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View Poll Results: Jazz guitarists do you prefer sold body or hollow body?

Voters
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  • I prefer solid body

    81 15.76%
  • I prefer hollow body

    433 84.24%
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  1. #1

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    I'm new to jazz guitar. I prefer solid body electric guitars. I'm curious about how many jazz guitarists prefer solid body to hollow body.

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  3. #2

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    That depends. If I am going just around the corner or in my own car and can carry my guitar myself, the sound level is reasonable and the venue is peaceful, I'd take a hollow body. If I'm going to another continent by airline and have to change plane four times and there's no way of taking the guitar as hand luggage, I'd bring the solid body.

  4. #3

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    For straight ahead jazz, I prefer a hollow body. But I have a fully hollow, a semi-hollow, and a solid body. I use and love all three.

  5. #4
    I have a few solidbodies (mostly strats), but I also have semis and full hollowbodied guitars. I tried to get guitars with examples of most of the pickups available, so I have strat single coils, a couple of P90-equipped guitars, a tele, humbuckers, a guitar with a floating humbucker etc. Right now, I find myself drawn towards the warm tone of a full hollowbody archtop with humbuckers. I usually roll the tone off, and its heavenly...

    I guess I'm of the "a different guitar for each different tone in your head" school of thought...

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Karol
    For straight ahead jazz, I prefer a hollow body. But I have a fully hollow, a semi-hollow, and a solid body. I use and love all three.
    I could have typed my own post, but Tom sums up my feelings exactly.

  7. #6

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    I own, use, and love all three. But if I could only choose one as a personal instrument on which to play jazz, it would be a solid carved top non-cutaway hollowbody archtop with a floating pickup.

  8. #7

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    How many guitars does a guitarist need?

    Just one more.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by dhaskins
    How many guitars does a guitarist need?

    Just one more.
    How about it?

    With the Heritage coming in this week I've gotta move some old stuff, methinks...1 in, 2 out, maybe?


    Back to the OP, I really couldn't imagine having a solid body (tele) semihollow, and a full hollow, but if I could have only one, I guess it would be the semihollow...more versatile...then again, I've been quoted as saying "versatility is overrated."

  10. #9

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    I think it more about setup and if you have more than one guitar. I love my tele and when in music school and playing around the clock I could put 11's or 12's on it and get a good jazz sound and still bend strings for Blues and Funk. Also a solid body is easier to throw in a gig bag and if it was damaged I'd be sad, but solid body guitars are a lot easier to find replacements for.

    I love sound of hollow bodies and had a few over the years, but sometimes the bodies can be big and feedback can be an issue. So having both a solid and hollow body is optimal solution. All that said when my working days as a guitarist my main guitar was a 335 semi-hollow and could cover any type of gig.

    Back to setup either type guitar can be setup for jazz.

  11. #10

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    I do not have a simple answer to your poll, but:

    >>> I'm new to jazz guitar.

    I would list the top 101 items in order of importance:

    1. through 7. - Setup
    8. - Pick
    9. - Strings
    10. Type of guitar

    So the type of guitar is important, but not the main consideration in my opinion.

    Chris

  12. #11

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    I just love archtops... the size and the feel of the guitar. Even when I play "modern stuff" I always prefer an archtop although I have a cheap 335 clone that I like a lot.

    One funny thing I realized about guitar types: these days most people tend to play with 335 guitars. Here all the young cats use those guitars because they are usable in lots of styles and because most of them thinks Kurt Rosenwinkel (which I love) was the first jazz guitar player on earth (actually most jazz students these days don't even like jazz but that's a whole other subject)

    Playing with an archtop has set me apart from most other guitar players here which is a good thing

  13. #12

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    Semi-hollow should have probably been a third choice in the poll. My personal preference is anything other than a full size archtop.

  14. #13

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    I have sold almost all of my solid guitars since starting to play jazz pretty much exclusively. I even use a semi- for rock & blues gigs.

    The only solid guitar I'm keeping is my Squier Tele, the one with ridiculously loud pickups, and that's for fun more than anything else.

    A hollowbody breathes, sounds more natural, to my ears. The notes hang in the air.

    YMMV, obviously.

  15. #14

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    For me, it's easier to get a traditional jazz tone from an archtop. Still, you can dial in a good sound from most platforms and in the end, playability, practicality, and what you like just because you like it matter most.

  16. #15

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    Like most have said, I love both, but for straight ahead traditional jazz, (if I could only have one guitar) it has to be the hollow-body archtop. The lush organic resonant tones just roll out of one so easily.
    Solid-bodied guitars I have fight with to get a useable tone to my liking.

    I will say that I love the durability, comfort, and ease of play of solids though!

  17. #16

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    Definitely a semi or three...Ibanez AS100 and AGS83 and custom build on the way...I do own a Strat and will get a Tele at some point but semis are whee it's at for me...

  18. #17

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    I prefer a solid body's tone, durability, portability, and playability (i.e. easy action), but I prefer a hollow body's ergonomics (mine will have a 16" bout with only a 2.25" deep body). For me, ergonomics are important enough to make my hollow-body my main guitar with my solid-body being my back-up/office/travel guitar.

    I think my perfect guitar would be a short-scale, chambered (i.e. light weight) solid-body with a neck that connected to the body at the 14th fret like an archtop.

  19. #18

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    Solid body without question. More due to personal shortcomings than anything else - I trashed a couple of expensive guitars when I was young and now that I'm a lot older, my coordination hasn't improved. I had a couple of semi-hollows recently and they had to be handled more delicately than I liked. I've since pared the guitar collection down to a solid body-Squier 51 neck and hardware, USA Custom Guitars body (Strat sized but routed for Squier 51 fittings), and Pete Biltoft Vintage Vibe pickups. I played this one to the exclusion of everything else I had so I sold ll the rest (over a dozen of them!) and haven't looked back.

  20. #19

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    For me , i own a usa tele with gibsoin classic 57 in neck , tone to die for, oozes out but my cheaper stock epi archtop just looks so much cooler and like someone already mentioned sets you apart from the masses using solids and makes you more memorable also the big 17" archtop always draws attention even from non musicians ,, so yes as much as we hate to admit it a guitar that looks more trad jazz will always to ,most everyone be more appropriate for trad jazz gigs even if the solid body sounds better , i was told once unfair as it sounds that 'audiences listen with their eyes ' and as a performing muso i tend to agree , so my tele is used when i get booked for studio sessions and my archtop goes to live gigs

  21. #20

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    Yeah, people do listen with their eyes...

    Sometimes you just gotta have the right tool for the job...and sometimes the right "uniform" too.

    Doesn't bother me really...more excuses for owning multiple guitars...

  22. #21

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    I really think it's a matter of personal taste. For me, an archtop is what I love to play most. I also have a semi, and a strat that are wonderful guitars, but I always reach for one of my 2 archtops.

  23. #22

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    I prefer my solidbodies (Les Pauls and Strats) for about 85 percent of what I play. Smaller, more intimate venues? The hollowbodies do very well. Bang for buck , portability and not being in my 20's-30's anymore, a solidbody and combo does it for me. (Favorite combo being either my Carr Rambler or my Line 6 Spider I 2x12)

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by PTChristopher
    I do not have a simple answer to your poll, but:

    >>> I'm new to jazz guitar.

    I would list the top 101 items in order of importance:

    1. through 7. - Setup
    8. - Pick
    9. - Strings
    10. Type of guitar

    So the type of guitar is important, but not the main consideration in my opinion.

    Chris
    Which are the main reasons why I like my Danelectro '56. The other reason is red.

    Last edited by bborzell; 05-16-2012 at 12:04 PM.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hexatonics
    9 times out of 10 you can tell if its a solid body because the tone and the quality of the notes is just not the same. Teles and solid bodies in general have too much sustain. You just lose that melancholy tone.
    Yeah it makes me laugh when people are advertising a Jazz box
    and they say 'amazing sustain' etc
    Jazz box ain't supposed to have long sustain dude

  26. #25

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    I use solid bodies for gigs, mostly, because my carvetop feeds back so easily. But when I listen to recordings of my band, I sound pretty much the same on my Tele with single coils, my solid body with a humbucker and my carvetop. If I don't know which guitar I was playing it is hard to tell. My nylon strings sound different...