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I might be blowing this out of proportion, but why do the manufacturers cut great big holes in the face of nice archtop guitars to install humbuckers? Couldn't they use something like the dogear P-90 pickup to mount the pickup on the surface, without needing to cut the big holes? I think that even dogears require holes, but that's not entirely the point--don't you lose a little something in structural integrity and tone by cutting those holes?
Just sayin', no offense to anyone. Tell me I'm wrong, as I'd prefer it that way.
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11-19-2009 08:34 PM
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My long term (1982-97) #1 electric, a '63 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, did not have holes cut in the top...the tradeoff was that there was no way to adjust the height of the pickups. So it's a compromise (an odd choice, in the above example: Mr Atkins wanted that model to have as little acoustic resonance as possible).
Originally Posted by N8RD7
Another answer is that, the holes are not cut arbitrarily: bracing is arranged to clear the cavities, and, on many of the "nice archtop guitars," what the manufacturer is cutting into is not carved spruce, but laminated wood (AKA plywood).
Compromise, again: carved spruce tops can interfere with the goal of building a guitar that sounds good through an amplifier. I confess that I'm a firm adherent to the dark side here: I now play a Gibson ES-335, which is a solid body wolf in arch top sheep's clothing.
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Well, that's a pretty good question. I don't really know the answer but I'll suggest some reasons that occur to me. Originally Posted by N8RD7
Diverging, necessarily, from the topic but only briefly. The humbucking pickup is actually TWO pickups in the same package. The theory behind eliminating the hum is that one pickup is used to detect string vibration while the other pickup is passive. The two are wired 180 degrees out of phase. Any signal that is presented to BOTH pickups simultaneously results in cancellation.
So, in the case of 60 Hz hum, which is mostly magnetic conduction, both pickups detect the hum but since they are of opposite polarity (180 degrees out of phase), the voltages produced are of equal amplitude but opposite polarities and completely cancel.
The pickup that has the adjustment screws exposed detects string vibration, the unexposed pickup doesn't, so the string vibration is not cancelled by the out-of-phase humbucker configuration.
Back on topic. In order to have adequate sensitivity and compensate for the loss of the second, passive pickup, the humbucking coils have to be considerably larger than say a P-90 coil. This entails THICKER pickup coils than a P-90 so most guitars cannot accomodate a normal construction humbucker between the strings and the body of the guitar. It's also necessary to accomdate the springs and adjusting screws that allow the humbucker to be adjusted to various guitar/string combinations ... makes the assembly even thicker.
I suppose that a guitar could be constructed that could use humbuckers mounted directly to the top. That would suggest doubling the normal distance from strings to guitar top, doubling the height of the bridge, altering the relationship of the neck to the body and steepening the angle of the strings over the bridge and back to the tailpiece.
I have NO IDEA what all of that will do to the playability/sound of an archtop guitar but I suspect that the manufacturers do know and have their reasons for not doing this. Good question !Last edited by randyc; 11-19-2009 at 10:31 PM.
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Ha. A classic case of two answers, with no overlap, and both more or less true.
And, even better, neither one "really" answers the original question.
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You can get an archtop with a p90 or p100. You can get one with a floating pick-up. Some people prefer the tone of an installed humbucker, so they make 'em.
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All true and personally I like humbuckers best, P-90 = close second. However what the N8RD7 wanted to know was Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
.. but why do the manufacturers cut great big holes in the face of nice archtop guitars to install humbuckers?
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Because they're electric guitars, not acoustic guitars.
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LOL, and also from N8RD7: Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
Couldn't they use something like the dogear P-90 pickup to mount the pickup on the surface, without needing to cut the big holes?
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Well, they could cut even bigger holes in the top, and stick a microphone in there.
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"don't you lose a little something in structural integrity and tone by cutting those holes?"
Bah.. as previously mentioned the tops are well braced and usually laminated with is stronger than solid wood.
And, as previously mentioned yes you are killing tone but that isnt a bad thing when you are playing amplified. A resonant top RESONATES, that means that the sound from the speaker makes it vibrate as well. We usually refer to this as feedback. Similarly a laminated top servers a similar purpose (taming feedback when amplified). Taken to an extreme, solidbodys are HORRIBLE acoustically because they rely 100% on the pickup.
There arent many solid top guitars (pressed or carved) these days that cut the top. They usually have floating humbuckers (yes... you can fit a humbucker in there, but not the standard config (see below) ).
Lollar made me a p-90 with magnetic poles instead of a bar magnet for my Epi Emp Regent (shhhh Randy). I didnt have to route the top at all. 2 1/16th (I think) holes to mount it.Last edited by dh82c; 11-20-2009 at 12:43 AM.
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Nice, concise summary. Nahh, I'm not getting weird about the Epi any more, it's all done. AND I am very interested in the conclusion of your modification using the P-90 variation !
cheers,
Randy
PS:Oh my, how did I miss THAT the first time around ! You ignore Gibsons, Heritage guitars, copies of the "golden era" instruments (Asian and otherwise), maybe 95% of all jazz guitars manufactured up to now, with THAT statement. Suggest you reconsiderThere arent many solid top guitars (pressed or carved) these days that cut the top. They usually have floating humbuckers
Last edited by randyc; 11-20-2009 at 01:30 AM. Reason: add PS
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no
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loss of structural integrity? i'd say minimal--there's archtops with routed pickups hanging around that are a lot older than me and they're still holding up.
loss of tone?--sure. but what was the tone to begin with? most of the archtops i see with routed pickups are meant to be electric guitars--they big hollow body certainly affects the tone, but the pure acoustic sound of the instrument is not what we're intended to hear as the instruments "optimal sound."
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Agreed. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
This is the crux of my question. Why would anyone accept loss of tone in the instrument in order to accommodate the technology if the technology can be modified to fit the design of the instrument? And why wouldn't a player expect to hear the quality of the instrument's acoustic sound as it's 'optimal sound'? Why would we argue in favor of what might be a brutal compromise without asking whether it's necessary? Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
To put the point in context, would a Stradavarius violin player accept such compromises? Or any professional string player with any stringed instrument? Have you ever seen a cello in the orchestra with a pickup sawed into the soundboard?
I'm not interested in taking an adversarial position with anyone, nor do I mean to imply that your average humbucker equipped archtop sounds bad. I am just trying to understand the nature of the instrument in the context from whence it came. The '50s was a time when technology inserted itself into our culture in every way, and the design of the archtop, which is at best a well crafted stringed instrument in the spirit of all predecessor instruments, seems compromised to me by cutting holes in the top.
Maybe the holes and the bracing that accommodates them actually is part of the archtop tone and is a useful evolution. Or maybe not. Maybe everything is in the fingers and this is all academic.
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blame charlie christian, i guess. and i should have said "optimal sound for it's current application" Originally Posted by N8RD7
the sound of an archtop acoustic is an interesting thing. for a jazz application as a lead instrument, it doesn't really do it. it needs amplification to be heard. the standard has changed, likely permanently.
personally, the sound of an archtop acoustic was never "optimal," simply "necessary." it was meant to be loud and cut thru-- it has none of the complexities or rich tonal qualities of a well made flattop steel string or a well-crafted nylon string guitar. It wasn't meant to compete with those.
when the guitar became a viable soloing instrument, the required tone changed. part of this change was simply due to the general technology of the moment, but it was a tone that was copied and a new standard was set.
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I think you're going in a conceptual circle: the acoustic arch top is a musical instrument with certain properties, therefore anything that changes those properties, even something that is designed to change those properties, has to be defended. Originally Posted by N8RD7
That's not true. The amplified arch top has evolved as players have found that some traits are more desirable than others, not because of any perceived violation of the paradigm, but rather because different voicings promote different styles of playing. The best players in each generation exploit those anomalies, if we can call them that, and produce recognizable music as a result.
The electrification of the arch top was intended to make it louder: not different, but louder. Much thought was expended in this (ultimately futile) quest; before anything like that was achieved, along came Charlie Christian, who exploited the amplified sound, and who then took guitar jazz in a new and interesting direction.
We now have over half a century of amplified guitar technology to choose from: some want the "louder, natural" tone (and the technology has finally started to catch up to that), others want the "more electric" tone, still others want something that never came out of any guitar in the past (Pat Metheny springs to mind). To pick one manifestation of the amplified guitar, out of that half-century, and to proclaim it the "right" one, is unproductive.
On a bass forum I frequent, one question that comes up all the time is, "why doesn't every bass guitar have 24 frets? It's the only configuration that makes sense."
The answer is, of course: some of us don't want 24 frets (I had a lovely 24 fret bass that was, for all its apparently ergonomic shape, would have been a much more playable instrument had it not been designed to provide full access to those highest 4 frets, none of which I had any use for -- or, as I said in response to the 24-fret question, "if I need to play in that range, I'll get out the Les Paul").
Taking the Les Paul as a handy example: here is what was recognized as a hermaphrodite abomination at the time of its introduction: a canoe paddle made to resemble a real guitar. It took elements of the traditional, acoustic-based instrument (the overall shape and the arched top) and applied them to an impossibly small form factor. Once the early novelty wore off, they no longer sold, and Gibson discontinued them.
The musicians continued to play them, and pretty soon there was a great demand for Les Pauls, and for music that didn't exist (rock) when the Les Paul was introduced, and that neither principal (Mr Paul and Mr McCarty) had any use for.
So beware of prescriptive formulae for determining what's correct or not. If a guitar is a viable, expressive instrument, someone will find a way to express him or herself on it.
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... but the violin and cello are (usually) purely acoustic instruments. The archtop is sometimes a purely acoustic instrument (no pickup), sometimes a primarily electric instrument (a laminate guitar like a 175), and sometimes somewhere in between (eg a carved top with built-in pickups, or a carved top with a floater). Originally Posted by N8RD7
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I can't help but think of the L-5 in this conversation. When Freddy Green was playing sans amp in a big band setting, he used heavy strings that were REALLY high off the fretboard so he could be heard. So much so, that most of us probably couldn't play it at all.
When the guitar became a soloist instrument, things changed. But the soloist needs to be heard above the band (read drums), and for that kind of volume, you are going to have feedback issues with an archtop. A humbucker set in the top of an L-5 is going to create less feedback than say a D'Angelico with a floating pup.
Having that big chunk of metal set into a solid wood top was an evolutionary step in the archtop moving from a purely acoustic to electric instrument. Today, the trend is laminates as pointed out above. However, the L-5 still is considered a "destination" guitar.
Then there is the tone. Floaters vs P-90, vs buckers has sparked plenty of debate and conversation here. Jazz guys have typically gravitated toward buckers, with obvious exceptions.
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Lately, I've been moving from humbuckers to single coil as far as my preference for a jazz sound goes. That SC can be a P-90, Tele neck pup or one of the new Charlie Christian for Tele pups. Anyone else losing their love for humbuckers?
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no, but only because that would suggest i loved them in the first place.
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I don't know much about bracing, but aren't the two choices X versus parallel bracing, and if a top is routed it must use parallel bracing? So if one wanted X bracing ... no routes? Originally Posted by lpdeluxe
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I wonder what difference that might make? But it's true -- parallel braces are ordinarily used, for convenience's sake, on arch tops with routed pickup cavities. Guitar repairmen, required to install pickups in originally acoustic guitars, soon learned that many of them had parallel braces too narrowly spaced to accommodate a pickup between. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
My thinking is, as always, that it's not about the bracing, or the use of laminate or otherwise in the top, or whether the pickups are in cutouts or suspended from chains: it's what happens when I pick up a given guitar (because they're all different) and what music I can tease out of it.
So I'm sort of an informed Luddite: don't bother me with the details, let me choose my guitar without preconceptions. In the event, my main guitar these days is a Gibson ES-335 with a thin body, laminate top and back, and -- naturally -- the obligatory holes in the top for the pickups.
Did I mention the "bracing" consists of a solid length of 1"x4" maple?
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I find it ironic that someone as influential as Django did most of his stuff with a flat top guitar. As far as electric archtops, with guitarists being so anal about tone, I'm sure if there was a serious issue about the tonal integrity of cavity mounted humbuckers, it would have been addressed long ago.
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cg:
That's certainly true but I think that Django is admired for technique (and perhaps we overemphasize his disability) more than for tone. (I agree with the non-issue of humbucker routing.)
cheers,
randyc
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In the end, it all comes down to the design philosophy and goals of the luthier.
So, for example, Roger Sadowsky says that he believes that a laminate top guitar has a superior tone when amplified... so he and Jim Hall selected a maple laminate top for the Jim Hall signature model guitar.
He also believes that an inset pickup doesn't affect the tone or the integrity of a laminate top guitar... but gives more choice and flexibility than a floating pickup in that application.
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