The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #126

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    Yea. Made-for-electric carved archtops with a thick carve. Lugging around 2 humbuckers and 4 pots. Not surprised that it's all about amplified. Which takes everything into a different context. Not that amplified is bad.. love the sound.. tubes and 57 HB's or better yet P90's. All of that. Extra resonance of solid vs plate is diminished on several fronts.

    But a guitar designed to be an acoustic instrument is different. The one I played tonight has a (literally) 10+ second decay. Natural reverb. Thrum bass. Rich mid. Bell highs. It sounds like an acoustic archtop. Not a flat top. Not electric. Will an audience hear it? Not outside of a recording involving better mic's and engineers than this guitar will likely ever see. But I get to hear it. And it's totally worth the price of admission.

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  3. #127

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    You guys need to take up piano.

  4. #128

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    Quote Originally Posted by Clint 55
    You guys need to take up piano.
    I think they need to take up piezo...

    Solid tops make sense for acoustic archtops, which then need acoustic pickup systems when plugging in to preserve the playing nuances at amplified levels. Magnetic pickups can cover up a lot of the fine details of the soundboard producing the tone.A good acoustic archtop is about as sensitive to the pick and where and how you play on the string as a violin is to a bow.

  5. #129

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    Pianos don't have diminishing tone returns over 5k.

  6. #130

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spook410
    Yea. Made-for-electric carved archtops with a thick carve. Lugging around 2 humbuckers and 4 pots. Not surprised that it's all about amplified. Which takes everything into a different context. Not that amplified is bad.. love the sound.. tubes and 57 HB's or better yet P90's. All of that. Extra resonance of solid vs plate is diminished on several fronts.

    But a guitar designed to be an acoustic instrument is different. The one I played tonight has a (literally) 10+ second decay. Natural reverb. Thrum bass. Rich mid. Bell highs. It sounds like an acoustic archtop. Not a flat top. Not electric. Will an audience hear it? Not outside of a recording involving better mic's and engineers than this guitar will likely ever see. But I get to hear it. And it's totally worth the price of admission.
    I don't think anyone here disagrees that acoustic guitars make better acoustic guitars than electric guitars do. But if we're talking strictly about acoustic guitars, and the question at hand is whether price = quality, well ... Sometimes. It's possible (and fairly common) for people to prefer a "worse" sound. Guitar is a funny instrument. A lot of great music (e.g., many early blues recordings) has been made on cheap, boxy sounding instruments, and people seek out those sounds. Shitty old parlor guitars (or modern re-enactments of them like) have a weird way of working better in a mix than a beautiful old D28, too. And early jazz rhythm guitar and chord soloing is about mid-range cut, not detailed highs and rich bass, so that beautiful sound you experienced might be useless to some players. You don't see this embrace of "bad" sounds to the same extent with other instruments.
    Last edited by John A.; 12-08-2021 at 12:36 PM.

  7. #131

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    When I get my fancy boutique carved top archtop in a few years it won't have a pickup, it will be just for me, in my music room, or maybe out on my back porch. It took a while to decide that point, but that's how I'm going to go. If I need to play out, I'll bring one of my Ibanezes and the audience won't know or care

    Not being a great musician actually offers one a lot of freedom in this regard

  8. #132

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    My experience leads me to believe that a solid wood carved archtop will provide a sound that a pressed or laminate guitar can't provide. Whether that is a sound is worth it depends on the individual. In my case, it is most certainly worth it.

  9. #133

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    The bass player made my night at the end of a Christmas party we were playing Monday night when he asked me, "Is that a D'Aquisto?"
    I was playing my Borys Jazz Solid through an AI Corus.

  10. #134

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    If you need the sound and tone that a laminate or pressed top cannot provide and a hand carved can, then there is an admission price.
    How much is that price? At a minimum it is how low before a luthier in a given location decides to say I need to make a living if I am to make this guitar, so my hourly rate is $x. Below that I lose money and shall walk away.
    So yeah, some will cost more than others. If your luthier lives in a place with a high cost of living and high average wage it will cost proportionately.
    Ask yourself if it takes you 40-50 hrs of your time + materials + overheads at your current wage what that would equate to. It racks up! Even if you handmade a laminate I bet it would not be cheap.
    anything beyond that value has to be chalked up to providence, nostalgia or scarcity.
    A different way to ask the same question could be- Is the sound I am after worth the cost of a hand carved arch top?

    without Luthiers you don’t have hand carved instruments. They have to eat to survive. They deserve to be paid appropriately.

  11. #135

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    Quote Originally Posted by EastwoodMike
    without Luthiers you don’t have hand carved instruments. They have to eat to survive. They deserve to be paid appropriately.
    People who bring joy to the world are like your teeth: you only have to take care of the ones you want to keep around.
    Are hand carved archtops worth the money?-smiley_bowing-gif

  12. #136

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    Quote Originally Posted by Klatu
    My experience leads me to believe that a solid wood carved archtop will provide a sound that a pressed or laminate guitar can't provide. Whether that is a sound is worth it depends on the individual. In my case, it is most certainly worth it.
    Klatu, or better “Klaatu barada nikto” - before my time and waaaaaay before yours.

    Agreed regarding the carved top, but man it is almost impossible to get repeatable performance in a carved top. The wood does what it wants to, to a significant extent.

    EDIT: Unless you do the absurd, 1/2 inch thick, ostensibly “carved” guitar that we all know of.

    EDIT of Edit: Of which we all know*

    For someone willing to test and search, the carved wood can deliver. For an online order of a factory guitar, that is another matter.

    Happy holidays to you and the way-fine Mrs. K.