Heritage Eagle Archtop Guitar from 1997 Review

I’ve always wanted a Heritage archtop guitar ever since I read their story, but the local guitar shop just down the coast that specialises in such things charges a huge premium for Heritages and I just couldn’t justify the outlay.

Then came one of those odd epiphany moments that very occasionally happen to me. Although I love our closest local music shop, I hadn’t had any need to go in for well over a year. However one day someone or something seemed to be telling me to just go into the shop and have a look around. After telling myself not to be stupid, I did just that and for quite a while I saw nothing of great interest amongst the racks of guitars. Then suddenly a brown sunburst guitar caught my eye, hanging sideways half out of sight, right next to the old Hofners. I checked it over and it looked in reasonable condition and I then saw that it was a Heritage, but it didn’t have a price on it, and all the staff were busy with customers and someone was playing a distorted electric guitar badly and loudly in one of the side rooms.

I walked out and did the shopping I’d come into town to do, but the thought of the guitar wouldn’t leave me. I did some reading up to find out exactly what the model, age and construction was. Then I rang the shop to find out what the price was. It was half the price I was expecting!  I still didn’t do anything more at that stage and went home to think it all over and research some more as it was going to be a significant unexpected outlay. 

Having slept on it all, the next morning saw me at the shop first thing asking to try the guitar out. The shop was selling the guitar as part of a private sale of someone’s estate and it had literally just come in. They didn’t quite know how to price it because there are very few of these out there to give an idea of the value. Thanks to Heritage’s serial numbers it was easy to date the guitar to 1997, and to see that it was the first guitar manufactured that day in April! This one has certainly been well loved and well used, nothing to put me off: one of the tuning pegs is slightly bent, the nickel all has a well worn “patina”, there are quite a few dings on the front (but hey you pay a specialist hundreds to make a new guitar into a holey [sic] relic!), and there was a bit of fret wear.  I do like a guitar that wears its history and hasn’t just sat in a case remaining pristine for a collector to sit and admire it. The acoustic tone on this model is really lovely, even with the dead and sticky flat wound strings on it at the time. It chimed beautifully through the fender amp they gave me to test it out.

The shop I bought it from is one of those gems of a place that defies the odds and keeps going as a bricks and mortar store though with an increasing presence on the internet.  I’ve bought a lot of things there over the years. Before I pulled the trigger on buying the guitar we put it down on the guitar rest and the tech tweaked the truss rod to take some of the bow out of the neck for me, all smooth and good. Apple Pay and I was away!  

It’s so difficult to know what these guitars are really worth as there’s not a whole lot on the web to give a sense of value.  I think I got it for an extremely good price, but of course it is not in pristine condition.  Brand new Eagles go for eye watering sums these days. I think this has pushed up secondhand values in its wake, and meant I had to insure the new purchase for a huge new for old value…

It’s only as you delve fairly deep that you come across the truly excellent Heritage owners’ club forum: http://www.heritageownersclub.com. One reason why I’m writing this as there is very little out there on these lovely archtop guitars with floating pickups. 

I really recommend that you do a search on the history of Heritage guitars: https://heritageguitars.com/pages/about-us. It’s an inspiring story of entrepreneurship. In my mind, as a lover of good old fashioned archtop guitars, Heritage is a really important “Reformation” moment in the apostolic succession of Orville Gibson and Lloyd Loar’s genius. These guitars are still made in Kalamazoo in the old Gibson factory and, certainly in 1997 were being made by builders tracing their skills and experience way back into Gibson history.  We could debate for ages who are the true successors to the archtop faith!  I’m just grateful that both companies are still around (just) keeping the faith alive.

My guitar is a 1997 Eagle Almond Sun Burst with a Heritage floating pickup. It shares its dna with the Gibson L5, a slightly shallower body at 3” deep but sharing the same lovely acoustic tones and craftsmanship.  A lot of these Eagle guitars came with mahogany tops, but mine is an X braced spruce topped guitar with solid carved mahogany back, pickguard and sides and neck. The fretboard and bridge are rosewood, hardware is nickel plated. All is beautifully carved, and with a sunburst finish which makes any of my other guitars I stand it next to look rather one dimensional. Heritage clearly had some superb workers at this stage of their history. This is where Heritage guitars are a bit intriguing: they seem to have often built to different specifications according to the dealer or customer requirements. Mine comes from Wolfe originally, as I discovered when I took off the pick guard and found their sticker.  

There’s no bling on this guitar, and strangely that really adds to the look, no neck binding and only a single binding to the body. The wood is fairly plain. But what stands out is the tone. The 17” body gives it a lovely depth, with all the bark and projection you expect from an archtop.  I like the pickup too, but I haven’t played this away from home yet so there is a bit more to add into this account as time goes on.  I’ve made some adjustments to the action to get it where I want it, not too low to give the acoustic voice some authority. I’ve put DR Zebra 13 strings on it at the moment so I can enjoy the acoustic voice, and I do recommend these as one of the best compromises for an electric/acoustic like this. The action is so lovely I can’t believe these strings are 13s, they feel much lighter even with the relatively long scale of this guitar!  Once things open up again in the world and I can play out I will probably try micing and amping this to get the best of both worlds, the acoustic voice is too good to ignore.

These are lovely guitars. 

Electric guitar tone enhancement - myth, mystery and method

 What effects the tone of an electric guitar?

Maybe pink guitars sound better?

While I don’t claim to have all the answers to this thorny question, there is so much misinformation on the Internet about this subject I thought it might be helpful to have some reflections from my years of buying, playing and fixing guitars, gathered here into one place.  

Pickups

It’s important to understand that the magnetic pickups used on a traditional electric guitar are designed to pick up the vibrations of the string NOT the acoustics of the guitar. They do this by creating a small electric current in conjunction with the vibration of a string that is then amplified externally. 

One of the most important considerations for good tone therefore is all the factors that surround and effect the vibration of the string. The construction of the pickup also has a major influence on the final tone of the guitar. A single coil pickup will give a more pronounced higher end, while a humbucker, designed to combat the hum associated with a single coil, gives a cleaner but slightly ‘muddier’ tone. There are lots of designs of pickups each with specific tonal variations.  Pickups can be wound to increase or decrease current output, however doing this has other tonal compromises.  

The beauty of the electric guitar is that the pickup system is a highly effective, but very simple concept and utilises a very straightforward electronic circuit, that hasn’t changed much since the 1930s. Not a chip or transistor in sight! 

Arguably the tonal results achieved using a magnetic pickup are nothing like the unamplified sound of an acoustic guitar, but rather have a degree of relationship to the acoustic instrument. However magnetic  pickups allow a whole new range of playing techniques, effects, tonal variations and the opportunity to use the instrument in different contexts that would be extremely challenging with a purely acoustic instrument.  

Simplicity - the lipstick pickup

We’ll say more about this later, but the amplifier and driver/speaker is just as important as the guitar in producing the final tone. In effect the amplifier and driver is the acoustic sound box of the electric guitar.

A big custom industry has built up around the production of pickups. Many guitarists, while maybe purporting to being avant garde and ground breaking in their art, are deeply deeply conservative when it comes to the instruments they play. Huge value is placed on historic instruments and historic accuracy in reissues. This has meant that someone who claims to be able to replicate the exact pickup winding processes of a former age, or a sought after artist’s guitar, can charge a very healthy margin in producing and selling these items. Many manufacturers will claim to have painstakingly examined old pickups and be making them according to the original specifications.  Some experiments have tried to demonstrate that the difference between a well made cheaper pickup and an expensive one is at best marginal.  It’s probably true to say a lot of other things in the signal chain will make much more difference to your sound than buying very expensive pickups.  However some pickup manufacture has become a real art form in itself and if you have the money and think you can hear the difference, once you have made other adjustments, the final piece in the chain might be to invest in bespoke pickups.

A quick survey of how pickups were made in the early days shows that a there was a lot of variation and imprecision even within a single brand. Manufacturers often used materials that were easily available and so, for example, the magnets used in a batch might vary depending on what could be obtained at the right price and easily.  Magnets degrade over time so it is almost impossible to know what a vintage pickup really sounded like when it was first produced 60 years ago.

The pickup being a very simple piece of engineering probably has less effect on the final sound of the guitar than you might be led to think from the hype surrounding there different brands. The main tonal difference is in the type of pickup (eg single coil/humbucker/lipstick) and the winding. Some slight differences may be related to the type of magnets used but this is difficult to test objectively.  

The wiring of the guitar probably makes a minor difference to the tone too, as differing resistances can be introduced in the circuitry. Some resistance is actually part of the classic sound of an electric guitar. A pickup wired directly to an amp can sound harsh and spiky.  Manufacturers of wireless systems sometimes include a ‘guitar cable’ effect to emulate the resistance of a guitar cable on the final sound.

Tonewoods

There is so much written about this all over the internet. Guitarists sometimes agonise over which combinations of tonewoods will give the exact tonal nuance they are looking for. Thousands are spent honing and polishing fine bits of dead tree, and some people swear that certain vintage finishes are critical to the ‘right’ sound.

I love a guitar that looks good, and feels good and balanced in my hands, but do the type of woods really effect the sound of an electric guitar dramatically? Les Paul is reported to have said that people hear with their eyes, when he enhanced his log guitar with a chopped up Epiphone body.

Again this is one of those questions that is really difficult to measure objectively, hence the existence of so much misinformation and speculation on the web. Someone who has invested heavily in fine woods and expensive pickups will have a high incentive to ‘hear’ the results of their investment. A manufacturer will want to create a mystique around the fine woods they have maturing in their stock piles to justify high retail prices.  A lot of early electric guitars were just made with materials that were readily available, and were quite variable in stock. It’s important to remember this when manufacturers hype the historical accuracy of expensive reissues.

My personal view is that tone woods may have a very marginal influence over the sound of an electric guitar, but it’s important to remember that the influence is probably very slight and a lot of other factors have a much greater influence over the sound than the material that the electric guitar is made from.

So what is important to the sound?

It’s important that we remember how a pick up works as we think about how to achieve the tone that we are after. As I said at the beginning, an electric guitar pick up really only picks up the vibration of the strings on a guitar. Try stringing an electric guitar with nylon strings and see how much body vibration comes through the pickups if you are sceptical of this. Different types of pickups really do have a major effect on the guitar tone (single coil, humbucker, lipstick). Within the constraints of each pickup type, to induce any significant change in  the tone of the guitar, one of the main factors is manipulating how the strings vibrate. 

This is much more complicated than it sounds. There are a huge number of variables. Some people swear by the maxim that if it sounds good unplugged then it will sound great plugged in. There are all sorts of problems with this statement, and I’d personally recommend a much less subjective approach.

One of the key ingredients in a multi stringed instrument is that the strings interact with each other to produce sympathetic overtones and harmonics. Wolf tones and nasty overtones are a related problem, likely to be increased the more resonant the body of the instruments is.  Managing this is one of the fine arts of instrument manufacture.  

I suspect one of the big differences in overtones comes from whether a guitar body resonates very strongly and passes some of that resonance back to the guitar strings, or whether the strings simply carry their own resonance. This is a complex set of interactions. I play a number of archtop guitars, they definitely sound different to a solid body guitar. Not a major difference but noticeable. Less sustain, as the resonance of the body absorbs some of the sustain, but a fuller bodied note with less high end. One of the sought after sounds with the traditional jazz tone is to roll off much of the top end to give a very mellow tone from the neck pickup. 

The problem with a hollow guitar is that it only really works efficiently at relatively low volumes. Once you get into a busy band environment the body of the guitar starts to interact with the strings in a most displeasing and alarming way. That beautiful tone you coaxed from the guitar and amp at low volume, becomes a feedback nightmare at higher volume in a new uncontrolled acoustic environment.  As the guitar body is vibrated by the guitar amp, pa, bass and drums, the strings start to create a negative feedback loop. This can be very frustrating and of course ruins the final live tone of the guitar.

Part of Les Paul’s research into solid bodied guitars demonstrated that a block of wood, a plank in effect, gave a high rejection of feedback and left a canvas that was far blanker for the guitarists to produce the tone they wanted at increased volume.  A plank of any material really doesn’t give very much back to the strings in terms of vibration. However this can be seen as an advantage in some ways, as the lack of vibration being absorbed by the body gives a sharper top end and much greater sustain.  It’s much easier to subtract these things if they are not needed than to add them in if they are not there.

In my experience far more important to the way strings behave in relation to the the pickup resides in much more easily adjustable factors that don’t always require huge investment.

The type, gauge and age of strings used will make a significant impact on the sound of a guitar. Using flat wound strings makes the guitar sound much mellower and reduces the whistle and squeak as you move up and down the neck, they also last for ages. For twanginess and top end a good set of round wound strings will make a huge difference. Heavier strings will give you more dynamic range controlled through your fingers, but of course until you develop strength, may lead to some choked notes and sore fingers.

The action of the guitar and the height of the pickups are both really important components of the final tone of the guitar. A friend of mine was complaining that his 335 didn’t have the clearer tone of my Ibanez. I looked at his guitar and the neck pick up was almost flush to the body of the guitar. I suggested that he raise the pick up to see if that helped.  Where the pickup sits in relation to the strings has a major impact on the sound.

For most of us when we start playing the guitar, low action is one of the things that we obsess over. Of course it makes the guitar much easier to play and quick lines much easier to execute.  People seem to like a guitar that plays ‘like butter’.  However I suspect that low action is one of the key factors in poor sound within a guitar. Django Reinhardt played with incredibly high action. On a Manouche guitar the volume and clarity of the sound is achieved by keeping the action high so the notes really ring out, with no need for amplification. On an electric guitar something of the same principle holds. The note will sound much clearer if it is not being choked by the string vibrating against neighbouring frets when it is played. A slightly higher action really does increase the dynamic range even of an electric guitar. Once you get used to it it is not nearly the obstacle to fast clean playing that many guitarists fear.

Don’t forget the intonation as well. The beauty of an electric guitar is that this is easily adjustable, unlike most acoustic guitars, and although the physics of a fretted instrument means any intonation is a compromise, you can normally achieve a very happy compromise with the right tools and a good tuner.

Fret work is really critical to sound as well. These days the best fretwork doesn’t necessarily come with the most expensive guitar. It’s a very labour intensive thing to get right, and labour is hugely expensive in some parts of the world that claim to make the best guitars. I have a cheap Harley Benton with lovely well dressed frets with rounded edges and a rolled fretboard, far superior to a guitar from a well known brand guitar I own that is worth many times more.  

Tuners and tremelos can sap tone very quickly. Those lovely rich overtones can quickly be destroyed if your guitar regularly slips out of tune during the set that you’re playing. Many players block off the trem on their Strat for this reason.

It may sound obvious but the playability of a guitar also makes a huge difference. If you are able to hold the guitar in the right way and it feels comfortable to play that really does have a huge significance on how it sounds. I personally find the kind of ‘wrap around’ feeling of an angled, ‘set neck’ guitar very comfortable and ergonomic. 

Amplification

While you can plug an electric guitar into any amplifier and boost the sound, as the electric guitar has developed, probably the most critical part of the sound guitarists have learned to love comes from how it is amplified.  Traditionally large, low wattage, over engineered, low fidelity drivers have been paired with simple valve/tube amps to produce a strong mid rangey sound that accentuates the more mellow attributes of the simple low fidelity, low output pickup coils in the guitar. The valve amp saturates (like a photo that is subtlety oversaturated to make the colours more pleasing) the sound near to the point of distortion for very rewarding clean sounds, and then breaks up into wonderful harmonic distortion when overdriven.  Solid state amplifiers designed for guitar on the other hand can give a beautifully clear and loud clean sound, that maybe just shows the hint of breakup as it meets the driver.

The interaction of pickup and amplifier and driver in conjunction with good playing and a well setup guitar is the Stradivarius moment of the electric guitar. Fortunately because the guitar is such a popular instrument, modelling has come almost all the way to recreating these sounds without having to crank up the volume and run the risk of an Anti Social Behaviour Order.  Modelling also means you don't have to be a weight lifter any more in order to play the electric guitar.

Where are you playing?

With all these quests after tone it is really important to remember that context and environment is as important as any other factors in the equation. What sounds great in your bedroom at home playing on your own, into GarageBand, or to a backing track, may well sound completely different when you are playing at volume against a band all trying to rob your carefully crafted sonic space. If you play solo finger style to an appreciative subdued audience, your home settings might have a chance to translate well. Even here the room, and the audience talking and moving about has a major effect on your final tone. Against a band, unless you have sound engineers and guitar techs running around in the background, you will probably appreciate in your signal chain a lot of parameters that can be adjusted quickly manually on the fly rather than buried deep in a software menu. Flexibility is critical to finding the right sound.

Where to spend the money?

It’s difficult isn’t it? There are so many exciting things that seem to promise to deliver that little bit extra. The temptation is to invest heavily in the guitar and some expensive pickups.  There is a rationale to this that goes beyond the simple pursuit of sound. Let’s not pretend that bragging rights and image don’t drive us as much as the end tone. Most of us want people’s jaws to hit the ground when we open the hard case.  Our initial estimation of someone’s musical ability does, however hard we try for it not to, often go with the gear they own.  And of course usually the more desirable a product the more it will increase in value.

However take a step back for a moment. The popularity of the guitar means that, with care, you can buy a truly excellent electric guitar for very little money. One that really will hold its own against any other electric guitar on the planet. You may not look super cool without the big brand name on the headstock but you can sound and play just as well or maybe better and you won’t have to obsess over keeping the guitar safe from harm.

A balance in costs between amp and guitar is almost certainly the most sensible option. No guitar is going to sound good if the amplification system isn’t up to the job.  If you want a wide range of tonal variations your best bet is a number of different guitars and amps. Sadly for most of us, once you start on that journey of acquisition it’s quite difficult to stop! 

Don't forget the fingers - they are the critical ingredient

The most important thing in the tone of an electric guitar is you!  Practice, understanding of harmony, scales and rhythm. Accurate fingering. Dynamics, touch. You will always sound like you, no matter what guitar you play, so put the majority of your time and energy into your technical skills to improve your tone. And don’t forget the technical skills are there, not to show off with how fast you can shred, but to help you to express your soul and communicate with other people, and to integrate with other members of the band. Very often in music less is more, the spaces are just as important as the notes themselves, the slow passages move us more than the blisteringly fast ones.  The best music in my opinion is the music we make with other people, allowing all the different musical voices space to bloom. 

Archtop "Jazz" Guitars - what's so special?

I have always been fascinated by this classy but rather enigmatic branch of guitar design.  They are often used by jazz guitarists but are extremely versatile instruments for any style of playing.  Arguably, more by accident than design, archtops became one of the main forerunners of the electric guitar in all its current diversity, but archtop guitars are also very fine instruments in their own right.

History

The archtop guitar has roots in classical string instruments such as the ‘cello and violin. These fine bowed instruments gradually evolved to their current shape after hundreds of years of experimentation and improvement. It was discovered that a domed carved top and back, together with a floating bridge and f holes each side of the bridge gave superior tone and sound projection.  Tone woods that were readily available in Europe meant spruce was generally used for the top and figured sycamore for the sides.  It’s important to remember that these instruments were all mainly bowed, not plucked, so the design emphasis was on note fundamentals, sound projection and tone, the sustain came from the bow.  Strings vibrate in a very different way when they are bowed than when they are plucked.  Listening to a violin played pizzicato shows some of the limitations of this design of instrument for plucking, with very little sustain or time for the note to bloom, the sound is quite percussive.  For more detailed information on all of this some academic research can be found here https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspa.2014.0905 

The development of the guitar meanwhile took a different route.  Strings were gut strings under less tension than steel strings.  The acoustic development of the guitar came out of the need to increase sustain and tone on an instrument that would mainly be plucked and strummed.  Influence came from centuries of Middle Eastern and North African development of plucked instruments along with the lessons of years of lute making in the European tradition.  A flat and braced  board of spruce was usually used rather than an arched top, and frets were used to help the fingering of multiple strings for chordal work and for sustain. If the top was bowed it tended to be a single angled bend to give the bridge some extra height. The bracing was discovered to add greatly to the overall tone and different systems were developed to enhance the tonal range.  The sound was pleasing and rich, but it was relatively difficult to achieve the volume that an instrument from the violin family or woodwind family could manage.  This rather restricted the use of the guitar as an ensemble instrument.  Instruments that had a greater projection such as mandolins and banjos were favoured in accompanying larger groups.

Development of the archtop guitar

The introduction of steel and bronze/steel strings to the guitar gave the possibility of greater sound projection, but also the headache of how to build an instrument which could cope with the greater pressures on the top induced by these strings. One solution was to strengthen the top of the traditional form of guitar, and to develop new bracing and voicing to handle the heavier string pressure. Another solution was to explore the link that the mandolin has always had with the violin family of instruments and see if the traditional archtop style of instrument  building would work for the guitar.  

The archtop guitar gradually evolved out of this experimentation.

Advantages and disadvantages of playing an archtop guitar

The advantage of the emerging archtop design of guitar was a much greater sound projection.   A flat top guitar often seems to compress the sound, meaning that after a certain level, the energy put into playing a doesn’t seem to increase the sound levels.  An archtop guitar appears to respond in a more linear way to harder playing, more in = more out.  However this comes at the cost of tone and sustain.  

An archtop guitar can sound quite “boxy” with an emphasis on mid range tones.  These can be perceived as less pleasing in direct comparison with a flat top guitar (though these are generalisations as each individual guitar has a unique tone of its own).  While this can be less desirable when you are playing alone at home or solo, in an ensemble situation it has certain advantages as it seems to “cut through“ the mix more effectively, and projects far better for solo lines.  An archtop does seem to have a very pleasing natural “reverb”, and this works well for solo lines when played acoustically.  It was discovered that to a certain degree the bigger the body of the archtop guitar the more projection and the better the tone, which lead to some absolutely huge guitars being made.  This of course made them rather hard to play.  It is argued that the f hole design projects sound outward more effectively than the traditional o hole of an acoustic guitar so the audience hear a very different tone to the player.  That’s why when you are buying one it is good to take someone else along to play so you can listen from a distance.  

There were other attempts to develop loud acoustic guitars.  Notably the Maccaferri guitars in France/Italy, which used a sound box inside the guitar (not generally a great success), although the clever construction of these guitars gave a very loud instrument even without the extra sound box inside.  These instruments used more traditional guitar building techniques to produce a similar projection to an archtop, utilising high action, long scale lengths and slightly bent tops.  Again these guitars respond well to energetic playing and focus around the mid ranges of tones.

Another route of design was that of the resonator guitar which is seriously loud, but has a distinctive tone all of its own.

We should also say something about the bracing of arch top guitars here. An advantage of a domed carved instrument is that it is structurally quite strong, so needs minimal bracing compared to a flat top instrument.  Bracing in acoustic instruments serves two purposes.  One is to provide extra strength and rigidity but the other is to allow sound waves to pass more effectively across the soundboard.   Arch top guitars usually come either with parallel or x bracing.  Each of of these has rather different tonal properties.  The x brace in general gives a richer tonal palette, where the parallel bracing seems to produce a more focused tone.  Sometimes a luthier will add a sound post which connects the front and back plate of the guitar as in a violin, this also serves both tonal and structural functions.  

One further thing to mention is that the back plate of an arch top guitar is much more essential to the overall tone than is the case on a flat top guitar.  You can experiment with this.  A few years ago some academics at my local University did some research together with with Fylde guitars into the difference the tone wood of the side and back of a traditional guitar make to the sound.  It appears from that careful research, that they make very little difference at all, with the huge environmental benefit of saving rare hardwood species.  This research was done by Lancaster University in liaison with the amazing Fylde guitars, link here http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/hearing/the-guitar-experiment/   

However with an archtop it's slightly different - if you hold the guitar against your body while you play you will notice the sound is muted. Strum a chord and feel the back plate of the guitar and you will notice it vibrates.  I believe part of the sound and projection of the archtop guitar comes from the sympathetic vibrations of the front and back plates and the “bellows” effect produces literally pushing the sound waves out of the f holes.  Of course this means you lose a lot if you play an acoustic arch top standing up, and when sitting down it is best to adopt something like the Freddie Green style of playing for maximum effect, where the guitar is angled away from the body of the player so the back can vibrate freely.  I guess the instruments of the violin family are all designed to vibrate in this way too and are designed to be played away from restriction or damping on any of the boards.  It would be really interesting to see some careful scientific research into this, let me know if you are aware of any.

The electric guitar - amplifying an archtop guitar

The world changed when the electric guitar was born and a massive revolution in popular music was started, along with huge increases in available volume levels.  Archtops were a key part of this.  Arguably the ingenious and technically simple magnetic pickup system that was developed in effect created a whole new instrument related to the acoustic guitar.  New techniques of playing and totally new sounds were quickly adopted.  Sadly a lot of lovely old beautifully crafted instruments were butchered as tops were riddled with holes to fit large magnetic pickups and wiring looms.  Electrification certainly offered the opportunity to turn the guitar into an effective solo instrument that could hold its own in volume against anything in an ensemble.  The tones many of those early players achieved with electric instruments were hauntingly beautiful and many of us try to replicate that sound to this day.

Sadly the innovation was eventually lead to the demise of the very instrument in which it had been developed.  There is an inherent and deep seated conflict in pairing a large highly resonant and expensive acoustic box, higher volume levels and a magnetic pickup.  

Although superior in feedback rejection compared with using a standard microphone, a big acoustic box is still a great way to generate feedback when paired with a magnetic pickup, making playing at any volume a real challenge and source of annoyance to other band members and the sound engineer.  The sound box of an acoustic guitar is susceptible both to the unwanted vibration from the sound waves of other instruments and speakers, but also to the infinite loop of certain feedback frequencies. Dialling these things out ruins the tone.  The guitarist and their monitor all have to be carefully positioned to minimise this, but it is still very hit and miss especially in live performances, where ideal positioning may not be achievable.  

Another issue is that a magnetic pickup requires steel or nickel wound strings to work at its best.  The problem with these is that they are simply not in the same league acoustically as bronze strings and do not drive the arched top of the guitar in the same way.  It is of questionable value to spend thousands having a luthier carve and tap tune a guitar to then string it up with acoustically dead strings, reproducing the sound through what is in reality a very lo-fi pickup solution.  I know there is a whole industry based around hand winding bespoke magnetic pickups but this at best only changes the voicing.  Magnetic pickups really pick up little more than the vibration of the strings, not the individual sound DNA imprint of a sophisticated acoustic instrument.

There’s a significant crowd out there who work within these constraints, trying to achieve a “holy grail” of sounds, rooted in the history of the instrument, good luck to them.  Many who do this I notice have back up instruments for tricky situations.  After all that’s why the solid body guitar was developed.

The immediate solution to keep the archtop alive in an era of amplification was to develop an instrument that was much less lively acoustically, and voiced specifically for amplification, yet still true to its hollow body archtop roots.  Importantly these instruments retained “the” look which only an archtop possesses.  Some of these were specially carved to create less feedback so the top was more dead acoustically.  More often pressed laminates were employed with less tendency to vibrate.  For the manufacturers this also has the benefit of reducing production costs (though not necessarily cost to the consumer).  These laminated instruments are still considerably more prone to feedback than a solid body guitar, and can still pose significant problems at higher volumes or with certain frequencies of sound.  The semi acoustic archtop was developed to counter this, normally coming with a slimmer body and a having the benefit of a solid block of wood under the pickups that vastly reduces the feedback problem.

It’s amazing with all the issues that hollow archtops with magnetic pickups are still so popular with guitarists.  I have to admit that I love them, despite all the issues.  I like the look, and although it’s highly debatable how much of the body sound of the guitar gets reproduced under amplification, they do appear to respond and play differently to a solid bodied guitar.

In more recent years huge developments have been made in acoustic guitar amplification. The development of the piezo under saddle transducer provides a reliable, relatively feedback free way of producing a sound more like an acoustic guitar.  However the piezo has significant drawbacks.  My experience has been very mixed.  While it has been great to have a way of playing acoustic guitar along with a band without having to stand by a mic, the piezo doesn’t really reproduce the actual sound of the guitar any more successfully than a magnetic pickup, it just sounds different.  An archtop with an under saddle pickup sounds suspiciously similar to a flat top guitar fitted with with one.  We have got used to the rather harsh quacky piezo sound in live performance and guitarists have developed new techniques and effects to work with the new possibilities, such as the trend for percussive and tapping styles of playing and the use of effects and looping that piezo pickups have opened up.  Many people speak of quickly tiring of the harsh sound a piezo produces.  I was recently helping organise a gig where two of the musicians insisted on playing and singing through a single Ear Trumpet condenser mic for their performance. It was incredible to hear the ‘real’ sound of the instruments, in direct comparison to other acts using pickups and close miced vocals. Of course the piezo pickup and close vocal micing was far louder and more punchy, but much more tiring to listen to.

To get the best sound acoustically a microphone is still the most effective solution.  In a studio setting with no competition from other instruments you can experiment with placing mics in different places to really get that unique sound of the guitar you have carefully chosen for it’s lovely sound.  But what about mixing in a live situation, where you have to stand or sit still by a stand mic?

The option that is just beginning to really take off is to use close micing with small cardioid condensor mics on acoustic instruments. This is not a perfect solution, but even a really cheap clip on mini condenser mic offers a far more faithful reproduction of the sound of an acoustic guitar than the most expensive piezo based system, even when that piezo system comes with an inbuilt mic.  More expensive clip on mics offer better feedback rejection and better quality sound reproduction. Modern digital mixers offer a huge range of eq, compression and feedback rejection which helps enormously with some of the inherent problems of mics like these.  The secret with an archtop guitar is to clip a gooseneck mic onto the handy tailpiece or to the strings behind the bridge (a great advantage over a flat top this!) and direct the mic towards the soundboard between the treble end of the bridge and the treble f hole.  You can mic really close and still achieve a sound far superior to a piezo based system.  There are issues around feedback and sound overspill from other instruments, so this is no silver bullet, but worth a try if tone is critical to you and volume levels not too high to make it workable.  For much more in depth discussion of this please see Jonathan Stout/Campusfive's excellent explanation - he has all this down to a fine art https://www.campusfive.com/swingguitarblog/2017/8/2/rig-rundown-2017

Because each system comes with its own drawbacks some people have success with combining close micing with magnetic or piezo pickups to cope with the unpredictability of different venues, and to help with the greater volume needed for soloing.

Future of the archtop guitar?

I guess archtop guitars are probably going to remain a bit of a niche market. There’s been a bit of a resurgence in recent years with some truly great and reasonably priced guitars coming out of the Far East.  Predictably these have received a mixed reception, as many of them come in at a quality and price point that threatens highly lucrative home markets.  The manufacture of instruments has benefited hugely from computer based automation which, when directed sensibly, can mean that a lot of time consuming tasks can be replicated with more accuracy than a human being and in far less time.  Most guitars whether made in a workshop or in a factory still are largely hand finished. There’s a lot of bargains to be had because of the differing costs of this intensive labour globally.  Don’t get put off by the country of origin snobbery expressed in some guitar forums.

Recently in the acoustic arch top market there’s been a resurgence of the solid top “pressed” archtop.  Instead of painstakingly carving a top out of a substantial piece of timber, a thinner solid wood plate is steam pressed into shape. While these instruments will never reach the dizzy heights of a carefully crafted and tap tuned carved archtop, they can often be a good value and more consistent alternative. They can sound extremely good and provide a really different tonal palette to the standard Martin style flat top for the impoverished working player.

There’s a lot of people doing very well cashing in on the mystique and the ready disposable income some people have for fine instruments. Good historical archtop guitars can be eye wateringly expensive and very high maintenance. This drives the cost of some newer models in its turn, with original historic brand names carrying huge price tags, even if the brand name is really the only remaining shred of continuity with the past, as a totally different company or holding is now building the guitars!

The archtop market as much as any guitar market is definitely prone to bragging rights and oneupmanship.  It is difficult to discern what is mojo and what is reality as you trawl the forums discussing such things.   Carved tops, hand wound pickups, the label, the luthier, and speciality woods and unnecessary bling carry a huge premium.  You definitely don’t necessarily get what you pay for in this market, in many cases, in effect, you pay what the manufacturer or retailer can get away with charging.

Having said that there are some truly wonderful small workshops and luthiers out there making some amazing instruments that rival the best of any ever produced.  I recommend playing as many different examples of archtops as you can so you get a feel for the sounds, playability and variety. However, please always remember that the primary sound is in your fingers not in the guitar, and that great guitarists, jazz and other styles, have successfully made beautiful music on all kinds of different types of guitar.  

Epiphone Century Masterbilt Zenith Review

I've had this guitar for well over a year now and used it in a number of different contexts and settings.  I really like it but reading other reviews and forums it seems like it has had a very mixed reception.

I suppose many people will struggle to know what this guitar is for.  Excuse an existential question at the beginning of this review, but it is an important one.  This guitar is bit of a niche product that doesn't really have any obvious direct competitors.  However it does have lots of indirect competitors that come close to doing the same thing, and I wonder if anyone really wants that 'thing' any more.

I love playing carved top archtops, there is a mellowness to the sound that is perhaps slightly lacking in the Zenith. Is this a premium carved archtop guitar to rival a 1920s Gibson L5?  No, nor would I expect it to be at this price point, but read some of the disappointed internet forum reviews and you'd be forgiven for thinking that that is what it should be judged against.

Maybe I got lucky but I'd say this guitar gets a lot of the way towards that sound and for a fraction of the price.  It has opened up a lot as it has been played in too. I've travelled quite a lot of miles to try a number of sub £1,000 Chinese built carved top guitars, which many people have raved about in reviews. I've tried to like them, but each time I've been bitterly disappointed by poor finish, necks on new guitars that feel like they need a reset out of the box, atrocious fretwork and less than responsive acoustics.  Maybe I've just been unlucky, but build quality is important and things like the break angle of the strings over the bridge, and fretwork make a huge difference to tone and playability of an acoustic archtop.  Peerless and Eastman guitars I really like, but they are considerably more expensive and often geared more towards straight jazz applications being fitted with floating electric pickups, rather than acoustic pickups.

So where does the Zenith fit in?  I guess the difficulty of answering this questions might be part of the reason that the Century series seems to be struggling to gain traction in the marketplace or at least that's my perception. Happily for me this means I picked up mine way way under list price.  The Zenith sounds like an archtop, I like that sound, acoustically it punches through a mix of other instruments in a way a flat top guitar doesn't and gets lost quite easily. The Zenith seems to respond directly to the amount of energy you put into playing it, allowing a greater dynamic range than a flat top which always seems to have a natural compression once you hit the strings with rather more gusto.  Lead lines seem to project with this guitar in a way they just don't with a flat top.  It has that lovely natural reverb which comes with an archtop guitar.  But having said that a flat top is a much more pleasing rounded tone and overtones when played on its own. There is a richness to the tone which is severely lacking in the Zenith, which has in its place a bark and bite and a more strident mid range. This is not unpleasant but just very different and needs a slightly different technique to exploit and tame.

I love the way the flame maple glows through the deep red finish in certain lights

One of the main technique differences is in how you hold this particular kind of guitar.  An archtop is unusual in that, when it is working well, the back plate and the top work together to make the sound.  When you hold the guitar you need to keep the back plate away from any obstruction.  This not only vastly increases the bass response, but is also creates a 'bellows' effect literally pushing the sound out of the f-holes in the front.  This guitar is severely handicapped if you play it standing up for this reason, s the bass and overall volume drop off significantly.  A flat top guitar's back plate is far less critical in this respect.  With the old school players like Freddie Green you'll observe that archtops are played angled away from your body to allow the backplate full movement. If you develop this technique you'll get far more out of this guitar.  Interestingly with the relatively cheap Chinese carved top and back guitars I mentioned before the carving is quite thick and this is less of an issue.

Another technique difference is that this guitar, like a Macaferri, is no shrinking violet.  Limp wristed playing won't bring out the best in this guitar, you need to get the soundboard moving to get the tone and projection.  I suspect a lot of people pick these up off the shop wall and try to play them like a flat top and are deeply unimpressed by the tone.  However it is best to play this guitar with other instruments to appreciate the way it sits in the mix when my flat top for example would be totally lost with its wider tonal range. In this context the particular tone of the Zenith really begins to make sense. 

I do like acoustic tone of this guitar a lot.  In some ways more than the Deluxe which is a fuller rounder sound.  This one really does cut through a mix of instruments with its more midrange focus.

How does it amplify?  Now here's a thing.  A lot of jazzers for reasons best known to themselves seem to like to buy very expensive carved guitars and then amplify them using lo-fi 1930s magnetic pickup technology (I may just be guilty of this myself!) The worst culprits make big holes in carefuly carved guitars to accommodate these. Others 'float' them on top so as not to spoil the acoustic properties of the guitar which they have paid thousands for, and admittedly some wonderful sounds can be had mixing a magnetic pickup in with them miced sound of a fine instrument. However to make the old pickup technology work many people put much less acoustically pleasing nickel strings on lovely tap tuned acoustic guitars or worse still flatwounds, which just make a beautifully crafted instrument sound rather dead and lifeless. Please don't get me wrong.  I love electric guitars and have lots of them. The electric jazz guitar sound is one of my favourites, but I mainly keep those sounds and pickups for much more feedback free laminate archtops in my collection, which are more robust and cope better with feedback.

Epiphone took a braver and more helpful route and put into these guitars an acoustic pickup.  At this price point it would be wrong to expect this pickup to be the absolute cutting edge of acoustic technology, but it is not at all bad.  However it has really divided the crowd. My main gripe would be that it doesn't do full justice to the 'real' sound of the guitar, instead it sounds much more like any other amplified acoustic guitar.  Not at all unpleasant, but losing some of the bark and bite of the unamplified sound. I would say that about my flat top guitars too, that an under saddle pickup doesn’t get to the heart and soul of the real sound of the guitar.  To get the best results you really have to mix the pickup together with a microphone, in my opinion, or just mic direct, depending on the circumstances.  However it is extremely convenient to be able to plug in and play, when there is no other alternative, and above all to be able to use bronze strings to really get that lively thin top plate moving.

This guitar is not ever going to directly compete with the big money carved archtops which are rightly prized, find a builder who will craft a guitar for you and you are into a totally different league of sound.  However the Zenith is in my opinion a really good honest working guitar.  It sounds good, it looks amazing, you don't have to worry about it like something costing thousands.  Perhaps the most pleasing thing is the fit and finish.  Other brands might offer carved specs for just a bit more money but it breaks my heart to see beautiful materials being wasted with poorly executed workmanship.  The Indonesian factory where the Zenith is made have done a lovely job on finish, fretwork and appearance.  The lacquer is nice and thin, the frets are smooth and level, and I haven't had to adjust the set up at all on mine since buying it.  The inlay work is well done and all the peripherals are solidly attached, no shifting strap pins.  The tuners are great with a huge nod to the 1930s, but on a guitar that stays in tune, is well intonated and doesn't need a neck reset or handling with kid gloves.

I've used this instrument in a huge variety of contexts and been very pleased with it, from ceilidh music, to trad jazz, to pop stuff, once you get the hang of playing it you realise just how versatile it is, and it doesn't get lost in the same way a flat top often does in a more complex mix.

The good news is that because the market doesn't quite know what to make of these beauties you can, like me, pick up one of these at very reasonable prices as retailers try to shift them.  I think they will be one of those guitars people will only really begin to appreciate a bit further down the line, maybe when they are out of production, and when some of their nearest competitors are lying unplayable and unplayed in a corner, while the tops of these well made guitars have just begun to open up and mellow into maturity...

Review of Eko Evo Gipsy Guitar - natural

This was a find that I had been wanting to make for a long time.  I play some Manouche/Gypsy Jazz with a friend who is a violinist and I'd been wanting to try out a 'proper' Macaferri style guitar.  This one came up locally at a price I couldn't resist and I went to try it out and (of course) came home with it!.

My first ever acoustic guitar was an Eko Ranger, so I have a soft spot for the brand, and I am really pleased to see they are back up and running and making some really good guitars these days, this being one of them.

First off this guitar is LOUD!  I am a bit of a sucker for niche acoustic guitars and have an acoustic archtop and a resonator This sits somewhere between them in terms of volume and projection.  It seems the more energy you put in the more sound you get out.  It doesn't quite match the resonator, but it comes close and of course the tone is very different.

I don't think Eko market this guitar very well.  Part of the reason for writing this review is to clarify some things I think they'd do well to mention to sell this guitar.

The most glaring error is that these are being marketed with a 648mm scale.  Unless mine is a one off I think they have this wrong.  Mine is a long scale 670mm or 26.3 inches.  This combined with an oval version of the 'grande bouche' gives a volume, projection and snap that is a prized part of the 'petite bouche' Selmers.

The guitar is very light in construction, weighing in at 1.78kg or about 4 pounds.  This also helps with the very lively and resonant feel.  The guitar finish is very thin, and the mahogany is open pore rather than filled, and both these factors help with the overall resonance.

The other thing that gives the unique manouche sound to this guitar is the fact that the top of the guitar is ladder braced, not x braced like most flat top guitars.  This allows the guitar sound board to resonate more freely as there is far less bracing than on a standard flat top. To give the top and back more strength both are very, very slightly arched.  This allows the bridge to sit slightly higher than a conventional bridge and the neck is angled to accommodate this, like on an archtop guitar.

The rosette is a really nice touch, not painted on, but a properly crafted inlay made up of concentric ovals of different woods.

Then there is the heritage.  It is arguable that the manouche guitar comes directly from an Italian tradition of luthiery, and I love the fact that this guitar is conceived and designed by an Italian company, even if it is made in the PRC.

The sound of this guitar, apart from being very loud, is gorgeous.  Eko have done an excellent job of putting together a unique guitar that gets to the very heart of that manouche sound.   The beautiful solid spruce top, laminate sides, thin finish, ladder bracing, arched top and long scale make this sound just like the sound I have in my head of a gypsy guitar.  It has a very special place in guitar history as makers tried to increase the sound projection before the advent of electric guitars.  Although I love the electric guitar, my heart is with these old designs and I am rather sad that most people only ever get to play on a Martin inspired flat top (nothing wrong with that design, I love it, but it is a particular sound).  What you get with this guitar is an ability to cut through other acoustic instruments, either with chords or with a lead line.  It doesn't compress the sound like a flat top guitar but translates all that energy you put into plucking into volume.  It is not subtle when you do this, but it sounds fantastic, if you play more gently there is a lovely tone there as well. Of course you need to string this with Argentine strings to get the proper sound.


The rest of the guitar as a package is very nicely executed.  No faults I can find.  The wood binding is done well, the veneers and top well book matched.  The nut is bone with a zero fret, and the tailpiece is pressed brass like a Maccaferri. The neck is a slim flat D in shape.  The action is highish as it needs to be to obtain the projection.  I like the simple Evo inlay on the 12 fret.  The tuners work well, and the headstock veneer is a very nice thick slice of rosewood.


Although this is a bit of a specialist guitar, if you can find one give it a go - lots of craftsmanship for your money.