Hollowbody vs Solidbody Sound

[Danil]

All other things (like strings gauge/mass/tension) equal - a guitar which is louder acoustically dissipates energy faster => less sustain. As with high output pickups (or set closer to strings).

[Spook410]

If you play unplugged the differences in attack, frequency spectrum and areas of emphasis, decay, and final sustain are quite different and apparent. Everything else is a matter of pickups and amplifiers.

[DRS]

I've always loved the sound you've gotten from your Tele's.

Playing solids is different than playing archtops, not better or worse, just different. You have to put a lot more emphasis on control with a solid body but it also eliminates the issue of feedback at reasonable volume levels. You lose the blend of strings and amp that you get with an archtop at low volume so the amp becomes a bigger part of the experience but I've always thought I was able to play more expressively with a solid body.

I agree. Add the form factor of nice solid body like a Telecaster. I'm 5'8" with a short torso and I'm tired of holding a 17" full size archtop. I also like that I have total control of my tone through a good amp.
Although I love my 2 semi-hollow bodies - a Godin Montreal Premiere and an Epiphone Johnny A - my current fave is a maple neck, ash telecaster with a SD Minibucker in the neck. It has some custom features - 1 3/4 nut, custom contour heal, and stainless frets. With 11-48 Pure Nickel rounds on it, I can get any jazz tone I want through my Boogie MkV25. I prefer more articulate tones. More Martin Taylor and less Wes Montgomery.

[Stringswinger]

With some, but not all, archtops (and it may depend on the player) I hear a woody richness that I don't usually hear from solid bodies.
More on chords than single notes.

I know I've heard that on 25.5 inch scale archtops, but I'm less certain that I've heard it from 24 3/4. For me, it's Wes or Kenny Burrell vs. Joe Pass. No disrespect to Joe, a Master, but I never coveted his tone.

That said, I don't play an archtop. Here's why, not that anybody asked. I can't stand feedback and I couldn't tame it to my satisfaction. I know others have. More important, I need thick, sustained high notes and some sustain on lower notes. Archtops were not developed for sustain. The result is, I can execute my ideas, with my sound using a solidbody but not an archtop.

If I were playing chords only, I'm still not certain I'd play an archtop. I'd also think about nylon, which sounds great to me for comping.
Listen to great players like Romero Lubambo or Chico Pinheiro playing jazz styles on nylon.

Rick, back in the day when we played together (41 years ago, so I may be remembering something with very different ears than I have today) you had an L-5 solidbody that had IIRC, a 24.75 scale. I thought that guitar had splendid tone on both chords and single notes. I have always coveted one of those, but at this point, the weight is a deal killer.

[silverfoxx]

Rick, back in the day when we played together (41 years ago, so I may be remembering something with very different ears than I have today) you had an L-5 solidbody that had IIRC, a 24.75 scale. I thought that guitar had splendid tone on both chords and single notes. I have always coveted one of those, but at this point, the weight is a deal killer.

You might be disappointed with a GibsonL5S which you are describing. They are heavy. have a shallower body depth than a Lester
and a disappointing tone, I suggest a good LP is far superior ( which you already have ) having owned a number of LP's and one
L5S ,I would not have another.

RPJazzGuitar, I'm generally inclined to agree about the tone of a 25,5" and have several, you might have tried a 24,75" scale
Gibson L4CEs, with ebony FB, mahogany back and sides, but if not, you would be pleasantly surprised by its tone quality,
which can produce a reasonably good similarity to an L5CES IMHO.

[One_Note]

My thinking is that while hollowbodies have less sustain, their decay envelope is more complex, hence more intriguing to the ear. Or it could be my imagination. Perhaps I just play more interesting notes on my archtops.

I think that's true, but that's also an artifact of the way the strings are anchored. You get something similar with offset guitars (Jaguar/Jazzmaster), because of the way the strings anchor at a shallow angle some distance behind the bridge. Of course the pickups are much brighter sounding.

It would be interesting to try the same pickups in like a big archtop, a typical plank (Tele or whatever), and an offset, all of the same scale length, and see what the tonal differences are. Of course there would still be differences in materials, bridges, etc.

I do think a hollow body has a different amplified tonal response than a plank. There are so many variables that it's tough for me to articulate though.

[rpjazzguitar]

You might be disappointed with a GibsonL5S which you are describing. They are heavy. have a shallower body depth than a Lester
and a disappointing tone, I suggest a good LP is far superior ( which you already have ) having owned a number of LP's and one
L5S ,I would not have another.

RPJazzGuitar, I'm generally inclined to agree about the tone of a 25,5" and have several, you might have tried a 24,75" scale
Gibson L4CEs, with ebony FB, mahogany back and sides, but if not, you would be pleasantly surprised by its tone quality,
which can produce a reasonably good similarity to an L5CES IMHO.

I played a mid 70's LP and switched to the L5S around 77. My first one, which Marc heard, had HBs and a trapeze tailpiece. It was stolen and I replaced it with an 86 with super HBs and a stop tailpiece. The neck was thicker on the earlier one.

I had jumbo frets installed on each.

I don't recall thinking that the LP sounded better. I like the feel of the trapeze (it makes the action feel softer) better than the stop. I replaced the neck super HB with a 57, which I think helped. To me, they all sounded in the same basic ballpark of solid body HB. The L5S might have sounded a little more brittle in the highs, but I could get a good sound.

[JGinNJ]

On a solid body guitar, the pickups amplify the strings. On a hollowbody, particularly an archtop, the pickup amplifies the strings AND the vibration of the body, which is why it can feed back at certain frequencies while a solid body does not.

Passive electronics (simple tone controls, whether on the amp or guitar) can only vary the amplitude of those frequencies, so you'll never get a solid body to sound like an archtop without adding effects.

I've always found the gain on most solidbody pickups to be very "hot", so for jazz they need a lighter touch. For the "traditional" jazz sound (like an L5 through a Twin Reverb), there seems to be a limited range of settings on say, a Telecaster that you can get it with. It's capable of a much wider tonal palette, and if you want a more contemporary sound, maybe that's great.