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My first archtop. It feels like a very well built, solid instrument with a very comfortable slim neck. Not sure about age, hopefully the serial number can reveal the manufacturing date. But it looks like it has hardly been played at all.
Good archtops are kind of hard to find where I live, the shops are mainly full of cheap and clunky plywood guitars made in Asia. I had to go on a bit of a journey to find proper candidates. After holding this one for a while it was clear that it's a quality quitar one could build a relationship with for some time.
I'm a bit of a archtop noob, so there are some details that seem a bit mysterious to me, but maybe they are obvious to experienced players. Please feel free to educate me :-)
This guitar is slightly lighter than my strat and supposedly all solid hand carved mahogany. The tops one normally sees are spruce or maple, but there is nothing unusual about the acoustic sound here, like it would be on an all mahogany flattop. Is there a history of all mahogany archtops?
The upper part of the bridge is metal rather than wood, although the seller gave me another archtop bridge (not an original Heritage one) where the upper part is wood and bone. I won't mess with this because the guitar sounds fine as is. I take it that wood vs metal is a matter of taste, not so much a functional requirement?
A Zoller pickup is installed. I didn't get to try it properly, there was a crappy acoustic amp only which wasn't very useful. But Zoller is supposed to be a good pickup, we'll see when I have a chance to try with my amp. An odd detail is that the Zoller has a neck mounting brace, but no screws have been attached. Instead, there is like a small pad underneath that seems stuck to the top supporting the pickup. Not sure what that's about, anyone seen something like this?
There is no strap button installed in the heel. I usually have a strap so that's going to happen sooner or later. Where do people attach their straps on their archtops?
Also... this is kind of silly, but I find the sunbursted pickguard a bit cheesy, and might want to replace it with a wooden or plastic one in the future. Who sells nice pickguards for these guitars?
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02-29-2020 05:24 AM
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Man that looks great!
My guess is the pad is to stop vibration/protect finish from pickup touching.
You might eventually try an all wood bridge top, should help the acoustic sound even more.
Never been much for the bone saddle archtop thing...
What's the letter on the serial #?
What's it say on the tag in the soundhole, ASB?
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A very nice guitar and I agree the pickguard in pretty bad I do not like them at all. I also do not like the way the pickup is sitting on the neck with the screw holes showing and not having screws in them. I realize it works fine I just find that bothersome in a look.
As for a pickguard. I have 3 different colors of very thick stuff right now. I have black, marbled tortoise that is golden in color, and traditional tortoise. I would b$e willing to make an exact duplicate for the one on the guitar for $75 with one layer of thicker white binding or creme color bind. PM if interested I can send photos of the material.
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Congratulations on the nice Eagle! I bought a mahogany eagle in 2014 and love the guitar, but did replace the pickguard with an L5 style that Gary Hines made for me out of ebony. It really complements the guitar, and I don't care for the shape of the original, which has been repaired and is in the case. The original was broken by the owner's infant child grabbing it. Must have really like dad playing jazz! Ha!
Also, mine has no fret markers.
Play the heck out of it and enjoy it. It's a great guitar.
Here's my ngd post from 2014.
Heritage Eagle Classic Custom
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Congrats for this instrument
Regarding the pickguard, I really like it, something different. No gold, no 7 ply bindings, no text or graphics on it, so no danger to fall the cheesy category. It has a style which belongs to the instrument.
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@mr.beaumont The serial starts with S. I found the prefix table which maps S to 2002. For an 18 year old guitar, this one is in amazing condition. I'll have to put in some effort and place some scratches on it myself :-). The label says Model: Eagle and then what looks like "A.SB.", not sure what that means.
@deacon Mark Thanks for the offer, I'll have to think about what I would want instead... probably some kind of wood though, and a different shape.
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If I’m not mistaken it stands for Almond Sun Burst (ASB)The label says Model: Eagle and then what looks like "A.SB.", not sure what that means.
Congrats on your beautiful guitar - Play it in good health :-)
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I believe "A.SB" = "almond sunburst." Heritage really does consistently do the nicest 'burst finishes. Congratulations on a beautiful guitar! It just looks like it would sound so warm and resonant. The Zoller pick up, which is made by Shadow, is a well-regarded pick up.
Personally, I would screw that pickup to the neck. The pad that you see under the pickup is a double sided foam adhesive which is what's holding the pick up on. Not how I would've done it on multiple points. Trying to take it out of there may damage the finish. I have a personal belief, without a shred of proven fact to back me up, that mounting the pickup to the end of the neck with the bracket sounds better amplified than a floating pickup mounted to the pickguard. I have a whole theory about this (e.g., that isolating the pick up from the vibrations of the guitar has a deleterious effect on amplified tone) which may be complete BS. I've never tried sticking a pick up to the top, however, so not sure what effect that has on electric tone- it might achieve exactly the same thing by coupling the pickup to the top, similar to a pickup set into the top.
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@cunamara Yeah the unscrewed bracket looks kind of silly, and I guess the finish under that sticky tape isn't going to look that great when the tape comes off. If I get to the point that I want to mess with the pickup, I would consider whether I want the Zoller or a more traditional floater. I recall someone (maybe it was you?) on this forum wrote in a different thread that a floater can be made more set-humbuckerlike by coupling it to the top with tape. No idea if that was the idea, or someone just stuck it there because they couldn't find their screwdriver... I'm not such a floater connosseur yet that I can distinguish these things, so I'll hang with this setup for a while and figure out how it sounds.
In the meantime, suggestions for "the best" future pickup for this guitar are welcome :-)
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Zoller - you already have it.
Originally Posted by frankhond
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Archtop.com offers Kent Armstrong floating PAF or single coil pickups that would mount to that new pick guard. No tape, no drilling holes in the neck, and it’s a Kent Armstrong.
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whoever put the zoller on didnt want to drill into the guitar..maybe they werent sure about it...understandable...so they doublesticked it to the top...not a great permanent solution, but...
zoller is a great pickup..very sensitive, wide range and clean
lastly, im not fan of current pickguard either
congrats & enjoy
cheers
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Your basic L5 pickguard is hard to beat really. The smooth flowing lines and the lines of the guitar go together better than the busy Heritage with odd angles and cuts.
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ps- the tuneamatic bridge will give a slightly brighter tone than wood..but it's main attribute is that it allows for better intonation..as you can adjust each string...ebony or rosewood..or bone topped saddles are not adjustable
i think a nicely shaped tort pickguard would look great on it
also nice to see you have thomastik flatwound strings on it! ...the best
cheers
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It looks superb. I like mahogany guitars, and Zollar pickups are great, well respected in the jazz community.
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What a beautiful instrument. Heritage bursts are indeed excellent, and Almondburst is one of the finest, IMHO. I agree with Cunamara about mounting the pickup for similarly unfounded reasons. Congratulations, and play it in good health!
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That is gorgeous, really looks like one of those “ everything else is superfluous” guitars.
Wes and Pat used/use a tune o’matic bridge, pretty good company. I think the guard looks just fine on that guitar; you worry too much, it looks cool to me. Did I mention that’s a sweet looking guitar. Congrats, enjoy.
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Congrats for a very beautiful instrument!
The Zoller pu is outstanding jazz pickup. I had it long in my floater version ES-165. It has it all: clarity and warmth without bassy mud.
In the end I missed more classic outlook and metal plated pickup. The black plastic with a white signature was not my cup of tea. So I swapped the pickup.
That white thing under the pu seems like 2-sided adhesive, but could the pu be somehow glued to the pickguard? That’s another common way to attach the floating pu to a guitar.
Anyway: if it plays well, don’t do anything!
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I spent some time yesterday with my amp and while the Zoller sounds just fine (a nice fat jazzy sound), there is some room for improvement with the whole setup. I'm a bit irritated by the lack of a tone control, and the unscrewed bracket/tape solution just looks a bit shoddy. I looked closer and maybe it's also attached to the pickguard in some homemade way, hard to see.
And I like the sounds that people like Fred Archtop and Tim Lerch are getting with a Charlie Christian pickup. Apparently there is a floater version made by Pete Biltoft, I could combine it with a new pickguard like in Fred Archtop's post #6 in his thread The Biltoft CC pickup thread
Well, no hurry... first new strings, the current one's are all oxidized. The previous owner obviously didn't play this guitar much (he had like 20 something guitars) and didn't know what was on there. @neatomic is right that it probably is a set of Thomastik, but what gauge? On a flattop with roundwounds I can imediately tell, but with flats I'm lost. The guitars I tried all had different gauges and I consistently kept underguessing the gauge, I said 11's then the seller would say 12's or 13's... I'll have to bring the low E to the shop.
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Two screws to unscrew and have a peek under the pickguard. I'd have a peek. Maybe that piece of foam or whatever is just a spacer. Anyhow congrats. And I like that pickguard myself. When I first discovered Heritage guitars a long while back I wasn't a fan but now I like them. Enjoy.
Last edited by 73Fender; 03-02-2020 at 07:56 AM. Reason: peek not "peak".. spelling.
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It's tempting to make some changes, but I believe you're fine leaving it as is.
If I felt I needed a tone pot, that's a cheap, easy change with the existing pickguard. The tone can be altered in other ways though, including where the notes are plucked, whether you fret the note high on the neck or lower on the next string, how you attack the string, and more. Your amp has tone controls I'm sure.
The pickup should rest fine where it is. The Zoller is an excellent "airy" pickup.
The pickguard matches the wood and finish. It's sturdy and functional.
I don't know how collectible a mahogany Eagle will be in another decade, but now you have one that's how it was built in excellent condition sans the pickup. I'd recommend leaving it alone unless something really bothers you. Maybe you could pick up a used Heritage Jazz #3 pickup for cheap and keep it in the case compartment for the future.
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Great idea with the jazz#3 pickup, I'll see if I find one, just for posterity :-) and if I decide to do any mods it will be fully reversible. I'll just take the pickguard off and put it in the case, Zoller and all. Biltoft makes a side mounted CC, no new holes, I'll order a new pickguard with volume and tone... the only thing that might be visible is the spot under that tape. Originally Posted by Marty Grass
But this is for later, first I have to change strings and understand this current setup. I'll peek under the pickguard too.
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The Zoller basically sounds like a fat humbucker, but there is no acoustic character of the guitar itself, and the electric tone is rather characterless and dark. When I sit in front of the amp, I can turn down the volume on the guitar and suddenly it sounds great around 70% - that's when the acoustic sound from the guitar starts to blend in my ears with the amp. This is fine for practice or a studio miking setup, but I would like to explore other options.
Here is a video of a Heritage Eagle (but looks like spruce, not mahogany top) which kind of demonstrates the acoustic blend tone I'm currently getting. The guy uses a mix of Zoller, microphone and undersaddle transducer. Actually really nice, but lots of messing around to get it there.
I'm thinking either a pickup that brings more of the acoustic (or some kind of interesting pseudo-acoustic) quality. Or some electric sound with character.
I like what I hear in these videos even though they are different. The first one has a vintage acoustic typ of sound, the second a very electric but classic recognizable tone.
So this is a DeArmond pickup, but which one... and is it available today or would it have to be some uberexpensive vintage gizmo?
This is a Biltoft CC pickup... I hear these type of pickups are noisy, but maybe the newer ones aren't? I have a Tele, is it noisier than that?
There is also a video that keeps popping up on this forum as an example of good tone. The sound quality is horrible so unsure if any conclusions could be drawn... but I hear a certain liquid brightness in the upper mids, that I also hear in some Jim Hall or Kurt Rosenwinkel videos even though they play very different guitars.
I guess Johnny Smith plays the Gibson Johnny Smith floater here...
So given this guitar and the desire for a pickup with more character than the Zoller, one way or other, what do you think?
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A lot of guys for a Kent Armstrong floater. His floating humbucker and his single coil are both good choices. The Benedetto floater by Seymour Duncan is another one.
I put a Zoller on an Aaron Cowles full sized archtop and, for whatever reason, it sounded grand. I also like the Heritage Floating #3. Both are low output humbuckers that sound "airy", like the first video you showed.
Right now I use a BJB on a couple of Gibsons and a "P-90-ish" custom built for a Johnny Smith. These sound different with the first definitely hotter.
If I had to pick one floater, I'd probably get a single coil personally made by Kent Armstrong that comes with a toggle switch that goes from lower to higher output. He makes them with a switch under the pickguard. They are reasonably priced.
Best of luck
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Heritage #3 is great.
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