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What do you think of the sound? I’ve heard a few old German semi on YouTube and I feel that the sound don’t really have any acoustic depth. Do you have any recordings by any chance?
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01-25-2019 12:46 PM
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Why would you judge the acoustic sound of a semi-hollow?
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Because I like guitars that have a good acoustic tone
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But semi-hollows aren't meant to be acoustic guitars?
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That Seifert is probably not a semi-hollow but a 16” hollow guitar; depth may be a bit less than 3”. It may be heavily built, and meant as mainly an acoustic-electric guitar. Some other German guitars can be quite lightly built and designed mainly for acoustic response, but you can’t categorize this just by the maker, any more than you could say all Gibsons are lightly/heavily built.
The whole system was not so much of a ‘factory’ system as a workshop system where guitars were built to order and models could vary quite a lot. In my experience Todts, Otwins, and Solis, for example, tend to be more light and ‘acoustic’, but my experience is not comprehensive.
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I'm getting my brain massaged at NAMM for a few days.
Briefly pausing to check in here.
Regularly scheduled programming will resume on Monday.
Benjamin: I have a pile of German-built acoustic archtops to recommend in various shapes and sizes.
The high-end German guitars sound as good as or better than anything ever built in the US or elsewhere, it's just the youtube videos that are terrible.
-Where are you located?
-Regarding Roger archtops, what do you mean by "too deep" ?
-Regarding Hoyer archtops, they come in various sizes. They LOOK big but they are not big.
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Hey Hammertone! Again my knowledge of these guitars is based on what I see on YouTube. The Rogers’ body depth is quite big on the videos I’ve seen, I’m looking in terms of body size something thinner than a 175 with a good acoustic tone, I really like the models Attila Zoller Hofner but they are extremely rare and expensive. I live in Paris, I haven’t seen any Hoyers smaller than 18” but I sure like their sound.
I live in France in Paris!!
thanks for all your replies!
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Herbert Wurlitzer's and Willy Herold's look great too!
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What do you mean by dress up his guitars? do you have any recordings of that guitar by any chance, i am really curious of how it sounds
Originally Posted by cmajor9
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Sorry, but, IMO, it's impossible to treat the variety of these archtops in a nutshell!
Many German vintage archtops fall in the range of 16" guitars. To be more exact most of them measure between 41 and 42cm - until the mid 1960s or so Germans didn't care much about US guitar measurements.
There was also a large range of archtops offered with a low side depth. One of the first companies was Arnold Hoyer, at the latest in 1948, with the fully carved thinline 'Solist', though these are almost impossible to find today, in contrast to the full-hollowbody models.
To me a semi or semi-acoustic guitar is a hybrid between a hollowbody and a solid body. Paragon is the ES-335 with a wooden block put between the belly and the back. Different animals are the thinline hollowbodies that show no block (think of the ES 330, or a few excellent Glassl guitars with similar body shape, or the rare fully carved thinline masterpieces of Artur Lang - the latter being t h e guitars for the famous desert island), or show no more than a cello-style sound post (some later Seiferts) or a carved, integrated top reinforcement along the center area that isn't more than 10 or 12mm tall (later Musima Records) and doesn't touch the back.
So many great guitars … The later Heinz Seifert archtops (he worked together with his congenial father Kurt) are among the best German guitars ever made. Like is the case with many East German guitars, most of them sport a side depth of 6.5 to 6.8cm or so, and are, in my own definition, still thinline archtops. Maybe really great ears could hear a difference to the few thinlines that Seifert offered with a sound post - I doubt I could hear it myself!
You can easily forget clips of such guitars, even the more carefully recorded ones, on YouTube, etc. - all of these are misleading at best!
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As a wink at the OP you've put a little questioning at the end of your statement! Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I fully agree that semi-acoustics (or semi-hollows) aren't meant to be great acoustic guitars, but I beg to differ in thinline archtops! Somehow, the handful of the best luthiers achieve to build the same acoustic qualities (99%) into their thinlines, including the bass response. Impossible to hear the difference on recorded clips, far less on stage.
The feeling of these guitars, however, is different - and it may be exactly this what inspires and drives the players (and subsequently their audience) more or less. The same is found in the classical genre: Stradivaris may not sound better than the best contemporary violins, but the inspiration drawn from them is different.
Ok, if you were a person lacking in positive emotion (in Germany, we suffered heavily from one of such leaders) - or better, a person with quite different emotions, values and visions of lifes - it wouldn't matter. Luckily, in the music genre more folks than not do advocate emotional feelings for multilateralism, pluralism and diversification.
For the former applies Goethe's word:
Give up pursuing eloquence, unless
You can speak as you feel! One's very heart
Must pour it out, with primal power address
One's hearers and compel them with an art
Deeper than words.
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The short answer is that there isn’t a single Website or source that will guarantee good results. Old German guitars are unique, so you have to learn to extract as much info as possible from sellers’ photos and see how they answer questions. I’ve had great experiences buying on eBay.de and Kleinanzeigen, as well as from some shops, but have also learned who to be wary of (like the seller with the Seifert) and also ended up with some guitars with undisclosed problems, whether through simple ignorance on the seller’s part or worse.
Perhaps Hammertone or Ol’ Fret will have more to say.
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Wurlitzer was a fine maker, but to my knowledge, did not make guitars less than 3” deep. One maker who did make thinline guitars that are still quite loud acoustically is Tellson (Oscar Teller). Originally Posted by benjamin
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I am not looking for a thinline especially I just thought Hoyer and Roger guitars were too big about 18" I think. My 175 is about 3.5 deep I am just looking for something thinner than this but not especially 335 thin.
And it doesn't have to be loud as well but I am trying to find a guitar that has a good acoustic tone... I don't know if it is clear
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Really? Did Teller make any thinline? I was only aware of Models 10, 11, 12 and 14 (I’ve got a blonde 10 and an 11, both very nice). How are they? Could you describe the thinline models? Originally Posted by cmajor9
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Taking a break from the sonic assault... Originally Posted by benjamin
From memory - I'll check exact dimension for multiple versions of these when I get back to the bunker:
-Roger guitars - @17" wide
-Hoyer Solist - @16 1/2" wide
-Hoyer Special - @17 1/2" wide
more later....Last edited by Hammertone; 10-28-2020 at 10:42 PM.
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Cmajor9 already nailed it in post #23. Some German vintage guitar dealers look serious, but … Originally Posted by benjamin
The former market leader in Germany is retiring slowly - you can still get one or two guitars, on request only. He has had several repair men during the years, the later ones were lousy and didn't know much about the special requirements of archtop guitar or violin making (never give your archtop to a flattop or solid body repairer!).
Another workshop is stereotypically, conveniently, quickly dressing up most vintage archtop guitars by using 'baling polish' (in German: Ballenmattierung). Not what I'd like to have on the original guitar surface because this polish contains either the mix of nitrocellulose with synthetic resin or something with shellac. In addition, their set-up work is more collector- (or vintage-)related than what a serious player would like to have today.
Then there are three or four commercial sellers - like the one mentioned above - who act mainly through ebay or eBay-kleinanzeigen.de. Some are simple resellers, others more like frauds …
Unfortunately, Germany has never seen mainly trustworthy (though not inexpensive) guitar 'authorities' - as seen from this side from the pond - like George Gruhn, Stan Jay, Rudy Pensa or Joe Vinikow, etc., in the USA.
Of course, there are some private persons in Germany who are thought to be knowledgeable and reliable (one of them I'd leave my last shirt!), but most would do repair work only for buddies, if at all. The reason: usually their (official) repair effort and cost would easily exceed the cost of the guitar.
So, the best way is still the old-fashioned, hard way: trial and error, learning, trial and error, learning, etc.: painful and costly in the beginning, but rewarding after 10 or 20 years - depending on your personal learning curve. Good luck!
Btw., I've seen some of Herbert Wurlitzer's carved archtops, and all were thinline guitars, definitely under 7cm.
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benjamin - If I am understanding you correctly, you are more concerned about body size (width) rather than depth, and are looking for an acoustic archtop of around 16" width. As mentioned in my post earlier, there are certainly old German guitars that fit, including guitars of Isana, Otwin, Soli, Tellson, and others (but not necessarily all of their guitars). I believe some Hoyers are also smaller (but not the Solist or Special, those are 17" or larger). In my experience, some Rogers are 16.5" rather than a full 17".
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Originally Posted by xavierbarcelo
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Ol' Fret - I confess, I have not measured a Wurlitzer, and was only going by their appearance in photos. If I was wrong, I stand corrected...
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Are you familiar with 13Instruments in Graz? I've been on tour in Austria and I went by Daniel's shop. He had a nice 16" archtop with a Zoller pickup, and he restores old instruments as well. Check him out, maybe he can steer you toward what you're after.
https://www.13instruments.com/#instrumente
PK
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... a "boxy" neck joint from a quality manufacturer. Similar to my first archtop, a crappy Landola from around 1960, and recently bashed in a thread about Godin 5th Avenue cutaway. I would love to own this kind of a vintage instrument.
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Also another question, what is your feeling with the pickups hidden in the fretboard? I've never seen that before, is there a way to remove it if you want to add a floating pickup instead? Or you need to actually butcher the fretboard to remove it?
Best,
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Willy Goller, the man behind the "hidden" Rellogs, was one of the first technicians to be concerned with electric circuits and guitar pickups in the 1930s. Due to the dark German 1930s and WWII he got the patents not before 1950/51.
Generally, IMO, working Rellogs, the hidden and the floating ones, sound excellent - if they are not weak and/or demagnetized!
The pickups hidden in the fretboard end are naturally only as wide as the corresponding string spacing, and cannot be wider. If such a PU is weak, both outer E strings are negatively affected most - as you can easily imagine.
Hey, not all Germans of that time period were jerks … the hidden PUs can be removed and repaired easily without killing the guitar or the fretboard; replacing them could be a problem today (availability).
Almost all East German archtop guitars sport sort of a Stauffer-Legnani neck joint with one adjustable screw. If not one jerk, not understanding this type of neck, messed around in the past, they work great; all neck-related set-up and fret work can be done more easily than on a glued neck. And, no, if all is done correctly, the tone doesn't suffer in any way …
On Schlaggitarren.de – Willkommen you can find a short audio demonstration of a hidden rellog, attached to a Osbama "Tango" - a slightly smaller show guitar with a quite unique carving pattern, certainly great for early Rock'n'Roll. However, as for me, the vast majority of clips simply don't live up to the subtle refinements of handmade musical instruments … http://www.schlaggitarren.de/uploaded/16.mp3
Here two Herbert Wurlitzer guitars, fully carved, width ca. 16.6", rims 6.0 resp. 6.7cm. Many years ago I was young and foolish enough to sell a third one for under $300. I already told you it's a long, thorny way - with much, much fun. Today, fortunately, there's more information available - though affordable vintage guitars galore are widely gone.
The left one was dressed up by one of those nice eBay dealers: they added a wrong GDR pickguard, an interesting (though completely absurd on a GDR guitar) Thomastik fine tuning tailpiece, and replaced the former hidden Rellog by a newer steel string guitar Schaller PU that doesn't come close tonewise:
Last edited by Ol' Fret; 01-28-2019 at 05:54 PM.
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Thanks for all the informations you've given me so far Ol' Fret.
I feel that the rellog pickup is small and even if it is fully working I doubt i would serve me well with a full band. That's why I am trying to figure out if it is possible to add a floating humbucker. The model I found has the fretboard really advanced in the body of the guitar. I think that a floating would be misplaced if I added one...
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