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There just may be a difference between the archtop guitar being dead, and Gibson going Chapter 11 because they/he goofed up their strategy.
It was just about 2 years ago when Wildwood guitars had more L5s on their website than you could shake a stick at. Did demand kill that, or Gibby going tits up?
I'm inclined to say it's a little of both, but mostly the latter.
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04-15-2019 10:10 PM
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Wow! I missed that important detail the first (and second) time I looked at that photo. Very cool 175!
Originally Posted by Gitpicker
Oh and I love that the pickup is up against the fingerboard where it should be! (IMHO)
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The truth is hollowbody archtop guitars are like Selmer guitars. They are intrinsically associated with a particular era and style of jazz. They are period instruments. I don't see why anyone who isn't mainly interested in getting that straight-ahead jazz tone of 50's and 60's would pay 2, 3 times the price of a professional solid body guitar and get an hollowbody archtop. Unfortunately guitarists of other styles having been convinced of the versatility of hollowbody archtops and I don't blame them.
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Those of us who are or have been fortunate enough to own top of
the range Gibsons will feel the disappointment that the Company
will not be building quotas of the L5's or Byrdlands , Tal Farlows ,
L4Ces etc., excepting the ones shown on Sweetwater's Site.
(Personally I am not keen on the L5 being produced with an
IRW fretboard, an Ebony fingerboard should be de Rigeuer.)
Perhaps if one or two of our pro players here badger Gibson into
producing the One Pickup ES175 ( made for JP) even in a limited
run, I imagine there would be considerable interest. As Stringswinger
has already pointed out, there may be problems with JP's heirs and
beneficiaries to consider. Gibsons CEO will be aware that their
unrivalled reputation was founded on the production of the inimitable
and IMHO unequalled model the L5CES.
If anyone of our stalwarts take up the cudgel with Gibson, please
state the case that a number of our (almost ) 60,000 members here
would be interested and delighted to hear of Archtop production reinstated.
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Period pieces? Hmm? I dunno.
There are not a lot of them in circulation, so most guitarists have never played one. Their reference on acoustic is going to be a steel-string flattop, for sure.
If you have played a period Gibson, D'Angelico, or Epiphone--I'm talking 20s and 30s, here--you are going to report that the tone is simply stunning. The trebles, from the third to the tenth fret are gob-smacking. Seriously, a 16" L5 will make you put away your Martin forever. The sound is _that_ good.
If I had an assignment to play an acoustic solo for a studio cut, I'd show up with a 16" Gibson from the 20s or 30s. It'll make jaws drop.
Still, they are scarce as hen's teeth, so folks just don't know what they are missing.
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I am really fussy about guitar tone. If there were just Martins and Strats in the world I would not play. I have dog ears. Bright tone hurts them.
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I think I hear what vinny1k is saying. With the archtop, there is a whole bunch of the fundamental pitch in the note being generated, in comparison with the overtone series. You really get punched by the overtone and the first octave--plus overtones. When I play flattop guitar, there is a much higher amplitude to the overtone series present.
When playing classical guitar you get a fundamental pitch-to-overtone balance that is much closer to the archtop than to the flattop steel string guitar. That may be why many people thought that Grady Martin was playing a classical guitar on "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, instead of the Epiphone archtop that he used (for all of the fill work).
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True, flat tops, especially rosewood back and sides ones have a lot more "ringing overtone" quality to them. Sweeter sound. Solid body electrics also have more overtones then hollow electrics IMO. I generally prefer the dry, fundamental oriented tone. Originally Posted by Greentone
Semi-hollows also I think have less overtones than solids in general.
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Flattops vs Archtops and their evolution......amplified or not.......
Did anyone else find it interesting that both flat top and archtop players have continued playing their music with flattops and archtops respectively, even after the introduction of amplification for each ?
That has to beg the question why players of certain styles of music have a preference, and that volume alone may not be the determining factor for the style of guitar they chose.
MHO
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Good conversation starter. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Or did you neglect to insert a pile of emoticons?
I don't think:
-they are like Selmer guitars at all.
-their association with a particular era and style of jazz is intrinsic.
-they are period instruments.
-their tone is limited to the "straight-ahead jazz tone of 50's and 60's."
-hollowbody archtops cost 2, 3 times the price of equivalently-made/marketed professional solid body guitars.
-it's unfortunate that guitarists of other styles have been convinced of the versatility of hollowbody archtops (and I'm not sure what you mean by saying you don't blame them).
Other than that, I agree with everything you said.
Oh, and I don't think that the archtop guitar is dead, dying, or even smells funny. When it comes to archtop guitars, Gibson is one maker among many these days, and the foolish decision-making by their previous owners isn't necessarily shared by all of their competitors who make archtop guitars.Last edited by Hammertone; 04-17-2019 at 03:07 PM.
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Actually I just read everything again (thanks for formatting my post Originally Posted by Hammertone
). I agree with everything I said. That is, of course you can find exceptions where it's not true (rock guitarist using an ES 175 for example) as you can find exceptions to just about everything. The items above are valid generalizations in my experience.
One thing though, I think you misunderstood the statement that "they are like Selmer guitars". They aren't as instruments. I meant they are like Selmer guitars in terms of their association to a particular jazz period/style (ie. Gypsy vs straight-ahead). That's with a slight stretch of course.
BTW my favorite guitar is ES 175 but my favorite styles of music are bebop and hard bop(surprise, surprise). Most post-bop jazzers don't use hollowbody archtops. They seem to favor thinlines and solids. Again you can find exceptions but straight-ahead players are going to be much more likely to be hollowbody electric players. Their main appeal is the 50's 60's jazz guitar tone we are accustomed to hearing from the records.Last edited by Tal_175; 04-17-2019 at 04:31 PM.
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When I got my first ES-175, I spent some time performing with it in the pop/rock/country/blues & what have you band I was in at the time. It sounded great, regardless of genre.* The audiences were totally cool (indeed, oblivious), but the whining from the band was incessant. "Why don't you play the Les Paul/Strat/ES-345 yadda yadda blah blah." They wore me down, eventually. Audiences don't care, or at least they didn't then. I will allow that the striking appearance and tone of the SelMac type of instrument may promote typecasting, and ubiquitous targeted marketing doesn't help. And it certainly doesn't make things any easier when for an audience of, say, a couple hundred people, at least a dozen are unemployed guitar players, aka "critics."** Originally Posted by Tal_175
Oh! for the days of simple musical entertainment!
* I maintain that once the drums and bass kick in, the perceived tone of one humbucker played at sub-distortion levels if pretty much indistinguishable from another, in the mix.
**And a disturbing number are live-blogging.
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I would distill your idea to this: Originally Posted by Tal_175
Actually I just read everything again (thanks for formatting my post). I agree with everything I said. That is, of course you can find exceptions where it's not true (rock guitarist using an ES 175 for example) as you can find exceptions to just about everything. The items above are valid generalizations in my experience.
One thing though, I think you misunderstood the statement that "they are like Selmer guitars". They aren't as instruments. I meant they are like Selmer guitars in terms of their association to a particular jazz period/style (ie. Gypsy vs straigh-ahead). That's with a slight stretch of course.
BTW my favorite guitar is ES 175 but my favorite styles of music are bebop and hard bop(surprise, surprise). Most modern jazzer don't use hollowbody archtops. Again you can find exceptions but straight-ahead players are going to be much more likely to be hollowbody electric players. Their main appeal is the 50's 60's jazz guitar tone we are accustomed to from the records.
Guitarists tend to play the guitars of their heroes.
And I cheerfully admit to doing just that. And why not? My heroes played great guitars and so do I.
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Sorry I missed that question. As an ES 175 owner I'm well aware that you can play other styles of music with a hollowbody. But for a rock/blues player who's heros aren't Herb Ellis's or Wes Montgomery's, a hollowbody doesn't offer any advantages over a solid body or a thinline. They are more feedback prone, they are more awkward to hold standing up, they don't readily give you instant Jimmi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Albert King, SRV tones. So, again if you aren't completely enchanted by the 50's, 60's bop guitar tones and play that music, I don't know why you would choose a hollowbody electric as your main guitar. Originally Posted by Hammertone
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Fair enough. We may have different frames of reference here. IIRC, the Selmer Maccaferri came out in '32, and has been the standard for manouche ever since. I'm not that involved with that style of guitar, but my perception is that it has never had much traction in any other musical styles (let the experts chime in as appropriate). It might have simply been a new design and a good guitar mostly available to European players when it was introduced. Perhaps its adoption as such was curtailed by the Great Depression, WWII and post-war reconstruction, but, since then, there has been a robust and focussed community of devotees, players, and builders. Originally Posted by Tal_175
OTOH, from the time of its introduction in 1923 until the early 1950s, the archtop guitar was essentially an acoustic guitar, used across a variety of genres. It successfully competed with banjoes, flattops and resophonic guitars. By the end of the 1940s, makers had sorted out how to amplify it, making it relevant for additional uses, and it continued to be popular throughout the 1950s. Because the electrified guitar could also be offered as a laminated instrument (making production easy, lowering costs, reducing feedback issues), and then a solid-body instrument (making production easy, lowering costs, eliminating feedback issues), because amplifiers got better and better in the 1950s, and because of the American impulse to buy new stuff, the acoustic archtop was supplanted by its laminated electric counterparts and by newer, solidbody guitars. By the early 1960s, all archtop guitars had a much smaller and diminishing market share.
There were still plenty of bands with archtop guitarists, plenty of recordings with archtop guitars, but the kids looked at archtops as their parents' guitars. Musical styles had expanded to include newer styles of pop music targeted at teenagers, which eventually led to the creation of high-volume rock music for which only solid-body guitars would work. This all coincided with the Baby Boom. Rock-oriented pop music was a tsunami that simply washed everything else away, relegating it to "oldies" status.
Eventually, guitar players interested in jazz came to realize that solid-body/semi guitars don't sound like archtop guitars, and that there were unique and desirable characteristics to archtops (both acoustic and electric), so the instrument came back. I suppose it now lives in a ghetto similar in some ways to the manouche ghetto, but the path taken was very different. It's true that lots of "modern" jazz guitar is not being played on "old-school" jazz guitars, but I think a lot of that has to do with simple lack of exposure. It always amuses me to put properly made carved acoustic archtops into the hands of players who have never had the experience of playing them, and watch the expressions on their faces as they begin to comprehend something previously unimagined.
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Hammertone,
Good post. If I am honest with myself, when I was a boy I DID see archtops as my father's generation's guitars. (I wanted an ES-335 AND a Fender Stratocaster.)
THEN, I took formal lessons from a guy who played an unamplified D'Angelico. OMG. From that moment forward, every L4C, L5, you name it, that this 12 year-old saw or could actually play was like something Prometheus stole from Olympus and gave to us mortals.
I got my first acoustic archtop, a Gibson, on my 18th birthday. I have never had a day since in which I did not own acoustic archtop guitars.
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Yeah good post Hammertone. I'm under the impression that (I could be wrong) Gibson has stopped making acoustic archtops long, long time ago. All Gibson archtop offerings (solid carved or laminate) seem to have been electric guitars, I don't know since when. I do remember seeing one fully acoustic L7 offered I think 10+ years ago. But generally only Gibson acoustic archtops are vintage guitars at this point. Is that true, do Gibson custom shop still offer acoustic archtops?
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Hammer nails it.
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Gibson made the L5P acoustic in 2014. Nothing fully acoustic since than except custom order.
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Supply and demand always determines what gets produced .Although if you are willing to pay for it, I'd bet Gibson will make it for you. But why when there are plenty of used ones,and excellent luthiers nowadays like Mark Campellone, Bill Comins,Franz Elferink,etc .
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Originally Posted by jads57
Makes total sense. If the new Gibson isn't going to press dealers into buying x amount of inventory like the old Gibson did, and their dealers don't want expensive guitars hanging around unsold for 6 months or more, then Gibson isn't going to produce tons of archtops. There has to be a buyer in the loop.
So, the dealers will order a very few for inventory (all in sunburst and natural of course), and customers will make special orders.
What's wrong with that? Nothing.
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In the old days, I can remember small shops (remember those) in which a Byrdland or an L-5 would stay in inventory for years, sometimes.
This probably contributed to the demise of the small, family-run music shop.
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I remember a nice guitar store, they always had one model of every Gibson archtop in stock, including Kalamazoo award, etc.. They moved, albeit slowly.
Their business fell off starting with disco, continuing with rap and hip-hop - and - The Guitar Center. A number of factors simply blew them out of the water.
Lower consumer demand, and big box retail with its economies of scale. Too much.
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The L5 CES is "special order" ONLY.....from ALL the dealers. Plus, they will probably want a 50% DEPOSIT before they place the order. On top of that....you are looking at a delivery time of 12-18 months. However....in late 2019 my local Gibson dealer got in a NEW L5 CES Blonde.... which he had *pre-ordered*. As Gibson collectors know....Gibsons have always been "hit & miss"....but when I played this one-- I bought it on the spot. Acoustically....the BEST archtop I have ever heard or played. Fit and finish are also PERFECT. With this one...it doesn't even need pickups. Sometimes in the guitar world....we get lucky. Especially when it comes to Gibsons.
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While I agree completely with your post, I think there may be another equally important reason for the current widespread use of solid and laminated semi-hollow guitars where carved archtops would have been found years ago. Originally Posted by Hammertone
Solid body guitars require a much smaller resource base and far less effort to obtain and maintain. A very fine solid body can be had for far less than a carved box of similar quality and complexity. Many solid and thin, laminated semi-hollow guitars survive almost total neglect and remain playable. Buyers pay a sometimes shocking premium for a new “relic” strat, Tele, LP etc made by attacking a pristine new guitar with oven cleaner, valve grinding compound, pickle brine, hot sauce, high intensity UV light and who knows what else. And battered older solid guitars are hot as an overdriven output tube - the worst of the early 3 bolt CBS Strats draws big bucks (for what it is) even if battered and stained. No one would buy a fine archtop that was allowed to deteriorate like that unless it was to restore it, and the “shockingly high cost” of a ratty 3 bolt Strat is small potatoes for a nice carved archtop.
The main reason I see for the decline of the carved archtop as the instrument of choice for so many players whose styles and playing would benefit greatly from one is the same reason (IMO) that there are no “relic” carved archtops being made (unless I’ve missed it). Carved archtop guitars both inspire and require a parental approach to ownership. They’re perceived as fragile, which is not entirely unfounded. Solid wood needs love, care, and environmental stability - as I understand it, every fine old Cremonese instrument still in existence has had cracks and other damage repaired. So have many of the fine old guitars (arched and flat) on the market today. Nice archtops actually look sad when dirty and neglected, unlike ratty old solids that somehow seem “cool” to those who crave them. I sense that most players today simply don’t want to be bothered (as they see it) with a fine carved archtop guitar. They’ll buy a Fender with a broken neck and bolt on another without a second thought. A Les Paul whose headstock was broken off and repaired doesn’t concern them if it looks like a decent repair to them - they don’t even understand that a high quality repair like that shouldn’t be readily detectable. But the idea of a beautifully repaired crack in an acoustic sends most of them scurrying away.
I’ve never seen a Fender or LP (except for my own ‘73 LP custom back in the day) with a humidification device in his or her case or gig bag. Players run into a dry heated club on a snowy night, take out the guitar and start playing. They do the same on a 90 degree summer day when they throw the case open under an air conditioner after leaving it in the trunk outside all day. When their frets “grow” and the ends catch their fingers, they just have them filed down. Etc etc. Carved archtops, on the other hand, are like your teeth - if you want to keep them, you have to take care of them.
So I think it’s a combination of the reputation for fragility (which is to some degree deserved), the need for more care and attention, and the higher costs of entry and ownership that has led to the popularity of “lesser” guitar forms in all music. Good archtop guitars, like vinyl records, will survive - but both are in specialty niches today because there are so many easier and less expensive alternatives.
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