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Yeah, a used af95 is cheap and plays and sounds as good as one could ask for. Better than that is luxury
Originally Posted by kris
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06-06-2022 03:33 AM
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I wanted to point out that they come at different price points for any budget. Even an art core ag75 will get you into the ballpark with flatwounds and maybe a wooden bridge. I used one for years and still would if I didn’t eventually got the gb10. Originally Posted by JohanAbrandt
To the OP: flatwound strings - even on your strat will push your tone into that punchy direction - so maybe you want to start there.
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I like an AF size jazz box because Originally Posted by guavajelly
you can pick it up and play it without
an amp ....
in my exp
the cheaper ibanez artcore’s do sound good and can be setup to play comfortably and in-tune fairly easily ....
learn to adjust and setup the guitar yourself .... it will pay dividends
maybe add a wooden saddle and put on some 12 (or 13) gauge TI jazz swings
put an better alnico pickup on there
when you want to play out
people here can advise you on all
this
whatever style guitar you choose
IT MUST BE COMFORTABLE
(or you simply won’t play it)
if you’re comfortable sitting with a strat (i’m not) then go with that ....
COMFORT
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Taste varies. For me an archtop needs more harmonic content than a lot of inexpensive models provide.
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Expensive arch-tops are mostly works of art and sound really great. Originally Posted by Spook410
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As well as the fact that an aspiring professional guitarist is probably going to be called upon for other styles, like funk, fusion or blues, so something more versatile than an arch top may be a higher priority. At least that's how it worked out for me in my playing career. I had to rely on an ES for jazz and casuals, while maintaining solid bodies for other types of gigs, especially recording sessions. Originally Posted by Spook410
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Fortunately, there is a broad range of guitars that are neither inexpensive and tonally impoverished or expensive and great sounding. Originally Posted by kris
Though there are exceptions, the $2000 - $5000 USD range seems to still offer a number of good archtops. Many used. Some new. You can even dip down to $1500 if you're either lucky to find a deal on a used guitar (Eastman's still come up in that range from time to time) or if you have the skills to deal with something like a Yunzhi or Wu. And going above that is no guarantee of a great guitar. Lots of $8K guitars on Reverb look pretty average. For $1000.. dunno. I will leave that for others to sort.
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If you want to spend money saying you really need it to start learning jazz, you can.. but if you are more interested in learning and playing, probably the match between the level of your playing and your gear could be instructive.
I just bought a new Ibanez af95 bs built in Indonesia and I found it amazing, with a good tone and a lot of the hollow body features. It's not a solid top instrument, but I like to give space to improvement when I'll be ready to play jazz in a decent way. Just my opinion..
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Welcome!
There is two kinds of jazz guitarists. First group have and have always had just one guitar and one amp and they sound great.
Other group chase the sound they have in their head and buy guitar after guitar, amp after amp. And then, after years of different gear they say: ”the sound is not in the hardware, it’s in Your fingers”.
But would the sound be in their fingers without the years of changing gear?
In what group do You belong? That is the question You have to solve yourself.
Lots of good advise here have been given. Bon voyage!
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I think you may be a bit too simplistic in this assessment, Herbie. Many of us truly love the guitar well beyond the music we can make with it. Sure, many guitarists believe that they'd be better players if they had a different guitar that's somehow "better" than the one they have at the time. But many others simply enjoy knowing how different guitars feel, sound, play, and even look. To them (and I'm among them), guitars are beautiful art objects, really cool mechanical devices, engineering marvels, products of highly skilled artisans, etc etc. Originally Posted by Herbie
The spectrum of relationships between craftspeople and their tools is vast. There are mechanics who only have the minimum of tools they need for the specific jobs they do. They will use or adapt each tool to many tasks, adding adapters to use smaller sockets on a 1/2" ratchet, owning only one large folding bandsaw with which they do all their cutting of all materials, and wrapping tape around worn handles. They keep them meticulously clean and well lubricated, with no intention of ever replacing them. But to this group, their tools are simply tools with which to do their jobs. Others will buy specific tools for specific tasks, amassing a large and ever growing collection. Still others love tools like I / we love guitars, constantly adding tools to their collections despite redundancy and a total lack of need. They scour flea markets for antique tools, and they buy similar items from 3 or 4 makers to compare them all in use.
Some mechanics and carpenters blame their tools when projects don't work out as planned. Some guitarists blame their guitars. But many of us buy and sell many guitars & amps in a lifetime despite knowing that "the sound is not in the hardware, it's in your fingers". The two are not mutually exclusive.Last edited by nevershouldhavesoldit; 06-08-2022 at 07:52 AM.
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I have had an AF85 for years and played a ton of gigs on it before I got my es175. I still use it sometimes.
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It's not a binary lol Originally Posted by Herbie
I wish I could be one of those dudes with just one guitar, I admire players with that clarity of purpose. It's a very New York thing... you have your sound, one guitar that you play, and you commit to that. (Also in practical terms NYC apartments are like postage stamps.)
OTOH it's not like Mike Moreno started off playing his Marchione on day one is it? Those guitarists in New York have made a conscious decision later in their playing as their preferences became clear. For myself what I liked in a guitar ten years ago is not what I like now.
In practice I own an ES335, an ES175, a tele, a acoustic archtop, a gypsy jazz guitar and various nylon string guitars etc while I think I sound like me on all of them, they all do different things. I think that's more of the vibe among players where I am.
And while I can get a good jazz tone on any guitar, you cannot get a solid body to really sound like an archtop. And if the OP wants the archtop sound early on (I certainly did) I'm not going to be a puritan about it that you must be able to play jazz well before you invest in a jazz box. Find a guitar you enjoy. Hollowbodies are really satisfying to play.
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Having only one guitar is not a NY thing. It's a thing for the people who can cover all the music they do with one guitar and/or are happy with only one guitar thing. That's a small subset. Everybody else has guitars squirreled away in every nook and cranny of their postage-stamp-sized apartments. Versatility and eclecticism is as much a NY thing as specialization. And then there's NY bassists with 14 different basses ... Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Godin make very nice guitars at very good prices – in Canada, where workers have rights and votes.
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That’s what love’ll do to you! Originally Posted by John A.
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Love means never ?h?a?v?i?n?g? ?t?o? ?s?a?y? ?y?o?u?'?r?e? ?s?o?r?r?y? constantly apologizing for buying guitars. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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A guitarist and his wife were relaxing in their living room. He was playing his guitar while she read a book and sipped some wine. Originally Posted by John A.
He suddenly murmured "I love you" quietly enough so his wife didn't catch the words.
She said "I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear that. Would you please say it again?"
He replied, "I wasn't talking to you - I was talking to my guitar."
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NYC jazz guitarists probably have some very nice guitars at home.
Now, they have a gig somewhere in Manhattan, where parking is practically impossible, or too expensive for a jazz gig, and the subway is easy.
Apparently, many travel by subway so the gear has to be light and replaceable in case of trouble.
Every time I saw Jack Wilkins at the Zinc Bar he played a Comins GCS-1 ES. That was a $1500 guitar (maybe $1700 now). Probably not the finest instrument he owned, but the right tool for the job when you include the travel issues. Yotam Silberstein played the same Comins model at Dizzy's.
But, Ed Cherry, Joe Cohn, Vic Juris and Mark Whitfield played archtops iirc, but not D'Angelicos. Vic was the only one who seemed to have brought a slightly bigger than small amp - a Fuchs. Jack played an AER at the Zinc Bar (which is a surprisingly small room).
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Official NYC subway jazz guitar rig, which will be taking 2 or 3 train rides today. Fender Champion 20 amp with artisan-hand crafted duct tape amp cover, 77 Hawk Jazz guitar, and Mono M80 case. Nothing truly irreplaceable (except maybe the amp cover ...), but I'm not letting any of it out of my sight. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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I disagree with putting politics everywhere....and I love Canadian luthiery ...but do Canadian Natives fully have rights and votes and control of their lands? Just a thought.. Originally Posted by Litterick
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I remember Adam Levy saying that he felt that one guitar thing was very NY. Or maybe it was Bruce Forman. Someone who no longer lives in NY haha Originally Posted by John A.
The advantage I suppose is if you have only one guitar it can be a REALLY nice guitar. Or a Mexican strat in the case of Nir Felder (he mus have others?)
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I guess in Mike Moreno's case, given the cost of a Marchione , he has to be a one-guitar guy, and a one-kidney guy to pay for the one guitar. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Anyway, I just find it funny that people would think it's a NY thing to have only one because I know so many people that have a guitar crammed everywhere they can fit one (under the bed, in the closet, in the fridge ...).
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They have the rights and votes that all Canadian citizens enjoy. Originally Posted by SerCorr
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One guitar and one amplifier are simply not enough for a gigging musician. In 60 years, I've had enough small parts fail to appreciate the need for a backup instrument. Wood cracks, warps, breaks, and knows a million ways to screw up your acoustic. Accidents happen on the day of a gig or concert. Guitars can be knocked off their stands, cases can fall, and your beverage of choice can end up on or in your guitar with one simple swipe of a glass or bump of an arm. A few of you have even described running over your own guitars in your driveway. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
My trio played 74 straight nights at the Golden Inn in Avalon NJ in the summer of 1964 (the opening season of what was at the time the nicest hotel in the area). I'd bought a new B15N a few months before, and a 6L6 failed dramatically in the middle of a set. Having no amp and no spare tubes, I was seriously bummed for a few seconds but pulled it together to find a solution. First, I determined that there were no devices in the lobby or restaurant areas using 6L6s. Then I ran to the front desk and called Bell Tel's repair service, since all of their equipment was tube-powered at the time. I explained the problem and was told a repair guy would be there in 10 minutes. He was! He walked in, handed me a pair of boxed 6L6s and told me I should replace them both to be safe, asked for my home telephone number, and told me with a huge smile that it was covered by Bell's repair service policy. You know I never went to a gig without a full complement of spare tubes, fuses, etc after that. I already had a spare amp at home.
A broken or disconnected wire or a bad solder joint will immediately turn your electric into an acoustic. The selector switch on my ESP 7 once got wonky on a gig and I could only use the bridge pickup. This was not a pleasant sound on a jazz date, even with the tone pots rolled all the way back on guitar and amp. There's no end to the trouble that can find you when you're least prepared to deal with it. Having a backup guitar is the best way I know to protect yourself. I carried a Danelectro Convertible in my trunk for about 40 years. It was a great backup piece that held its own the few times I needed it.
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John A is correct. This happy Nu-Yorker keeps his axe in the freezer and is seen here playing when I thaw her standing there.
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