hand technique is really on a higher level, like that of many advanced classical players.
I recently discovered this truly wonderful player , Josh Dunn and in HIS hands that vintage L5 really sings in a very special and beautiful voice. He has impeccable technique, taste and a thorough harmonic knowledge, proven by the well thought-out solo arrangements in his clips. The tone he gets comes from a) his guitar, b) his touch, c) a vintage ribbon mic in front of the instrument and d) he records with an analog signal chain : ribbon mic > simple /non-linear mic pre > onto a cassette tape !!!! All these details result in this warm, even and singing acoustic guitar tone. You'll love this, I sure do !
bewitched bothered and bewildered — solo guitar (gibson L5, rca 74B, tascam 424) #archtop #cassette - YouTube
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Very clear sound, indeed. Nice arrangement too. He’s using a hybrid right-hand technique of pick and fingers. The mic is nowhere near the neck of the guitar, cutting down on the squeaks. The mic is relatively cheap, about £500.
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PS What’s the pre-amp he uses?
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AFAIK he mostly records into an old TASCAM 4-track cassette recorder. The entire signal chain is used to cut highs and my guess is that we end up hearing nothing above 10000 hz Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
if not even lower. The question is : how does one replicate this in a live setting ? For starters I'd use a cheap mic with a narrow frequency range, that signal going into any ol' preamp to boost it up a bit and finally make it loud with an amp that compresses slightly (or simply use an outboard compressor) and into a speaker which again has a narrow frequency range. I would not get heard in a larger band with that setup but for a solo recital / chamber music concert it should work. I will start experimenting with tape-saturation plug-ins in my LOGIC software ....
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If your goal is simply cutting highs above a certain frequency, wouldn't an EQ get the job done with alot less effort? Originally Posted by gitman
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An
EQ would cut out a more or less well-defined range of frequencies whereas the slow and continuous degradation of the signal in a classic analogue chain will cut different ranges at successive points. You have to look at the whole shebang - simply cutting at the end won't get you there where he ends up. The cassette tape plays a major role, the old tape heads, the worn-out motor of the tape deck, the VERY old ribbon mic, etc. He has been tinkering with this for quite some time ....
I guess when you start with an analogue tape-recording and then load it up into a DAW you could cut some corners. I also think that you wouldn't hear the difference between a ribbon mic and a normal dynamic mic - UNLESS you're using the ribbon mic to record a VOICE on one side and the guitar on the other : these mics normally pick up a figure-8 pattern on both sides !
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It's not easy to get this tone out of archtop because that's not what archtops do best. When I listens to those videos, close my eyes, I hear something almost like Classical nylon string, but not quite. And then I think if it was on real Classical, it would sound more natural and perfect. Strangely I never find any acoustic archtop sound good for anything but heavy strumming either rhythm or Allan Reuss/Jonathan Stout style. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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The archtop was designed to be bright and cutting- mids and some highs, not so much bass frequencies. This was pre-amplification, after all, and the archtop replaced the banjo and sonically had to jump out to be heard between the bass, piano and cymbal wash. Hence the focus on the midrange bark. All of us trying to get a dark fat "jazz" sound out of an archtop are trying to make it do something that was not originally intended. Myself included! I have felt for years that most of us are trying to get a sound more naturally suited to the classical guitar out of archtops. Amplification allowed this through tone shaping and letting us play lightly as the amp made us audible. That doesn't stop me from trying to get something like that acoustically, but it may need some trickery (mic type and placement, EQ on the recording, etc.). I've been working on this for years and can get pretty close in the room at low volume, but as the need for volume goes up the tone gets brighter and more cutting. It may just be the nature of the beast.
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