Members guitarcapo Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 The accepted way is a magnetic pickup...But with high end acoustic flattops...it's UST's? Both are acoustic guitars being amplified. Why are soundhole magnetic pickups so frowned upon with flattops...but considered the epitome of tone with a $50,000 D'Aquisto? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimH Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 I honestly think it has to do with the looks more than anything... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 54merk Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 GC, Maybe I'm just plain dense but I fail to see the similarity between the sound of an electric archtop and a flat top guitar. The history of jazz guitars is that they were an outgrowth of the acoustic archtop, and the magnectic pickup was incorporated so they could be played with the big bands of the day and not be drown out. Essentially they replaced the short lived heyday of the resonator guitar as a big band instrument, and if not for the old bluesmen, Hawaiin slack key players, and country dobroists like Bashful Brother Oswald and Josh Graves , the dobro would be a footnote of guitar history which would be known as the predecessor of the pedal steel guitar, but that's another story. Anyone who has ever played a true archtop guitar realizes that they do not sound anything like a flat top. Jazz guitar players are taught a very complex and difficult method of chord/melody so they can play the melody of any song within a series of hundreds of various 4 string jazz chords. I studied this method for about 3 years when I was much younger, before giving up because I did not have enough hours in the day to practice. Even a solid body electric can give this type of tone, although the deep hollow body is the instrument of choice in the jazz world. Finally, the UST transducer is a relatively new invention. Before they were invented, a magnetic sound hole pickup, and later an AST transducer were the only available method to amplify an acoustic guitar. The magnetic pickup makes it sound like an electric guitar, which in fact is what the guitar becomes, and steel strings are required to make this work at all. AST's are prone to feedback issues, so if miking is not an option, all that's left if the player wants a true acoustic tone is something which uses a UST as either the sole pickup, or in conjuntion with a microphone or AST. As the technology continues to improve, I forsee the day when it will be possible to get an amplified sound from a flat top which cannot be distinguished from a microphone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted January 9, 2004 Author Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 So basically you're saying it's done that way because it's just traditionally been done that way. What I'm asking is whether there's some tonal reason...Like does a magnetic pickup pick up complex voicings better or something? I do agree that when you put a pickup on an acoustic archtop, you are making an electric guitar...but why isn't that also true of a flattop? Both become electric guitars when you put a pickup on them. What I'm after is why do flattops favor piezo pickups and archtops not? My guess is that it's probably just tradition. The reason i ask is that basically I think under saddle pickups are inferior. They make a guitar sound like rubber bands or something. After a lot of EQ tweeking and different saddles I've decided it's silly and now go with a soundhole pickup. It just sounds better...more musical. Doesn't make it sound like a jazz box...doesn't make it sound like an acoustic either..But USTs don't make an acoustic sound like an acoustic either in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bbarkow Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 Hey GC - Have you seen the new Baggs soundhole pickup? Might be just what you're after. http://www.lrbaggs.com/news/products_200312_m1/ Can't wait to hear how it sounds from some players. You sound like a good guinea pig candidate. Brent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 54merk Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 Originally posted by guitarcapo So basically you're saying it's done that way because it's just traditionally been done that way. What I'm asking is whether there's some tonal reason...Like does a magnetic pickup pick up complex voicings better or something? I do agree that when you put a pickup on an acoustic archtop, you are making an electric guitar...but why isn't that also true of a flattop? Both become electric guitars when you put a pickup on them. What I'm after is why do flattops favor piezo pickups and archtops not? My guess is that it's probably just tradition. The reason i ask is that basically I think under saddle pickups are inferior. They make a guitar sound like rubber bands or something. After a lot of EQ tweeking and different saddles I've decided it's silly and now go with a soundhole pickup. It just sounds better...more musical. Doesn't make it sound like a jazz box...doesn't make it sound like an acoustic either..But USTs don't make an acoustic sound like an acoustic either in my opinion. No, I am not saying that it is done this way just to stay within tradition. What I am saying is that an acoustic archtop sounds nothing like a round hole flattop. Put a pickup on it, and you've got an electric guitar. Plug it into a Mesa Boogie, and you can sound like Carlos Santana or Keith Richards if you are so inclined. Jazz players turn down the treble and up the bass to get that deep muted tone. You could get this type of tone out of a flat top with a magnetic pickup if you adjusted the tone controls. Nothing inherently wrong with a soundhole pickup, however it will sound pretty much the same on a $200 Chinese instrument as a $3000 Collings. And you also have to switch from a Phosphorus alloy to nickel/steel. The better soundhole designs give a much more acoustic sounding tone than the old DeArmonds of 25 years ago, although the style of the old vintage mags is well suited for bluesy players like Little Brother. For those who still prefer a UHT, the state of the art is currently a quality preamp like a Baggs Para DI plugged into a PA system or a quality acoustic amp. One day it will get better, it's just not there yet. That's my $0.02. Thank you for starting this interesting discussion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ksargent Posted January 9, 2004 Members Share Posted January 9, 2004 I would say it's tradition. That was the way the classic players going back to Christian have done it and it is the method which delivers the "classic" jazz sound. Note that the favored non-archtop jazz guitar is not a flattop - it's a Telecaster. The style of jazz guitar we are discussing is essentially an electric medium. While it is true that some classic players (Jim Hall for example) look for an acoustic/electric blend, most jazzers see themselves as playing an electric guitar and are looking for that sound. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted January 10, 2004 Author Members Share Posted January 10, 2004 I have a Lace Sensor pickup right now for my acoustic. It's great I think it's just tradition. People's concept of what a jazz guitar should sound like is rooted in what was used for it in the past so it's just done that way. People look for that same tone. By the time undersaddle transducers came on the scene, the concept of the archtop guitar as an acoustic instrument that you would "mike" or attempt to duplicate without coloration seemed out of place with modern music. I often see these 10,000 dollar Benedetto guitars without a pickup and I wonder what kind of music they are for. Big band jazz? Folk? Certainly not pop or rock. So the pickup goes on and they are used for small jazz bands but the sound of the guitar is altered. Piezo USTs came on the scene as an attempt to amplify the natural tone of the acoustic, which wasn't demanded by jazz electric guitarists. They had already given up on that bias because the technology wasn't there at the time when big band jazz was popular. When the pickups went in the jazz guitars, they couldn't help but live with the altered tone which they came to learn to like...and it became the standard. The same thing might have happened with flattop acoustics if the timing was right. But since flattops were used by solo acts or small country bands not requiring as much amplification, these guitars were miked and the tone of the guitar never HAD to change.So UST came on to the scene later when flattop acoustics had to be amplified in concerts and sound like the record (which was a miked acoustic) My point in all this is that tradition and conditioned bias determines what is good tone and what is not ...just as much as our ears telling us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ksargent Posted January 10, 2004 Members Share Posted January 10, 2004 I think you're correct, GC. Tradition is the major factor. I remember hearing the opinion expressed somewhere that, had the great guitars of the past been made of Indian rather than Brazilian rosewood and if Indian were now scarce and Brazilian were plentiful, we would all be longing for the days of Indian rosewood. Or if the great classic guitarists of the 50's and 60's used solid state amps, then solid state amps would be the gold standard today. Think about a piece of abstract music - free jazz, 20th century classical avant garde. The first time one hears it, one rarely enjoys it. It is only with repeated listening and the development of an expectation with respect to the structure that one begins to move the listening experience from work to pleasure. The reason this or that melody sounds good is that it follows accepted form - i.e. follows the patterns we have learned to expect. There's nothing wrong with that really - it's just the way our brains and our aesthetic senses work. Art strikes a chord with us (as consumers) via association I think. When something is new, we have to develop that association. The reason an Bennedetto masterpiece is a masterpiece is that it responds to what we expect to hear in a great archtop guitar. Think about it - if it didn't, then we wouldn't hold it such high esteem. We would say that it didn't have "good jazz tone." Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ksargent Posted January 10, 2004 Members Share Posted January 10, 2004 One other thing - I imagine that the high end archtops are sold that way so that the owner can select his or her pickup. Those guitars almost invariably use floating pups (i.e. not attached to the guitar body. Of course the option remains to play it without amplification either way. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted January 11, 2004 Author Members Share Posted January 11, 2004 I think music in general is that way...A friend of mine said that the music you listen to when you are growing up seems to determine what music you will gravitate to the rest of your life. He seemed to think there was this critical period in the high school and college years. He likened it to the association of music and language in the brain...and the ease at which children learn new languages compared to adults. I build guitars and would venture to say that Brazilian sounds the same as Indian to the point of huge overlap. I do think Brazilian is prettier. I like the black lines and overall brown color. There's also that rarity thing that makes women gush over a diamond and frown at a cubic zirconia... even though they both look identical and for all purposes accomplish the same function.... Just sold this spiderweb set to some guy in California. for 700 dollars. God I hated to part with it. I've never seen a nicer example of Brazilian spiderwebbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Howard Emerson Posted January 11, 2004 Members Share Posted January 11, 2004 Originally posted by guitarcapo The accepted way is a magnetic pickup...But with high end acoustic flattops...it's UST's? Both are acoustic guitars being amplified. Why are soundhole magnetic pickups so frowned upon with flattops...but considered the epitome of tone with a $50,000 D'Aquisto? Hi Capo,Archtops never really had a problem cutting through big bands as rhythm instruments, but with the advent of the pickup, solo work, as exemplified by Charlie Christian, made magnetic pickups almost mandatory. They just rolled the tone and volume down when comping, and raised up the volume to solo. The main difference between archtops and flattops, generally, is that archtops have less sustain than flattops, but far more punch and 'cut' when doing acoustic rhythm. This very aspect of archtops does translate into a magnetic pickup in terms of the sustain, or lack of it: Same pickup on a flattop and an archtop, and you'd notice the difference in regard to the sustain, but other than that it is hard to quantify or describe. Now................that being said, I've been the owner of a 1927 Gibson L-5 for a very long time, and I'm an acoustic fingerstyle and bottleneck player. I've always, until recently, amplified ALL my instruments (flattops and archtop) with a soundboard transducer and a mini hypercardioid mic, both run through a stereo cable into a split system mixer (Fishman Pocket Blender or AP-8 Acoustic Performer Pro amp) My L-5 has as much sustain as any flattop, but it also has the 'pop' that a compressed arched top can only give. It's a freak for it's time frame, but my good friend John Montelone makes all his archtops with that kind of sustain, and for that matter it was Jimmy D'Aquisto that first made that kind of sonic leap with archtop building. While it's true that most people who buy many of these instruments will put magnetic pickups on them, that is only because they generally don't know better, or their daddy did the same, or they are still using the guitar to play jazz and even with the extra sustain, they're going to use that 'pop' through a magnetic pickup in the context of an ensemble or band. I, ahem, do know better:-), but I don't play jazz. It's more of a country blues derivative from which I write almost all my compositions. For an example of my old L-5, go here: http://www.samusic.com/ then scroll down to my name and find 'Dust Mop' on the sound clips. This was recorded with Neumann KM-84 and U-87 mics in a fairly live room and it's in open D, capoed second fret. I think it'll change your view of what an acoustic archtop is capable of. Best regards,Howard Emersonhttp://www.howardemerson.com/ Come visit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dave251 Posted January 11, 2004 Members Share Posted January 11, 2004 Hey Howard...great playing...what gauge strings are you using on that thing....I was always under the impression that at least a medium string was required for archtops; my last archie was an early 50's L7C and even mediums didn't seem to bring out all the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Howard Emerson Posted January 11, 2004 Members Share Posted January 11, 2004 Hi Dave,Except for my 20's Sovereign Concert guitar, which uses 54-12 regular lights, my other guitars (OM-18V, '35 L-00, Flammang EL and the L-5) use .013 & .017 plain with a regular light wound set. Sometimes I'll even put a custom light (.052) set on the OM-18V so that it tones the bass down. I go for balance and thicker high end. I generate enough bottom with my thumb, but I don't need to hear how much bass the guitar has. That kind of thing is way overrated (but don't tell your typical American consumer:-) My '27 L-5 was built as a TG L-5, or as a tenor. It was renecked at the factory in 1933. I got it back in 1976 from the daughter of the original owner. Her father obviously started as a banjo player, as that's the reason for the existance of tenor guitars: So that the banjo players didn't get totally displaced when the archtop guitar become the accepted norm in jazz bands. So my L-5 has a thinner top and lighter bracing than other of its ilk. I've played 2 or 3 Lloyd Loar L-5's and none of them had the fatness and sustain that mine has, though they were far superior to the archtops that came after 1935 when Gibson switched to X bracing. Those are the instruments that need the extra mass to get a somewhat fuller sound. If you listen to old recordings of Eddie Lang and the 16" L-5 crowd of the 20's and early 30's, the solo stuff in the ensemble settings is really nice, though it does have more pop than sustain, and it was being played acoustically. Once the magnetic pickup happened, all bets were off. Also at that point with amps and pickups, a slightly thick top/less resonant guitar, would be less prone to feedback at volume. That may have been a consideration. Glad you liked Dust Mop! Take care,Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members greystoke 2 Posted January 14, 2004 Members Share Posted January 14, 2004 1st Let me say..that figure is like burl Capo; Never seen that before although I wonder if it would be tonally as good as it looks.I know a few cabinet makers that would love to get their hands on wood like that. 2nd. I could'nt read all the replys to the flat top vs. arch top topic 'cause I had to have my say. P.U.'s on flat tops vis-a-vis magnetic sound hole types are a abomination. The piezo strip saddle types seem O.K. and I don't know 'bout the fishman types. Arch top pick ups on 'classic' carved top designs such as D'Angelicos always made more sense to me if they were 'free floating' and amped accordingly-Great tone but a one trick pony-not too much range except for the player. The hollow body that is a great middle ground is a ES 335 with that solid almost neck-thru const. that solved the classic problem of feedback overtone harmonics at high volumes that most accoustics exibit. What you want is examples of all the classic inst.'s and not have to bend anything to fit. I've heard that the Parker "Fly" might be a groundbreaking inst. that has an answer to a lot of what's been discussed;Any opinion?Greystoke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarcapo Posted January 14, 2004 Author Members Share Posted January 14, 2004 No it's spiderwebbing. Just so much of it that it's bizarre. Burl has a more bubbly look like birdseyes that have exploded. I've never seen burl on rosewood but I guess anything is possible. I have seen birdseye and flame though. Usually it's never that dramatic or throughout the entire back. As for inferior tap tone I do agree that happens with some type of highly figured wood but not spiderwebbing. Anyway it's gone now. I can only hope the guy who builds with it makes it as awesome as it deserves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members VIP Posted January 14, 2004 Members Share Posted January 14, 2004 http://www.ace-guitars.com/GuitarModels/CM250.htm I have seen and heard these in person.Pretty nice guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dave251 Posted January 14, 2004 Members Share Posted January 14, 2004 I've been working for years trying to combine the two disparate tonalities. The "MagPi" system my guitars currently use comes as close as anything...this uses a passive circuit to combine the magnetic and bridge(not a ust) piezo... In My Solitude Here's a photo of a "lefty" that went to a Hawaiian jazz player this past summer. Kent Armstrong custom wound the pickup for this one, as he did on the mp3 above. The piezo is my own proprietary design, as is the circuit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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