I bought an ARCHTOP !!!! Not blue either.. (clip and pic)

[abergdahl]

So today i picked up my archtop, i found it hanging in a guitar store a week ago, and just prior to that I tried a Eastman Pagelli. The Pagelli SOUNDED real nice and had a very cool design, but it was dinged and lacquer was chipping. BUT i really enjoyed playing an archtop!! Made me play very differently, no distortion and 10 minutes of sustain to save me.. :worried
So then I spotted this guitar:
http://www.jam.se/images/items/cache/regular_rasmussenarchtop.jpg
It's made by a young Swedish luthier named Lars Tholstrup Rasmussen, I think he mainly builds flattop acoustic and he told me this was hes only archtop, so far. I made him set the guitar up with 012 round wound strings instead of flatwounds and the guitar sounds REALLY great. And different enough from a flat top or electric to inspire some different plying and trying to get some SWING into the playing. I like the guitar a lot so far, it's very well crafted, strong tone and loud enough to be a good acoustic. I plugged it inte my Mystic Blues amp, "Jessie May" (ODS style, clean channel LOW volume) and got a great very special tone, exactly what i hoped for. Of course I did a quick clip:
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9046655
It's one live take BUT there is an EDP in the effects loop and i resample with a KP3, so there is a bit of looping, but no editing in the computer just delay on the "lead" guitar and some overall reverb..
More pictures and clips will come :phones:wave

BTW it was cheap, around 1900€ or the same price as a new Fender American Vintage '57 Stratocaster in Ocean Turquoise that was in the same store.. A LOT of guitar for the money!! In $ it would be ca $2600 but bear in mind that we have 25% sales tax so in reality it would translate to $2000 for a handbuilt archtop with very nice european spruce and maple...

[marsos52]

i like the design judging by the picture and tone wise ,,,its wonderful
im sure your will have many hours of archtop bliss ,,,

thats a great find

[GuitarsFromMars]

Very nice!

Congratulations!

[TDJMB]

It's a beauty and sounds great. But I'm trying to understand the archtop vs. the flattop and I must be missing something. Why not just play a flattop, steel string, acoustic? Acoustically, archtops seem to me to be thumpy & lacking sustain - flattops seem less constricted. Although your clip did not sound constricted. Do archtops provide an acoustic sound but with the ease of playing an electric? Is it the amplified sound that attracts people to archtops?

[derekd]

It's a beauty and sounds great. But I'm trying to understand the archtop vs. the flattop and I must be missing something. Why not just play a flattop, steel string, acoustic? Acoustically, archtops seem to me to be thumpy & lacking sustain - flattops seem less constricted. Although your clip did not sound constricted. Do archtops provide an acoustic sound but with the ease of playing an electric? Is it the amplified sound that attracts people to archtops?

The tone of an archtop is more complex to my ears that a flat top. I own an old D-28, and having played plenty of higher end flat tops like Huss & Dalton, Collings, Goodall, McPherson, etc.

[rpguitar]

If you listen to (or play) an archtop with ears that are trying to hear a flattop, you may be disappointed. It is a very different animal, even though the music for which the two instruments are appropriate actually has a large area of intersection.

About 15 years ago I was in love with archtops, but could not figure out how to play them. They were always scratchy and barky in my hands. This distressed me, because it conflicted with the aesthetic that pleased me so much. Only within the last 5 years have I discovered how to elicit what they have to offer. Now I'm really hooked. I had a blonde '54 L-7 back then that I wish was still in my possession. However, I've moved on as well.

When played electrically, archtops become much easier to control. The pickup/amp components do cancel out some of the idiosyncrasies of the instrument. But I find that playing archtops acoustically is very satisfying, and offers a fundamental tone quality that is unlike any flattop.

[The Eristic]

Fantastic! Does the builder have a site?

[dlguitar64]

It's a beauty and sounds great. But I'm trying to understand the archtop vs. the flattop and I must be missing something. Why not just play a flattop, steel string, acoustic? Acoustically, archtops seem to me to be thumpy & lacking sustain - flattops seem less constricted. Although your clip did not sound constricted. Do archtops provide an acoustic sound but with the ease of playing an electric? Is it the amplified sound that attracts people to archtops?


its a Jazz thing-you wouldn't understand.

[abergdahl]

It's a beauty and sounds great. But I'm trying to understand the archtop vs. the flattop and I must be missing something. Why not just play a flattop, steel string, acoustic? Acoustically, archtops seem to me to be thumpy & lacking sustain - flattops seem less constricted. Although your clip did not sound constricted. Do archtops provide an acoustic sound but with the ease of playing an electric? Is it the amplified sound that attracts people to archtops?

Well I didn't really under stand it either until i actually played and archtop.. A flattop makes me want to play bluegrass or folk style stuff, they usually sound rather bright, a good flattop can sound very refined (I recently played a rather ol Martin OM40 that sounded amazing) but different than a archtop. The archtop has a fatter sound, less brightness ans less sustain at least i the bass. It has MUCH more mids and it that regard sound closer to an electric(or a flattop reminds me of a tele a archtopof a 335) + the plugged in sound still retains much acoustic quality with a simple magnetic pickup and sounds great when played with a tube amp. SO they are very different beasts. With flattops you want the amplified tone to sound like it does un miked and archtop is MEANT to sound a bit different miked so you it's less of a pain the amplify it..

THANKS for the comments, mora pictures will come..

[xroads]

Well I didn't really under stand it either until i actually played and archtop.. A flattop makes me want to play bluegrass or folk style stuff, they usually sound rather bright, a good flattop can sound very refined (I recently played a rather ol Martin OM40 that sounded amazing) but different than a archtop. The archtop has a fatter sound, less brightness ans less sustain at least i the bass. It has MUCH more mids and it that regard sound closer to an electric(or a flattop reminds me of a tele a archtopof a 335) + the plugged in sound still retains much acoustic quality with a simple magnetic pickup and sounds great when played with a tube amp. SO they are very different beasts. With flattops you want the amplified tone to sound like it does un miked and archtop is MEANT to sound a bit different miked so you it's less of a pain the amplify it..

THANKS for the comments, mora pictures will come..

I get the best amplified sounds out of an archtop when rolling back the volume a bit to tame the highs, and playing through a good tube amp in clean mode. In that setup, it can be extremely touch sensitive (from quiet, almost muted chording to loud soloing).

[TDJMB]

Aha - complexity, fatness, mids. I guess I'll have to suffer through playing some archtops ...