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It's been many years since I have owned a solid body steel string guitar. For the past 10 years I have been playing archtops primarily and before that I spent a lot of time with flat top guitars.
As much as love archtops, at least when they are behaving, it seems they come with little things that drive one crazy. Rattling hardware, weird resonances, and I am sure this group can think of other things.
I sometimes wonder if one would save themselves a lot of headaches by playing solid body guitars. I am not sure in this regard. Am I making false assumption? Do the solid bodies come with their own unique headaches that are equally maddening?
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09-15-2016 06:18 PM
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I've been just turning up my amp so that I can't hear the rattles ... LOL
But that means things in my room start rattling
You can't win
I need to look into hunting these rattles down
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Solid bodies do seem to have less of the "character" issues that comes with a hollow body. However, I think both have issues that need to be chased down from time to time and once sorted, stay stable again for a long time. Archtops definitely cause grief with pickguards and pickup mounting!
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As much as I love it, my Tal is a rattellac. And it comes and goes so it's hard isolate the rattles. The latest is the guitar sounds like it has a built in distortion pedal somewhere. The sound is amplified through the amp.
So Danielle, I feel your pain. Guitars with floating pickups seem less prone to rattle.
JD
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I can't stand the sound of a solid body, unplugged. Plinky.
Every time I'm in a music store one clerk behind the counter says to another, "Check out this axe!" *plinky*
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My #1 plank for a number of years is the single most hassle free guitar I've ever owned. It's moved with me three times, done a mess of gigs including a bunch that were outdoors and (one at near freezing temperatures) and most of an album etc. etc. etc. and never had a single problem. Now that my life is more sedentary, I enjoy my archtops but when I was working a lot, they drove me crazy and turned me into a slab player for 25 years.
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obviously you don't own a jazzmaster!!
haha
one of the most troublesome solid bodies ever built...(but also my fave!)...websites dedicated to solving their strangeness..and a cottage industry of replacement parts
but really, all guitars have their idiosyncrasies...it often takes a sherlock holmes type methodology to sort them out..but they can be! (mostly) hah
and then, theres always a tele!
cheers
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most archtops (with in body pups) are vulnerable at four spots
the tailpiece/bridge break angle
the pickup height adj springs
the pickguard
and any wiring inside the guitar
each area has to be isolated one at a time until the problem is solved, but it almost always can be
cheers
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Totally different beasts, though. Solid bodies might be less idiosyncratic, but just don't sound like hollow-bodied archtops.
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taken the tim lerch challenge??
Originally Posted by Dedalus
Is it an Archtop or a Telecaster? A listening Challenge.
haha
cheers
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Originally Posted by neatomic
Haha.
In the right hands, the difference can certainly be negligible.
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You buy the boat, you get the leaks. Solid-bodies are more reliable, I think, but as mentioned above, can't deliver the tonal goods. Take the good with the bad and play it like you stole it.
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There's a youtube vid with Julian Lage playing a tele, and I suspect the sound he gets is one many here would like, and sounds very jazz-archtoppy to me. I like a slightly brighter sound.
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i will not tolerate incidental noise of any kind from my archtops
and i will play nothing but archtops - i won't go on and on and on about why
jam the right size pick between the pickup and the plastic housing - it needs to be a very very very snug fit. that will stop ALL pickup noise for nearly a year
after that you will need a very very slightly fatter pick....
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Originally Posted by Joe DeNisco
i've had the distortion thing too - often
it blows me away the variety of distortions that pickup vibration can generate
until you totally stop them from moving if you just touch them or tilt them the morphing of the guitar sound is just incredible (and unsettling)
they have to be TOTALLY IMOBILIZED
try pro plec picks - they're pretty thick - they work for me (the small ones for the first year - the bigger ones for the second - don't ask me about the third i'm not there yet)
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Had also some buzz on the Tal and fix it with the pick trick.
Another benefit of the tight pick is you can align your pickup so they are 100% parallel to strings, good for one's ocd.
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... or use an old saxophone reed. It's wedge shaped and thus is "fit all" size and can be broken/cut off so it doesn't stick out over the PU ring. I have had a tenor sax reed in the PU ring of my 175 for the last 30 years. Crude but it works. Originally Posted by Groyniad
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That clip of Julian is fantastic! Amazing playing and beautiful sound. It sounds like a Tele to me and that's a great sound.
But it doesn't sound like early GB or KB or PM...... that's a sound I personally love .......... doesn't mean it's
"better". It's just the sound I happen to like because I'm happily stuck in the bebop past.
It seems to me the Julian is actually discovering a different performance freedom because of his Tele.
I think he is going to open up a whole new audience because of the vitality and joy in his performance......and the fact
that this style has "contemporary" edge to it.
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Also have to pass on my old rattling Gibson 775 story. It's a shame I lost the pictures but.....
The 775 had the shocking rattle and we (me and my luthier) could not stop it my putting foam and rubber in the pup springs or any other trick we tried.
Then the luthier removed the vol and tone plastic knobs and noted that the pots had a "holding" washer at the base of the spine. He jammed some cotton between the washer and the body and wrapped it around a few times. Did the same with each pot.
Problem solved!!
Never seen that one before.
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This thread reminds me of a time I took my little (21st birthday) cousin Dianne out to dinner one night in my 1965 Mustang fastback. On the way to Manhattan she asked if we could shut off the radio and listen to the sounds my car made :-)
I had either not noticed them to that point or learned to ignore them, but from then on those "noises" really bothered me.
Now I come to find out my archtops have noises? Curse all of you :-)
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Tim didn't compare Freddie Green style comping. That's when you're driving the top and really getting the true nature of an archtop, especially a carved top one. Originally Posted by neatomic
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You may save yourself some headaches with a solid body and cause yourself a backache in the trade. I have often reached for a nice solid body off the rack in a store and discovered how very heavy some of these little solid body guitars can be.
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I sit so this doesn't bother me, but some players are on an endless quest to find the lightest Tele, etc... Originally Posted by Matt Cushman
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I bought a 1951 Epiphone Zephyr Regent Deluxe in 1997 or so. Had a great, fat sound and played OK, but the neck moved faster than a Camaro gas gauge. Tried repair various times, to no avail. Finally I just dumped it, losing around $500 in the process. Maybe it would've been smarter to hold out longer til it appreciated more, but I only own 1 guitar at a time, so... Originally Posted by DanielleOM
The guitar I play now, a Godin Kingpin 5th Avenue, I am quite satisfied with. Has the dark, woody sound I like and is the perfect size for my small hands. My guitar player friends I have try it love it too. And it set me back a mere $800.
Generally, I'm not too into guitars---just like to have a good one. What's a good one? if it plays good and sounds good it is good...
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The closest thing to a solid-body I owned since my rock days in the Age of Steel was a Guild T-50 (student model). Cost me $110 back in the '80s---the seller was dying to unload it. It sort of resembled a Gibson ES 125. (Unlike Tal Farlow, I've never been a 'Gibson Boy'). It had a white single-coil pickup which was loud and crackly, but sounded the end.
Ever the weisenheimer, I dubbed it 'Ugly' (it was), and wrote that name with a strong pen of some sort on the pickup. Eddie Diehl erased it when maintaining it.
Sadly, during hard times in 2009 I let it go. Got $600 from the music store, and the owner turned it over for $900. Good for him. Before before the transaction we sat down and played some, and I realized I was about to make a big mistake selling it---it sounded so dark and huge.
Got an email from the purchaser soon after saying he heard that it was mine and would I sign it! WTF, I ain't George Benson or some other big shot.
I offered the guy the same $900 to buy it back. Never heard a word...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-16-2016 at 10:47 AM.
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