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Look - its relatively simple - the archtop can function as an acoustic instrument - there are perfectly straightforward physical facts about the differences between effective (loud, warm, accurate) acoustic instruments and less effective ones. Good luthiers should know about those facts and a good luthier is someone who in fact produces a high percentage of high functioning acoustic instruments.
My deal is just that after twenty years of playing mostly laminates (but some poor modern gibson solids too) I've discovered how musically rewarding a really lively, accurate and warm acoustic archtop can be. I'm starting to think that my favorite way to play is without being plugged in - and that's new - and exciting to me.
I think that good archtop building is complicated and fiddly but not rocket science - at certain times Gibson have obviously done it very well. That must have meant bringing the right materials together with the right acoustic design and the right manufacturing process. When all that happens you get (a high percentage of) archtop instruments that have all the clarity and focus that you want, together with the depth and richness that you want - and they make - when played just right - exactly the sound you're after. I'm loving the feel of the guitar in my lap - the immediacy of the attack the totally natural decay - the absolute absence of boom or mud from the bottom end etc. etc. The sound doesn't need to be made thicker or richer or warmer or anything like that (I love Jim Hall's tone on the early records too!).
Of course it has by far the most accurate neck I've ever encountered. Strobe tuners show fabulously accurate intonation up and down.
I think that what is attractive about these 5000 ish hand made guitars is that ONE MAN has devoted themselves entirely to getting all the acoustically relevant details done right. In all three hand made guitars I've played at length the neck feels more intimately attached to the body of the guitar than on any other guitars I've played - the thing feels like one thing - not like a box with a stick sticking out. I feel this as soon as I lift the thing out of the case and move it around.
And once again it is worth remembering that 5000 ish for a very carefully made - micro-manufactured musical instrument - ain't crazy at all. Its easy 100 hours work - more than that most often I think. Andersen makes about 12 a year one at a time - Campellone makes about 14 I think - in batches. The idea that I'm paying someone who has made over 500 highly functioning acoustic instruments 3,500 or 4,000 to spend a month of their time making me a guitar - seems fair enough. Especially when guitars are right at the heart of my life. (and I only have one!) And this doesn't depend on an inappropriate idea of what 'hand-made' amounts to. They're made by one man - that doesn't rule out the use of machines of all kinds.
So I don't see the appeal of getting a Benedetto or a Collings when these things come out of small factories and are made by a team of artisans. I want one guy's care and attention and expertise going into the instrument - and I want the instrument to be made by someone who has had a lot of time to find out a lot about how to increase the chances of making really effective acoustic instruments (not dead, three dimensional, well balanced etc. etc.). Each of the three instruments I've worked with have been obviously very highly functioning acoustic objects.
So whilst all this is very subject to the vagaries of taste - the difference between a dead acoustic box and an alive one, or between a warm and full sounding one and a harsh sounding one, is not enormously esoteric.
I tell you - it is fantastic to have access to a highly functioning acoustic archtop guitar and to play it facing a wall without plugging it in. mmm
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07-04-2012 09:06 PM
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agreed I love his sound on that Birdland
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
best jazz guitar sound ever ..... to me
thats taste tho and there's no accounting for it
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"Its a pointless argument. benedetto proved that none of it means jack, depending on which side you stand on.
He makes a guitar that sounds as good a his master grade toned woods, out of pine. He tells you Pfff its in the hand of the maker.
So yes he blows away all this crap that the thread creator is spousing, but it also backs him up too. You wanna buy that benedetto pine cabinet $22,000 please lol.
Gibson used to put good woods on there acoustic models and cheaper on the electric. Which one sounds better? the one that the guy was playing in that vid on you tube (ok Barney kessel playing one mint julip) but you get my point.
Anyway someone else mentioned tap tuning. Even benedetto claims he doesnt really know why he does it lol. Now your buying hype!"
So where's the dichotomy? Benedetto says the maker is more important than the materials, most good luthiers would agree to that. The OP didn't say the guitar had to be made out of the very best European spruce or perfectly quartered stock did he? I thought he just said that it should be a guitar built by somebody who knows how to build a guitar. The OP can correct me if I'm wrong on that point. From where did you pull that BS about Bob not knowing what tap tuning does? He doesn't say he doesn't know why he does it. He says it's mearly a monitor of progress, a way of hearing what your doing to the plates as you carve them and that it won't stop you from making a good instrument if you don't tap it "correctly".
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isnt the answer- handcrafted archtops are worth the money vs laminate archtops for those wanting the entirely different sound produced by a carved archtop when compared to a laminate designed for electric only playing?
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Indeed. A guitar - and everything else - is worth what people are prepared to pay. No more, no less. If nobody found, say, a Benedetto Fratello worth $19200 (the current price), nobody would buy it, and Bob would have to lover his prices - or stop making them. OTOH, if the waiting list grew longer, he could increase his prices (and that's actually what he has been doing through the years). Originally Posted by Ob Com
Would I pay $19200 for a Fratello? No, but that's irrelevant as long as somebody else will. (Yes, I have a Fratello, but they did cost a lot less when I bought it 16 years ago).
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I was talking with another builder this weekend in Montreal. It's funny how people are drawn to the way a guitar looks more than how it sounds. We both had a number of instruments displayed. People would be drawn to one of them. It was always looks that drew them in. They would coo & caw about the particular instrument & most would never really even put their hands around the neck. It was an interesting conversation that leads us to believe that people can convince themselves that just about anything sounds "amazing" if the look suits them.
Personally, I am biased. Given the choice, I'll take a well built hand carved instrument over a laminate any day. The richness in tone is much more desirable. I have had some people tell me they prefer laminate tops. I find this tough to believe, just for the fact that I can tune a plate/bracing to get a desired effect. I have to believe that they just haven't had the right guitar built for them.
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Are you referriung to acoustic playing or playing with a built in magnetic pickup? It makes a big difference. Originally Posted by Archtop 13
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If you go out looking for a flat top sound out of an Archtop, you are headed in the wrong direction to begin with. As with anything, you can't put a number on value. The best you can do is "going rate". I'll agree that there is a reasonable limit that one should pay but, as with anything high end there is always status attached to some names that entices those with the means.
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The early Gibson (the inventor) archtops had carved tops, did they not?
Eddie Lang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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I just spent 20 minutes of my life reading through some of the back and forth arguing and bickering about what guitars, specifically arch tops should or shouldn't be . . . . about what constitutes good, great and the best tone . . . about some of the worlds best and most talented guitar builders getting it all wrong on seeking out tone from an arch top. People actually getting pissed at each other while discussing that which has absolutely no absolutes. Ol' Hex just posted a link up to what he claims to be "Joe's best tone" and "tone to die for" . . . SAYS WHOM???? Maybe it's the tone that Hex likes the best from Joe . . (who Hex doesn't really like anyway) . . but, how the hell does that quality it as "Joe's best tone ever"?? I listened to it and found the tone to be quite steril . . . kinda muddy, like he rolled off the tone control too much to compensate for too much brightness in the guitar. But, that's just me and how I hear it.
There seems to be an on going resentment by some . . . actually many . . on this forum, of builders, collectors and players who choose to build, own and play high end crafted arch tops. I wonder why that is??? I really don't hear any of those of us who are in that high end catagory questioning why other choose to play a $600 laminate jazz box . . or demean them for doing so. There was even someone who earlier kinda poo poo'd the iconic ES175 as a dull (or was it dead?) sounding jazz box. REALLY?? So, all of those world class players who chose it as their number one box for years did so because they were ignorant? Or, was it because they would rather make music with the damn thing instead of sitting around for hours disecting the qualities, or lack there of, releated to its tone? Is there a guitar in this world that has made as much world class jazz guitar music as the ES175 has??
Also, why do so many speak/post as though their *opinion* is the last word on anything and everything? How do you continue to learn . . (one of the intended functions of JGF) . . if you're so opinionated that you can't even consider any opinion other than your own as valid?
I've got a bunch of arch tops . . . all mid to high end. When I am asked which one sounds the best, as I often am . . . my response is always the same . . . . "I can tell you which one's tone I like the best". When I am asked which one plays the best . . . "I can tell you which one I enjoy playing the most".
There is a certain level of quality . . . where good-better-best just can not be applied. Who's a better builder Bob Benedetto, John Montelleone, Mark Lacey, Jim Triggs? Who's guitars were better . . John D'Angelicos or Jimmy D'Aquistos? Who's a better player George Benson or Jimmy Bruno?
I can answer difinitively, yes or no, if someone askes me if a Bob Benedetto built guitar is better than a Sear Roebuck (Silvertone?).
It's always a good and sometime informative thing to hear others opine. However, bloviating to the extent we have seen by some in this thread is counter productive and sometimes causes intense discourse. It's uncalled for and unnecessary.
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OK. I know of plenty Japanese makers but I didn't know of any Vietnamese makers so that's all well and good. I've played a ton of guitars from Paracho (one on my bench right now for some repair work) most of them are very nice but the best sounding concert instruments I've ever played were French. Not because of tradition or mystique or superstition just simply because they were both amazing instruments that just happen to be made by a guy who knows what he's doing who happens to live in France. In regards to your little "now, scurry off" comment, are you as condescending in person? I would still like to know where your cut-off is between somebody who is just buying a fine instrument and somebody who is just getting chiseled. That is, of course, if you think you could answer with some amount of courtesy. Originally Posted by Guitar
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Envy is a common feeling, and I think it's easier for someone with 5 $10000 guitars to "bear with" someone who has an Ibanez Artcore than is the opposite. Originally Posted by Patrick2
That said, I much agree with you. When people talk about "better", they don't go on and say "for what". Someone expressed the opinion that guitars were mediocre to wind instruments because they were more percussive and didn't have the vocal and smooth melody carrying abilities wind instruments have. Of course, a guitar WILL sound mediocre to someone who wants to sound like a saxophone. But then, one might be better off with a sax. There are, however, other objectives to guitar playing than sounding like a sax. That's why I mentioned Freddie Green who DIDN'T want his guitar to be vocal and melody carrying and was outspoken about it. He wanted it to be "a snare drum in Bb", "a part of the drum set" (both quotes are authentic). I figure a sax would be a rather poor snare drum.
Again: "Better" for what, for whom and when?
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Depends on what you want it for and how much its expense affects your wallet. I bought my Artist Award for a couple of reasons. At the time I was concentrating on swing style rhythms, and nothing, to my ears, competes with a good acoustic archtop for that sound. I also could afford it at the time, so it had minimal economic impact. Is it a better guitar than my laminated archtop (Guild X-170)? Hard to say. It's more valuable, fancier, bigger, but better? I would say different, and they get used in different ways. Would I buy it today? No, because now I'm playing mostly flattop folkie stuff not the swing I was at that time, and because now it would be an economic imposition, due largely to the fact that I have car payments for the first time in at least 10 years and have a chronic health problem that needs frequent treatments (good insurance covers most, but still an expense). Do I regret having bought it? No. Was it worth it to me? Yes.
Brad
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So many interesting comments.
I feel like a kid in a candy store.
I'll try to pace myself.
Hexatonics wrote:
" When I buy a flat top I listen for everything. I played about 100 the other week and ended buying a Stonebridge. The moment I picked it up it started vibrating. The thing is, you wouldnt make an archtop sound that good, no matter how you tuned it. Perhaps what high end builders dont realise is that they are trying to build a funny shaped flat tops lol. They are so obsessed with acoustic sound yet a Guild D55 will have better tone.
It seems that people owning or building high end guitars dont get that they are making a different instrument. Most jazzers wont want that type of hollowbody. They want something that sounds like their idols who mostly used cheaper laminate guitars. They have the sound we love so why would we want something else designed for a different purpose."
I find this fascinating. Do you really believe any of it? The characteristics of good acoustic archtop tone are quite different than those of good flattop tone, especially when playing chords. To suggest the tonal hierarchy as you have is certainly your prerogative as an opinionated forum member - I guess it's my prerogative to say that I believe almost every sentence above is wrong, except for the part about Stonebridge - I agree that František Furch does make some very nice flattop guitars.
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"Of course the point was to give reasons to believe that it is better to think of the archtop as an essentially acoustic instrument than it is to think of it as an essentially amplified one. Again no one has really addressed that proposal - except to say - blandly - that laminates are good for amplified playing and solid guitars are better for private playing or very low amplified volumes. So its not just that there's too many self-satisfied over-aggressive men here - its that there are too few capable of attending to the point under discussion"
You need to amplify you guitar if you gig; using microphones is very painful due to feedback hence the use of pickups. That's why archtops are mostly electric, because you need to play with other people. The amount of excellent guitar solos / tones recorded with an archtop / magnetic pickup / amp combination sort of destroys your whole theory. Unless you plan to keep playing against a wall.
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From where I sit, I see a lot of category errors. Someone once asked Herbie Mann if it was really possible to play jazz on the flute. Mann said that if you can play jazz, you can play it on anything. It's not the instrument that matters, it's what the musician has to say.
I hear guitar as having a unique musical voice. That uniqueness is important to me, because I enjoy the different sounds and approaches, strengths and limitations of all the instruments (including voice). No instrument is "best used" trying to imitate any other, I think.
As for the value of a guitar, if we're talking about musical value it's how much you enjoy playing and listening to it. If it's financial value, it's worth whatever someone else will pay for it. I personally don't place any extraordinary value on old beaters just because they're old, but enough people do so that the "vintage guitar" market is quite lively. And I think that's great even if I'm not a customer.
I'm familiar with three kinds of tops on archtops - pressed plywood, solid wood carved by hand, and solid wood carved by NC machines. My personal experience (with the specific guitars I play) is that the plywood top resists feedback and lacks resonating frequency patterns. I dislike playing solid wood tops were THIS note on THIS string makes the volume "explode" and it must be released almost instantly. That's a hurdle, not a feature, for me.
Now, if I were in the business of flipping guitars rather than playing them, my perception of the musical quality wouldn't matter. I'd pay careful attention to whether customers were willing to pay more for certain features (hand-carved, floating pickup, floating bridge, famous name, illustrious history or even just old, etc.)
But I've heard of cases where people have been just stunned by the sonic fabulosity of their Gibson Hummingbird for years - only to discover that they'd been suckered into spending a bundle for a Chinese knock-off. Suddenly the guitar sounds just awful. That sort of thing gives me perspective.
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Some pros gig with a laminate but have high-end archtops for studio / small gigs / innspiration at home. But some guys even gig with them - Kurt Rosenwinkel with a Moffa or a Dangelico, Anthony Wilson with a Monteleone, Bernstein with a Zeidler, etc...
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I'd like to get a price quote on this one.
Last edited by Klatu; 07-05-2012 at 04:19 PM.
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I play guitar a lot. In public as well as in my little room. I don't post about my playing or anyone else's playing (because I personally find talking about playing boring), but I love the discussions about.....guitar, amps & gizmos.
I try not to take any of it too seriously. My epitaph will read "one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was dead.*" I've certainly learned a lot about human nature on forums like these, and a bit about gear, but it's all still interesting to me.
Hexatonics: Of course I take everything you post with a massive saline drip. My opinion is that some of your opinions are wrong. The Montreal Guitar Show was great fun - I suspect that some things said here about archtop guitars would not have been said after hearing some of the instruments at that show.
*cadged from The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor.Last edited by Hammertone; 12-02-2021 at 04:08 PM.
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I just did a little experiment on you tube. I listened at random to a bunch of cuts by a whole lot of jazz guitarists, some well known and others not playing a whole lot of different styles on a whole lot of different types and brands of guitars, some high end and some crap. I asked myself some questions. Did I like or did I not like the performance? Did the richness or lack of tone really affect the performance? If I hated the performance, was it due to the guitar? If I liked the performance, was it due to the guitar? Here's my conclusion. If I enjoyed the performance, it didn't seem to matter who the guitarist was or what guitar he played or what kind of tone he/she got. If I didn't like the performance, I didn't care who or what he/she played on or what the guitar sounded like, the whole thing was crap. I know this may make me look like a moron here but the fact remains is what we've been yakking about didn't seem to make much of a difference to me. If we're playing or music for lay people whose numbers seem to outway the very knowledgeable, I think they look at things in the same way. At least that's what it looks like to me when I play. This doesn't support or negate this whole discussion but it seems to render it a bit irrelevant. I don't know how this goes with recorded music for many of you but for those out there who listen to a lot of jazz that are not guitarists (or musicians for that matter), I think the same applies. For me (and me alone)it all comes down to how well the player plays.
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Well, it took me almost two hours to read the whole thread, skipping most of those long posts....
I have got a solid wood hand carved archtop. I often find myself thinking I made a mistake. It would have been much better to save the money and buy a laminate Sadowsky.
So the answer to the original question:
Are hand carved archtops worth the money?
My answer is "no".
Why?
The simple reason is in the following page of the Benedetto Web Site
Jazz Guitar Guide
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Judging the general value of carved archtop guitars based on the Benedetto price list is like judging the general value of cars based on what's in a Lamborghini showroom.
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Groyniad et al,
This has been a pretty good discussion. It could have been a little better. Just a couple of points that need attention...
I.
Someone said something about "responsiveness" and "musicality". Oh, yes. They are subjective. That's it. Musicality yes. However, responsiveness can be easily objectively measured. Not that it needs to be, but it can be.
Responsiveness is an important quality in an instrument. It is an acoustic property. It would be very easy to design a test to compare responsiveness of various guitars using electronic and mechanical gadgets. No human interaction. Results on paper.
But responsiveness is a parameter that most people can agree on subjectively. Therefore, scientific objectivity is not necessary. I postulate that you could take 10 different guitars and 10 different players. Let each player privately rate the responsiveness of each of the guitars. Then compare the results. If there was much variation in response between the guitars, the players would rate them all in approximately the same order.
II.
OK. Electric vs. Acoustic. All guitars, even solid-bodies, have acoustic properties. When a guitar is amplified, its acoustic properties still influence the electric tone. That basic electric tone is further modified by the electronics and the mechanical characteristics of the speaker. (The size of the room and physical materials in also influence the tone.)
Except for in the studio and in a few other intimate situations, all guitars are amplified either by a pickup or microphone. In most performance situations, all guitars are amplified.
My point here is that, for any guitar, it may be beneficial to consider its acoustic properties first. All instruments are first acoustic instruments, even when they are intending only for use with amplification. As a player trying out a guitar, I will always consider the acoustic properties first.
III.
That brings us to feedback. I have said this in other threads, so forgive me. Feedback is an EQ problem. All things that vibrate tend to exhibit the tendency to vibrate more readily at a given frequency, the resonant frequency of the thing. If that resonant frequency happens to fall within the range of the instruments normal use, then you have a potential feedback problem. The only way to fix it, without changing the acoustic properties of the instrument, is to reduce the amplitude gain of that particular frequency with a narrow band equalizer.
Acoustic guitars, speakers, and speaker cabinets all have these resonant peaks. It is one of the things that makes a guitar sound and respond the way it does. So you don't want to reduce the peak resonance at the guitar. It's great when the speaker cabinet can be designed to minimize its peak. Sometimes that could solve the whole problem. Otherwise, EQ is the right way to correct the problem.
IV.
Now for my personal opinion. I disagree that one must make 200 or more guitars in order to get consistently good ones. It's not a secret recipe. Builders have so much access to information, tools, and materials that many will make a guitar that sounds pretty good on the first try. By the time you make 5 or 10, you have a pretty good idea of what does what to the tone. I will go out on a limb and say that a new builder could likely get the tone close before mastering the look and feel of the instrument. Most builders start out with some repair experience. He or she will already have enough confidence to make it play correctly--nut, frets, setup. A masterful look is usual the last thing that a maker masters.
For the record, I am presently building my first archtop. My customer is paying $4000 plus a little extra for fancy binding and inlays. He is also involved, sort of as an apprentice, in the building process. Actually there are two guitars, one for me and one for him. We started two years ago, with my already completed design, making all the patterns and jigs from scratch, debugging the building process as we go. Since I had previously made three solid body guitars for this guy, and he liked my design, we started with quite a bit of confidence. We did a lot of research and scrutinized my plan thoroughly. Many people find it difficult to believe that he has put so much time and money into a guitar while having no idea what it is going to sound like in the end. We laugh about. We know it will play well. We know it will look pretty awesome. And we know that no matter what it sounds like, it won't be bad. We're going by the books and consulting my luthier friends along the way (It helps to know people in the business). Even if the sound is not "ideal", he's going to the gig and plug into his Fender Deluxe anyway. And if there is a feedback problem, he's just going to EQ it out--and burn!
Sorry for the long post. If I had more time, I'd make it shorter.
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Hell, for $30,000 clamshells, I can't play THAT well. Not even close. I think I must have middes something or got the wrong page.
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I just forgot one thing. A couple of months ago I completed my first violin. At first I wasn't that impressed with the tone. But after playing it for a while with my cheap fiberglass bow and comparing it to other violins, I can hear and feel that mine has a certain something. That gave us more confidence concerning the outcome of the two upcoming archtops.
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