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Interesting. These thoughts make me think of the Rick Canton’s or Bill de Lap’s and the players that play their instruments. Their guitars are hollow however they also seem to be designed and made with other considerations and musical demands in mind other than just 1950’s straight ahead jazz. Also today’s instrument makers surely have to take into consideration that most players today will use their instruments with some sort of effects. not really a consideration in 1955.
Originally Posted by EastwoodMike
cheers!
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10-13-2021 08:50 AM
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Originally Posted by ruger9
You mean like Charlie Byrd? These other guys don't seem to mind his nylon string flat-top.
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The electric sound IS the game changer. When you have the ability to change the sound of an instrument with controls, a player's sound is more about him than the instrument as in the case of Joe Pass Synanon album. This, of course, is not the case with a purely acoustic instrument.
Play live . . . Marinero
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I play a 16” laminate jazz box
half stuffed with foam
i like the comfort sitting or standing
I like the sound , it’s warm, not shiney
it doesn’t need a pre-amp or fx
to sound good ... to my ears anyway
I like the lack of sustain and relatively fast decay , like a stand-up bass
I like that it’s got a bit of acoustic
sound to it
no it doesn’t do declamatory
screaming and howling very well
but everything's a compromise
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I prefer hollow bodies because I find them more comfortable than a solid body, probably because I spent my first 10+ years on a flattop. Solid bodies sit too close to my body for me. Sound wise, when I had a Tele, I was able to get a very good jazz sound (to my ears), but wasn't comfortable playing it.
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yeah , comfort is the most important
thing ....
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Comfort is definitely not the reason for me. I find thinner guitars more comfortable; the strat shape the most comfortable of all. At least the way I have my guitars set up, my hollow body has a certain percussive quality in the midrange (the elusive "thunk"), fullness (which can spill over into feedback if not careful), and flutey sweetness (words kind of fail when talking about tone) that sits well in a typical jazz band mix, especially for articulate staccato-ish playing. My semi has the flutey sweetness, but not the thunk or as much of the sense of fullness (at least with clean tones); it enhances more legato playing, and with some hair on the amp, blues-y-ness. I find it to be a fairly subtle difference (on recordings with the same signal chain I can barely tell the difference) and switch off between the two a lot. I also do a lot of stuff with another guitar player who has a 335 and a tele, so I nearly always play my hollowbody with him for the sake of contrast. The strat is a whole other concept/tone that's harder to make fit with a typical jazz group sound. The net of all this is the hollowbody gets the most use for jazz, but I could (and did) easily live with just the semi-hollow for jazz.
Last edited by John A.; 10-13-2021 at 11:51 AM.
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Originally Posted by kris
Pat Metheny, after he's finishes doing his mod's to them, will make any guitar he chooses sound like that PM sound..........By that I mean, he has a sound that's his , and he may very well expect / want it all the time and so may his audience.
So he does his mod's and brings that sound to whatever guitar he chooses..... It really has never been a 175 sound, but it's always been a PM sound once he finishes with it.
It could be a Harmony or a Gretsch Country Gentleman, if he wanted to play it, it'd sound like him due to his ' add-ons'.......
Just MHO : )
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In no particular order:
- Tradition,
- Because they sound better,
- They sound like a guitar,
- A solid body guitar is not a guitar. It is a "solid body" guitar - adjective required. There is no need to say "hollow bodied" guitar. A guitar IS hollow bodied.
- Sonic unity/cohesiveness - They are played with other acoustic instruments (piano, string bass, etc.)
OTOH:
- If one plays with a big band they may want options. But Freddie Green played unamplified when chunking rhythm chords, and Charlie Christian's solos had the big band laying out or playing punches. Finaly - the 30s are over.
- If one plays with a synth and electric bass they may want other options. (but the distorted 70s are over, thank God).
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Full agreement ... but he still experimenting with Ibanez. Originally Posted by Dennis D
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The entire concept of jazz guitar was pretty much solidified before solid bodies even became a thing. So yeah, that's tradition, but it also just so happens that hollow body electrics sound really great for playing jazz in a classic style--which is a style that's still played an awful lot today.
I couldn't imagine not having a hollow body AND a tele, but nowadays, I usually just play acoustic...very busy, and it sure is convenient to just grab my Martin.
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I don't know how to treat so-called jazz chambered body guitars. Originally Posted by Donplaysguitar
Bob Benedetto made jazz guitar chambered fo Pat Martino...I think.
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Recently, on the Telecaster forum, there was a "fedora" thread that had a surprisingly large number of replies of "me, too, I have 50 fedoras". Hombergs, too. Originally Posted by Litterick
Of course, the age demographic on TDPRI is not "young".
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We're lucky to be able to play a variety of guitars that work well with the right genres of music. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Well, they sound good. That model and the Benny. Originally Posted by kris
They don't sound rich and alive like a Manhattan, but they sound good. Maybe with an organ trio in particular, who knows.
Easy to transport, easy to play, etc.
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For some, tone is in the fingers. For others it's in the toothbrush. Originally Posted by Dennis D
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Because it has a delux clean sound. Like the idea of playing a grand piano.
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John A +1 Originally Posted by John A.
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It's not just tone, guys. (The person being quoted about tone being in the player's hands played the guitar, BTW. "Guitar" meaning the classical guitar, of course).
No matter what one does with their fingers, there is no getting around the sustain or lack thereof, nor the "alive" hollow body sound vs. relatively dead solid body sound. The "A/B test" is the same player playing two guitars, not two players.
Just consider for a minute all the signal processing, amplifier settings, ambient effects etc. that players employ to make a solid body guitar sound "alive".
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Tone is not in the fingers lol.. The guitarists' playing can influence an extra 10 or 20% of what is already there. Tone is in the gear. No player will ever get a bullet strat jam pack to sound like George Benson playing through his signature Twin lmao.
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A massive amount of tone/sound is indeed in the players hands, especially when the guitars in question are all classical guitars.
That was the context of the quote from Segovia - but - it also extends beyond the classical guitar.
Individuals have individual touch, they just do. And touch directly translates to sound.
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It's probably the acoustic quality of a hollow body.
It's an ongoing game of Goldilocks for me. For a really long time I just assumed that a big archtop was the thing to have, I just couldn't find one that I wanted to afford. I had an Epi JP for 20+ years, which is on the small side but it was good enough. Solid or semi-hollows, I couldn't figure out how to get the sound I wanted.
It's only in the last 5 years, delving into it more, that I've learned big archtops get too big after a few minutes, and I can dial in a good sound with a Jazzmaster, too. There's no one-size-fits-all.
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I have a really nice hollow-body guitar, seldom gets played though. I very much prefer my solid body guitars, both the tone and sustain.
However, one of my favorite tones is from Metheny with a hollow-body which has a lot of solid body character IMO. I think that has to do with his light picking attack which gets rid of the thunk sound and increases the perceived sustain.
But, some people listen with their eyes
and remember there is this that has been posted before from fellow forum member Tim Lerch:
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I don't know what percent of a sound to attribute to which body part or piece of equipment. But I do know that every player who gets to the level of actually having a recognizable sound and style sounds like him/herself on a range of equipment, sometimes to the point that you cannot reliably tell what style of guitar s/he is playing. FWIW, there's a video out there of Benson borrowing a super-strat style guitar from Mark Whitfield, and sounding exactly like Benson. I could borrow that same guitar from Whitfield (OK, he probably wouldn't lend it to me ...), and I would not sound like Benson. Of course, people can also sound different on different equipment (typically by choice), but the degree to which they don't sound different with different gear can be pretty startling. Originally Posted by Clint 55
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Always thought that Metheny sounded at his best on this despite the relative simplicity, or is it because of it? (that's another topic). Originally Posted by fep
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