Archtop curious

[zuzu]

I am well satisfied with my current stable of flattops and think I am done seeking any more. In fact, I know I am done, since I have had a unexpected windfall upon me and have several thousand non allocated dollars which I can spend how I please, and, after perusing the flattop market online for 2 days, I see nothing that flips my switch.

I do not own an archtop, how so with them? Do you archtop/flattop guys get them off the wall and play them regularly, or are they more of a pretty wall hanger for a hard core flattop player, particularly one who fingerpicks more than strums?

[Ken Carr]

I'm curious to see how some others respond as well. This is a good question I have been pondering myself recently. I'm a fingerstyle guy myself, interested in the "mystique" of arch top. I recently acquired a hybrid Godin Multiac Steel. I'm enjoying it. I have been playing acoustic guitar for 36 years and I don't think I have ever ever held an arch top. Let's see some responses.

[rmp]

are you looking for a pickup equipped archtop?

Budget limmits?

I'd suggest look to Godin, or Eastman for traditional models

Both have reasonably priced pretty good quality archtops.

I have a Godin Kingpin II with 2 P90s

a fun guitar, comfortably sized archtop, not a lot of dough about a grand

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/sea...enue%20kingpin

if you're looking for something special, with no budget concerts and with pickups, try the Gretsch Pro line. (I'd love a White Falcon.. !!BOOM!!)

[zuzu]

Curious about the acoustic only versions. I've got an Epiphone Sheraton. Sweet guitar!

[abn556]

I used to play a buddy’s old arch top f hole acoustic a lot. Trapeze tail piece with low super fast action that played like an electric. It was the slinkiest fastest playing acoustic I have ever played. Probably due to the trapeze tail piece and lower pressure over the saddle. Remember the string pressure on this kind of guitar doesn’t pull up on the top, it pushes down.

I was just looking at used L-48 Gibsons on Reverb. I might consider selling an electric to finance one of these.

I also have two arch top semi hollow body electrics.

[mr. beaumont]

Archtop addict here.

So I'll start by saying you CAN fingerpick on an archtop. You can play pretty much anything on an archtop. But there are things I like them better for...

An acoustic archtop is an interesting beast. Basically, think of that lush, dark, smokey sound from a plugged in jazz box. Picture that sound?

An acoustic archtop sounds almost nothing like that.

They can be stringy or even brash if not played with some finesse. This isn't a guitar you're going to pick up and strum a G chord and say "Wow, that's lovely." But with a little work you can coax some amazing sounds out of them.

I currently have 3, two are set up for playing plugged in, my Heritage 575 has heavy flats, it does the jazz thing in spades. I also have an old Kay acoustic archtop...this guitar is a swing rhythm machine. Highish action, 80/20 strings that are broken in a bit...it does the Freddie Green thing just perfectly.

I've attached two videos of this guitar so you can hear it's sound

The first was part of a series I did about rhythm guitar, so there's a bit of talking. This is the rhythm thing an acoustic archtop does better than anything else on the planet.



In this video, it's being strummed with a capo.



Here, the single note sound in a old time jazz context (it's also playing the rhythm guitar backing)



Lastly, played in a more gentle style (the old guys called this "coaxing the velvet")

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by zuzu

Curious about the acoustic only versions. I've got an Epiphone Sheraton. Sweet guitar!

Hi, I have three archtops, (I don't do electrics) my first was/is a Harmony Monterey (mid '60s) in very good condition.

I confess that my interest was due to David Rawlings.

My second was an Eastman AR805, but foolishly I bought one with a floating pick-up, which as a rather loud red colour - couldn't take to it, so I traded it.

I then I decided that I would learn to play American Song book and western swing style .... so I went (even more) crazy and bought a 1930s Gibson L4/7

Nice guitar needed a lot of work, not explained by the Seattle dealer! got it done ... but .... didn't work.

Then an Eastman AR805 in sunburst appeared on ebay and it quickly became mine.

Of the three, most think the Eastman is the best.

[Charlie Bernstein]

xxxxxxxxxxxx

[Robin, Wales]

A couple of years ago I took the plunge and bought an acoustic archtop. I wanted one because I had seen some videos of folk artists playing/singing old time and early country songs with them and I really liked the sound. Also, I was a fan of the Carter Family recordings.

Steve De Rosa pointed me towards finding a 5th Avenue acoustic. I found one very cheap second hand and followed Steve's set-up advice of fitting a rosewood bridge and monel 13-56 strings. I was really happy with the guitar from day one - but I sort of knew the timbre I wanted for song accompaniment, and this was it.

It would be very easy to be disappointed moving from a flattop to an archtop. The archtops lack bass (in the way we expect to hear bass from a flattop) and lack sustain. They can sound thin and awful if not handled well. But, within those boxes is a world of tone - it just takes a while to find it. I have recently sold my D-18 - that guitar basically played itself. It was really easy to get it sounding sweet. However, my archtop takes a lot of playing. I really have to work the guitar to get what I want out of it - but I sort of like that as a concept.

I sold my D-18 because I ended up playing bluegrass/old time/Americana at gigs on the Godin 5th Avenue. The folks I played with liked having the archtop in mix, whereas the D-18 could get a little "lost". I have used it numerous times for solo spots - often at concerts without a pa. The guitar carries to the back of the room but doesn't drown out my voice. It spits out notes but leaves plenty of "space".

Although the guitar has little sustain, it does have a lot of natural reverb. And it sounds like its plugged into an old valve amp - yet I play it without a pick-up just through a mic'. It really suits me and has come to feel like home. I flatpick Carter style mine and also Travis pick using a thumb pick and metal fingerpicks. Here are a couple of recordings I made after I had set-up the guitar. I'm just a campfire level player/singer, but this gives a fairly honest flavour of the instrument (reverb added to the recordings):





And here is it during a practice session a couple of months ago (I sometimes record myself on my phone to see how a song is going and what I need to work on)



Now my 5th Avenue is a cheap all plywood model. With your budget you could go for something much nicer like a hand carved Eastman. Hopefully someone here will point you toward a few models to try out.

I can almost garantee you will hate an acoustic archtop at the first strum. They are sooo different from playing a flattop. But once you find your feet with one then you'll grow to love it!

[29er]

I was in the same boat and have scratched that itch with the recent purchase of this 2020 Eastman AR804. The oval sound hole was the deal clincher. The original owner had a Baggs HiFi active pickup system installed, which I'm not really thrilled with so the guitar is currently at my repairman's bench having that removed. As others will tell you, it's a different animal than any flat top and that's a good enough reason for me to give it a try.

I am slowly learning how to alter my right hand approach to get the most out of it. As a primarily finger style blues guy the string spacing at the bridge saddle is the largest stumbling block for me. Not sure if I'll ever get used to it and if I ever let it go that will be the reason because I love the look, sound and playability. I'd love to try an Eastman AR610 due to the mahogany back & sides. Long winded way for me to tell you that I understand your way of thinking. The only way to know is jump!

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by zuzu

...Do you archtop/flattop guys get them off the wall and play them regularly, or are they more of a pretty wall hanger...?

Originally Posted by zuzu

Curious about the acoustic only versions...

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

...An acoustic archtop is an interesting beast...They can be stringy or even brash if not played with some finesse. This isn't a guitar you're going to pick up and strum a G chord and say "Wow, that's lovely." But with a little work you can coax some amazing sounds out of them...

If you're not familiar with the broad range of dynamics/tone color available from a good archtop here's fellow AGF'er Jonathan Stout (AKA CampusFive) showing how it's done at Norman's Rare Guitars; note the subtle tonal distinctions between guitars of the same make/model as well as between different makes/body sizes (he's using a prewar 17" Gibson L-5N in the third clip), how each is used in chord-solo/single-string/comping roles - and precisely why those New York-era 18" Epiphone Emperors were so renowned for their acoustic cutting power:



On the other hand, many of the old-timers referred to their own (different) archtop technique as "coaxing the velvet out" - extracting that warm, rich, creamy, woody, "tone you can eat with a spoon" from what could (as stated by the good mr. beaumont) be solely a strident and steely-sounding instrument, lacking in dynamic range and character in the hands of a lesser player. While both equally-valid approaches have their place and time (and a well-rounded archtop player should be familiar with both) I always preferred the latter: Romain Vuillemin provides a perfect example here, on instruments similar to those used by Messrs. Stout and Rossi, and offering a strong contrast to their edgier/punchier style intended to showcase the raw power customarily associated with these guitars:



On a different note (pun intended... ) most contemporary players are unaware that there was an entire school of "classical archtop" guitar that flourished from about 1925-1940, and upon which Mel Bay based his well-known method; when I was learning in the early-60's the method books bore a statement that they were in fact designed and intended "to place the plectrum guitar in the same class as the violin, piano, and other 'legitimate' instruments" (and if you've never hung around in certain so-called "serious" music circles it's difficult to imagine the pejorative attitude directed toward the guitar, even in its "classical" incarnation)...

By way of background, in its original form the classical-archtop movement drew from the earlier American school of (fingerstyle) classical guitar exemplified by the likes of William Foden, Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, et al. (rather than that of Segovia and his Spanish contemporaries, which would become the accepted concert style and instrument), as well as the parlor, "light classical," and vaudeville music of late-19th/early 20th century America. In addition to transcriptions of well-known classical repertoire, a number of guitarists of the day produced original compositions in a late-Romantic style - music which, while largely out of fashion today, still retains its technical and artistic merit over nine decades later. Bear in mind that the original 16" L-5 archtop guitar was in fact envisioned as a "classical" instrument both tonally and visually, intended as a part of the mandolin orchestras of the late-vaudeville era and designed for hall-filling acoustic projection in the days before electronic amplification (see also Fabio Mittino's take on the classical-guitar virtuoso piece "Recuerdos de la Alhambra" below); were it not for Segovia's sensational American debut in 1928, the plectrum-style archtop guitar - with its violin-family looks and construction - may well have become the accepted "classical" guitar...

Here's a couple of samples of "classical archtop" from back in the day:



- and a sampling of traditional and contemporary repertoire, from modern revivalists (including fellow AGF'ers Rob MacKillop and Fabio Mittino) keeping this historic style alive:







- and if that doesn't make you a believer, I doubt anything else will...

[Glennwillow]

I bought an Eastman archtop (AR910CE) a while ago and I am primarily a finger picker.

I use mine when I'm in the mood to work on an American Songbook kind of jazz song. I love this old music and for me, a jazz guitar is a great way to work on this music. Something like this:



- Glenn

[ceciltguitar]

Off the beaten path:

https://emeraldguitars.com/models/kestrel/

[Murphy Slaw]

Great thread. I haven't played an archtop since I was a kid. We (the family) had a Harmony with a single pickup and 2 knobs. I mostly played my Gibson Melody Maker in those early years, but whenever there was a jam session the Harmony was the "extra" guitar and everybody loved it. We always used little amps in those days, but the Harmony played good, was loud and I'm sure I spent many hours with it in my youth.

And it had an old woody smell.

It was destroyed in a brawl and I remember everyone being sad about that.

Now I want an archtop...

[rmp]

Originally Posted by zuzu

Curious about the acoustic only versions. I've got an Epiphone Sheraton. Sweet guitar!

I have one as well. Love it.

however these of course are Semi Hollows, which is not quite the same as you'd get from a deeper total hollow body.

Anyways,, good luck in the hunt.