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The history of the archtop guitar begins in America at the turn of the 20th century with Orville Gibson’s first models. By 1922, the refinement of the archtop design resulted in what became the ideal jazz guitar, the Gibson L5. A purely acoustic guitar, its somewhat large, elegant body measured 17″ at the lower bout.<\/p>\n
In 1934, to satisfy the demand for a louder instrument that could hold its own in a big band, an even larger guitar entered the marketplace, the 18″ Gibson Super 400.<\/p>\n
Volume ruled. As electronics took hold, pickups became an essential constituent of guitar tone. Smaller jazz acoustics were inevitable. Many guitarists uncomfortable with the large bodies welcomed the introduction of the Gibson ES 175. Measuring only 16″ at the lower bout, with a maple top instead of spruce, and 2 pickups, the 175 was designed as an electric guitar that held to the acoustic archtop tradition.<\/p>\n
In New York in 1932 the first renowned individual maker of acoustic archtops, John D’Angelico opened shop with guitars that were similar to the Gibson L5. An apprentice, Jimmy D’Aquisto took over after D’Agelico’s death and reigned for several decades as the premier jazz guitar maker. In recent years, that title has belonged to Robert Benedetto.<\/p>\n
While the 16″ ES 175 may be the most popular jazz guitar in history, and demand for 18″ guitars will always exist, as the archtop guitar enters its second century, the 17″ cutaway model, available from many manufacturers and individual makers, has become the preferred size and configuration.<\/p>\n
Size Matters to Sound<\/strong><\/p>\n The volume of the air chamber within the hollow body; the size of the openings in the top, traditionally ‘f’ holes; the length of the free vibrating part of the top; and the effects of the cutaway are all size-related considerations. Other factors have a marked effect on the sound of an acoustic archtop guitar, but those being equal, we can say that generally larger guitars are louder and produce more bass.<\/p>\n Guitars sound the way they do because of how the body and neck of the guitar react to the vibrating strings. Certain parts of the guitar vibrate in sympathy with certain frequencies of the string vibration producing resonance that adds to the overall sound.<\/p>\n The volume of air within the body of the guitar with respect to the area of the soundhole opening determines one of the strongest resonant frequencies of a hollow body guitar. It has similar in effect as producing a tone by blowing over the mouth of an empty bottle. If we make the bottle larger including proportionally the opening at the mouth, then it will produce the same note only louder. If the bottle is larger with the same sized opening, then it will produce a deeper note. So smaller f-holes cut in a smaller guitar will retain the same low air tone, though at the expense of some volume. Make the holes too small and the guitar will sound weak, or choked off, no matter how big the body.<\/p>\n The cutaway, that part of the body that is removed below the fretboard at the upper register to allow easier fingering of the high notes, reduces the volume of air inside the body. With the f-holes unchanged, that raises the resonant pitch of the air tone. Making the f-holes smaller compensates for the reduction in air volume, preserving the low pitch of the air tone at the expense of the same degree of loudness. The cutaway amounts to about 4 to 5 percent of the overall size of the guitar. By comparison, changing the width of the guitar from 16 to 15 inches can reduce the overall size by as much as 18 to 20 percent. With respect to the air tone, reducing the body size by one inch has a much greater effect than simply adding a cutaway.<\/p>\n The smaller acoustic archtop guitar, though more comfortable to play, will not sound the same as a larger one. Loudness and bass response suffer. The result, if taken too far, is a sound with too much emphasis on the midrange, often described as a nasal quality, in which case, the guitar will usually not be loud enough to use as a purely acoustic instrument, but with the addition of pickups, the deficiencies may not be noticeable in the amplified sound.<\/p>\n Hear the Difference<\/strong><\/p>\n The Benedetto Guitars website features audio clips of each model they produce. You will hear various guitars made in the same shop, played by the same player under the same conditions. Nowhere else other than in your own hands will you find a more fair comparison of the sound of different jazz archtops of different sizes. On each of these pages, under the description of each guitar, you will find an embedded audio clip. Click the play button and hear the difference.<\/p>\n First, a top-of-the-line pure acoustic 17″ acoustic archtop:<\/p>\n The Benedetto La Venezia<\/a><\/p>\n Second, for the most drastic comparison, a 12″ three-quarter size guitar played acoustically (note the decreased volume and limited tonal response), then with amplification (it is not too bad plugged in):<\/p>\n The Benedetto Andy<\/a><\/p>\n The ideal sounding archtop is large and cumbersome. The most comfortable one to play may be smaller, lacking in volume and bass response, and somewhat unsatisfying to the ear. Thankfully, guitar makers have one hundred years of history and innovation to make the most of whatever instrument the player desires. For finally it is in the player’s hands to make any instrument the ideal vehicle for her art.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n [ad_2] [ad_1] The history of the archtop guitar begins in America at the turn of the 20th century with Orville Gibson’s first models. By 1922, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,107,103,105,104,108],"class_list":["post-8477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-music-producer","tag-music-production","tag-songwriter","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame","tag-songwriting-contest","tag-write-lyrics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildsongwriter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Source<\/a> by Ken Bennett<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"