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wow..interesting designer..i love his all mahogany session king!!...top quality take on the old workhorse classic- harmony sovereign...beautiful
Originally Posted by Elamberth
it's really great that there are guys all over the world building such fine stuff..some traditional and some innovative...but most interesting!
cheers
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12-05-2015 06:47 PM
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Anybody who's owned an MG can tell you that the British don't make guitars because they haven't yet figured out how to make them leak oil.
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Originally Posted by Jonathan0996
Anybody who's owned an MG can tell you that the British don't make guitars because they haven't yet figured out how to make them leak oil.
that goes for old bsa's and nortons as well!!!
slippery when wet!
cheers
ps- my fave grimshaw user..the late great early uk session man- joe moretti...played ferocious leads on shakin all over-johnny kidd & the pirates and brand new cadillac-vince taylor
Last edited by neatomic; 12-05-2015 at 07:01 PM.
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Jonathan,
That's actually quite funny. I just got finished listening to my wife play our B3/122. Laurens Hammond was a British engineer--back when the British were more or less the world's best at that sort of thing. Mr. Hammond patented a synchronous motor clock and opened the Hammond Clock company. He figured that there must be other applications for things that needed motors that turned at absolutely precise speeds, and he thought about musical instruments.
Hammond took his clock motor and made it the basis of his mid-30s electro-mechanical organ (The Hammond), that was designed to pass a kind of audio-Turing test vis-a-vis the pipe organ. That is, he wanted a panel of professional pipe organists not to be able to determine if a pipe organ or his electric bank of unmixed sine-wave flutes were playing. The Hammond organ (which is actually an analog additive synthesizer) passed the test and the world's greatest organ company was born.
The Hammond A/B/C/D series organs (The B3 was introduced in the 50s and was last produced in its original form in the 70s) consisted of 91 metallic disks, or tonewheels, with milled edges, spinning on an armature that was driven by Hammond's clock motor. A Hammond can never go out of tune because the motor speed is regulated by the 60-cycle AC electricity that comes into one's home. That frequency never changes. The number of grooves on the milled edge of the disk determines the pitch of the note. Each tonewheel has its own electromagnetic pickup. The B3 has 91 pickups. The entire tonewheel armature is suspended on a series of bearings that are lubricated with light machine oil via capillary action from an oil reservoir. The organ has a tube preamp and power supply. The volumes of the "ranks" of unmixed flutes are determined by the positions of four series of drawbars. The entire system is well engineered and, if regularly oiled, will last nearly forever.
The point is, when you play a Hammond you definitely experience the gradual leakage of machine oil. Classically British--even if Mr. Hammond did immigrate to the US and open his company near Chicago.
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Thanks for the history lesson. I never knew a Brit invented the Hammond organ. Quite an invention, even if it does leak a little oil.
God bless the Brits.
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wow terrific hammond info!!...and of course hammond reverb tank..came out of that!!
same kinda advanced but whacky tech that came up with mellotron & vcs3
cheers
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Yep, Hammond invented the spring reverb, too. He despised the Leslie rotating speaker, though. That's not how his organs were supposed to sound.
Too bad. Don Leslie really did Hammond a solid with the invention of the Leslie speaker cabinet.
If the Hammond was the first additive synthesizer, then the Mellotron was certainly the first (analog) sampler. Clunky, but amazing. The Beatles, Moody Blues, etc., would have been very different without the Mellotron.
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Chris Eccelshall still makes Archtop Guitars. I'm baby sitting one right now and it is sublime. Could have just been a one off as he made it early in his career in 1981. He also used to make guitars for David Bowie. He came up more building flat top acoustics, which isn't a bad thing for archtop makers.
Alan Arnold has moved and as far as I know, he has only made 1 archtop. It sounded ok and looked good. I wouldn't chose him personally for his archotps due to lack of experience and he told me that he would probably stick to acoustics as Archtops are too much work but of course call him and have a chat. He's a nice guy.
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Back in the day I was on the road with a guy who played a Mellotron. It was a gorgeous and very real sounding string machine that was a huge pain to move and maintain. Given its design, I was always kind of surprised that the thing worked at all. Originally Posted by Greentone
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I have had 2 guitars built for me by UK builders. One of those builders is mentioned in the thread above.
First guitar. 7 string hollow telecaster. Fair price quoted. Delivery on time. Workmanship acceptable for the price. Unplayable on collection because he had no suitable strings 'and a set up is £60 extra.' Not explained before collection! I ordered a 25'' scale neck, it was made 25 1/2''. The guitar needed modifications to counter the terrible balance of the heavy neck. It ended up being a fine playing guitar with good tone and I've gigged it many times.
Second guitar. A thin bodied 175 archtop. Fair price quoted. I was quoted 6 months delivery, took well over a year to complete with many, many excuses. Almost unplayable on collection (yup, 'set up is extra', no notice given). Hopeless bridge fit. I ordered sunburst but the colour ended up 'mushroom burst' as my wife described it. The top plate (laminated) has a massive under support/brace that was not asked for. (Apparently its to stop feed back. It doesn't work.) However none of these things were a significant issue but what I describe next was.
The headstock had visible twist of about 3 degrees on collection. After about 3 months I took the guitar back for more set up work and an opinion on the twist. (a >120 mile drive). The 'luthier' concerned did not accept the the twist was significant and charged me for the set up. He clearly failed again to get the floating bridge to fit the curve of the top and light could be seen under the feet. His attitude now was that I was trouble maker and he was not interested. a couple of years later the headstock twist was now 5 to 6 degrees and the fret board twisted from the nut to about fret 7. With a high action the guitar was sort of playable but very disappointing. The maker now refused to answer my emails on the subject. Local guitar techs wouldn't touch it because neck twists are very difficult high risk repairs. Eventually I removed the frets myself and leveled the fret board using straight edges and hours of sanding. Thankfully the fret board was quite thick to start with. My refret is ok for me but a bit amateurish. The guitar is now playable and sounds quite good. I also learnt how to properly fit a wooden floating bridge!
I suspect the guitar is now unsalable and it will remain with me till I drop. It does a good job of reminding me to never, ever order another guitar from a small maker who thinks he/she can build archtops. So, BUYERS PLEASE BEWARE.
Luthiers, here's some advice:
1/ Make your guitars on time
2/ Explain extra charges before delivery. Better still include them in the original quote. Collecting a badly playing guitar is a bad experience and reflects badly on you.
3/ Don't improvise ideas and expect your customer to appreciate your 'creative input' without discussing and agreeing it first.
4/ Offer proper guarantees that are set out in writing.
I hope the younger makers out there are more professional than my generation of old hippies.
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Hi, I heartily recommend Paul Carnall from experience. He is located in the midlands and I have one of his Rialto Bandmaster archtops. mine shown in the foto. It plays like a dream and is feather light at just over 5lb. Sounds just wonderful . He doesn`t make an archtop with a set-in humbucker unfortunately, otherwise i`d be round there tomorrow ordering one ! fair prices too....
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Depends on your budget. Out of the list i have only tried Mike Vanden,s Artistry model.
Martin Taylor very kindly let me have a go on it at a Borders Bookshop he was playing at in Glasgow many years ago.
It is expensive but in my opinion worth every penny, and the only archtop you will ever need. No point in gushing on about how warm it sounded, or bass extension, or clean separation, yada,yada,yada, etc.
If you have the talent in your fingers that guitar will let you hear that, Mike Vanden will build it to your requirements, when you take it out of the case you will play it, end of. No faffing about with the nut, bridge etc.
I think they are about £7000.
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Patrick Eggle may have a crapalicious website these days, but he's made some excellent archtop guitars.
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There is an Aristone, (incorrectly described as German by the store,) very similar to the one above, but in less good condition, missing some inlays and fingerplate, although with a wide ebony f/board, for sale at Guitar Sounds in Chichester West Sussex. Needs some TLC, but its only £260! Check out their pre-owned and vintage section.
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It very well could be German made. My understanding is Framus was making them when the Aristone brand was owned by Besson. Originally Posted by bananafist
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I didn't know that, I thought they were all built in the UK. Clearly I have not read enough background on this make!
I'd based my conclusion on Gypsy Jazz UK website saying Besson did not contract work out to Framus until 60s, and also to photos of a virtually identical guitar (headstock, inlays, tailpiece, torty machine head buttons) sold via Guitar auctions.co.uk as 'built by Jack Abbott in 1951' Both father and son being known as Jack.
Whatever its history, it deserves to be restored to its former glory, and would be a worthwhile project for not a huge outlay.Last edited by bananafist; 08-23-2018 at 11:24 AM.
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From what I've read, a general timeline goes: Aristone is launched in 1928 by Abbott and is made in England. Abbott eventually gets acquired by the London-based wing of the French instrument company Besson. The guitar boom of the 1950s-1960s sees demand outpace local production capacity so Aristone production is outsourced to Framus in Germany.
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Fwiw, the only British-made jazz guitar I can recall seeing being played by gigging musicians anytime recently is the Case J3: Case Guitars - Hand Built Electric Guitars— J3 Series page
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Nigel Price was playing a guitar by Charlie Crabtree last time I saw him. Don’t know if he’s still using it though.
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Resurrecting this old (but still informative thread) to ask a question: has anyone on the forum played a Knight archtop? I've run across listings for them from time to time in my searches, and they certainly look the business. Any experience with how they sound (especially acoustically) and how they feel to play?
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Vintage and Rare, Bath currently have a very nice example of a D Knight. Pushing 3k I believe. I haven’t played it. Check their website. Ps it’s in the acoustic section as it has no pickups
Last edited by md54; 01-15-2020 at 05:52 PM.
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Fxxxzzzzk they look incredible.... Originally Posted by MAJackson
respecting the classics with a bit of flare
makes me proud to be a Brit
Damn I want one now !
check the Paul Carrack vid
guitar , Rhodes, Hammond goodness
hmmmm £3.5 K ... oh well part 2
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Originally Posted by pingu
£3.5k for a laminate? Prices are going nuts. People who buy them are......not thinking things through. It’s all hype and marketing nonsense.
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I viewed and played a Knight archtop some years ago near Croydon, from what I recall, well made, very solid, not a loud voice acoustically, and didn't 'grab me' enough to buy it. I also tried out a semi (similar to the one played by A Fairweather-Lowe,) at Knights some ten years ago, but it didn't work for me. It may be me, not the guitars, as I prefer wider nuts, lighter bracing and use lighter strings. I also tried a Paul Carnall 16" Rialto, and a S/H Vanden before ordering my Slaman two years ago, and was glad I waited to get the Slaman. At the end of the day, only you know if the guitar speaks to you or not, and all comment/advice is purely that.
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