Laminate top archtops

**GreyJazz90** · 10-26-2011, 09:12 AM

I love my Jim Hall Sadowsky Laminate. It rarely ever has feedback issues, and has a really woody tone(Jesse Van Ruller, Benson etc.)

**cjm** · 10-26-2011, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by oldane

like a monkey farting in a tin can

Do you happen to know where I can put my hands on a lead sheet with the changes for that tune? I've been looking all over for one, and maybe there is some sort of copyright issue, but I can't locate a publisher -- not even for piano sheet music.

Lyrics would be nice, but the singer said if we'd rip a few bars, she would fake it.

**hot ford coupe** · 10-26-2011, 10:19 AM

I used to have an ES 175, an ES 150 and a Heritage H575.. They were all great players. Why did I sell them? I just had way too many guitars around that I wasn't playing. The 175 was one of the best instruments I've ever owned. I also dumped a bunch of carved tops too so I'm not prejudiced against the lam tops.

**oldane** · 10-26-2011, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by cjm

Do you happen to know where I can put my hands on a lead sheet with the changes for that tune?

It was quoted in the book "Music - a Monkey Business".

**kris** · 10-26-2011, 02:14 PM

Laminate or not....I like good sounding guitars.
Live gigs tell the true.

**=DK=** · 10-27-2011, 04:01 PM

I play most of my music in small combos with a drummer, pianist, bassist, and usually a horn. A buddy of mine brought in a carved spruce archtop once, an Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor, and the feedback was terrible! I went to check it out later. Guitar played great, sounded great acoustically, all the electronics worked fine, good cable, good amp. I couldn't figure out how my guitar wouldn't feed back even at a high volume, while his guitar threatened to feed back even at medium-low volumes.

I guess that might have been the difference.

Another thing, I like how my laminate archtop sounds acoustically. It could be louder, yeah, but it has plenty of richness to it. I've even recorded on it acoustically with a microphone.

**twilightblue100** · 10-27-2011, 04:18 PM

Hi DK, that is crazy, I just got an email from HELLO MUCIC selling that exact guitar for $500.oo. I thought that was very reasonable and I was going to check one out at Guitar Center. After your experience now I'm not sure if I should bother! Thank's

**cjm** · 10-27-2011, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by =DK=

I play most of my music in small combos with a drummer, pianist, bassist, and usually a horn. A buddy of mine brought in a carved spruce archtop once, an Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor, and the feedback was terrible! I went to check it out later. Guitar played great, sounded great acoustically, all the electronics worked fine, good cable, good amp. I couldn't figure out how my guitar wouldn't feed back even at a high volume, while his guitar threatened to feed back even at medium-low volumes.

I guess that might have been the difference.

Another thing, I like how my laminate archtop sounds acoustically. It could be louder, yeah, but it has plenty of richness to it. I've even recorded on it acoustically with a microphone.

I believe you will find the Joe Pass Emperor is plywood. The original Emperor, made back before Gibson gobbled up Epiphone, was carved spruce. But that was a long time ago and a very different guitar.

Plywood is noted for its resistance to feedback, but that doesn't mean some models aren't susceptible to the problem.

**=DK=** · 10-27-2011, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by cjm

I believe you will find the Joe Pass Emperor is plywood. The original Emperor, made back before Gibson gobbled up Epiphone, was carved spruce. But that was a long time ago and a very different guitar.

Plywood is noted for its resistance to feedback, but that doesn't mean some models aren't susceptible to the problem.

Maybe I'm remembering the model wrong? Huh, I dunno.

**ooglybong** · 10-27-2011, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by cjm

One way of looking at it is that the solid wood carved archtop as we know it today, was not really designed to sound good. It was designed to be loud as an unamplified rhythm instrument played in bands dominated by horns.

As to it needing to sound good, let's not forget that it replaced the banjo. It didn't need to sound good to sound better than the banjo it replaced. It just needed to be loud enough for the brass section to hear, and to be less objectionable than a banjo.

The first electric archtops weren't much different than the acoustic archtops they were derived from and a huge number of them were simply acoustic archtops with a variety of pickups added after the fact and after market...Acoustic guitars designed to be loud and somewhat haphazardly repurposed as electric guitars.

Plywood guitars were sort of the first "clean sheet" archtop electric designs. Acoustic volume was never a design consideration. Acoustic tone was no particular concern either.

So perhaps it should come as no surprize that the post WWII plywood guitars sounded better than carved wood to many ears when played as they were intended -- as electrics...and that builders like Sadowsky prefer plywood, and that even the iconic archtop builder Bob Benedetto recommends plywood as offering the best performance in an electric.

Great post. Especially the part about banjos!

**cjm** · 10-27-2011, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by =DK=

Maybe I'm remembering the model wrong? Huh, I dunno.

Possibly. The original Epiphone Emperor was a direct competitor to Gibson's Super 400. 18 inches wide, long scale. All carved woods.

The Joe Pass Emperor is basically an Asian built ES-175 clone.

**=DK=** · 10-27-2011, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by twilightblue100

Hi DK, that is crazy, I just got an email from HELLO MUCIC selling that exact guitar for $500.oo. I thought that was very reasonable and I was going to check one out at Guitar Center. After your experience now I'm not sure if I should bother! Thank's

Definitely check it out. Don't let what strangers on the internet say affect you too much