An archtop guitar is a hollow
electric
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described b ...
or
semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
,
blues, and
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
players.
Typically, an archtop guitar has:
* Six strings
* An arched top and back, not a flat top and back
* A hollow body
* Moveable adjustable
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
*
F-hole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board.
Sound holes have different shapes:
* round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins;
* F-holes in instruments from the vi ...
s similar to members of the violin family
* Rear mounted
tailpiece
A tailpiece is a component on many stringed musical instruments that anchors one end of the strings, usually opposite the end with the tuning mechanism (the scroll, headstock, peghead, etc.).
Function and construction
The tailpiece anchors ...
,
stoptail bridge, or
Bigsby vibrato tailpiece
* 14th-fret neck join
History
The archtop guitar is often credited to
Orville Gibson
Orville H. Gibson (May 1856 – August 19, 1918) was a luthier who founded the Gibson Guitar Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1902, makers of guitars, mandolins and other instruments.
His earliest known instrument was a 10-string mandolin-guita ...
, whose innovative designs led to the formation of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd in 1902. His 1898 patent for a
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
, which was also applicable to guitars according to the specifications, was intended to enhance "power and quality of tone." Among the features of this instrument were a violin-style arched top and back, each carved from a single piece of wood, and thicker in the middle than at the sides; sides carved to shape from a single block of wood; and a lack of internal "braces, splices, blocks, or bridges . . . which, if employed, would rob the instrument of much of its volume of tone."
But Gibson was not the first to apply violin design principles to the guitar. Guitar maker A. H. Merrill, for example, patented in 1896 a very modern looking instrument "of the guitar and mandolin type . . . with egg-shaped hoop or sides and a graduated convex back and top." The instrument featured a metal tailpiece and teardrop shaped "f-holes," and strongly resembled the archtop guitars of the 1930s. James S. Back obtained patent #508,858 in 1893 for a guitar (which also mentions applicability to mandolins) that among other features included an arched top, which were produced under the Howe Orme name. Another transitional design is the
parlor guitar
Parlor or parlour guitar usually refers to a type of acoustic guitar smaller than a Size No.0 Concert Guitar by C. F. Martin & Company. ''Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms'' describes the term as referring to "any guitar that is ...
fitted with a floating bridge and tailpiece. These inexpensive instruments, manufactured by companies such as
Stella
Stella or STELLA may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media Comedy
*Stella (comedy group), a comedy troupe consisting of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain
Characters
*Stella (given name), including a list of characters with th ...
and
Harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howev ...
, are associated with early
blues musicians. The earliest Gibson designs (L1 to L3) introduced the arched top and increasing body sizes, but still had round or oval sound holes.
In 1922,
Lloyd Loar
Lloyd Allayre Loar (1886–1943) was an American musician, instrument designer and sound engineer. He is best known for his design work with the Gibson Guitar Corporation, Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. in the early 20th century, including t ...
was hired by the Gibson Company to redesign their instrument line in an effort to counter flagging sales, and in that same year the
Gibson L5 was released to his design. Although the new instrument models flopped commercially and Loar left Gibson after only a couple of years, Gibson instruments signed by Loar now are among the most prized and celebrated in stringed-instrument history. Perhaps the most revered instrument from this period is the F5 mandolin, but probably the more broadly influential was the L5 guitar, which remains in production to this day. The mature Gibson archtop guitar and its imitators are regarded as the quintessential "
jazzbox."
Archtop guitars were subsequently made by many top American luthiers, notably
John D'Angelico
John D'Angelico (1905 in Little Italy, Manhattan – September 1, 1964 in Manhattan) was a luthier from New York City, noted for his handmade archtop guitars and mandolins. He founded the D'Angelico Guitars company, where other notable luthiers l ...
of New York and
Jimmy D'Aquisto,
William Wilkanowski,
Charles Stromberg and Son
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...
in Boston, and by other major manufacturers, notably
Gretsch
Gretsch is an American company that manufactures musical instruments. The company was founded in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York by Friedrich Gretsch, a 27-year-old German immigrant, shortly after his arrival to the United States. Friedrich Gretsc ...
and
Epiphone
Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his f ...
. In Europe, companies such as
Framus,
Höfner, and
Hagström took up the manufacture of archtops. Archtop guitars were particularly adopted by both
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
and
country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whil ...
musicians, and in
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...
s and
swing band
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands u ...
s.
Gibson's
ES-150
The Gibson Guitar Corporation's ES-150 guitar is generally recognized as the world's first commercially successful Spanish-style electric guitar. The ES stands for Electric Spanish, and Gibson designated it "150" because they priced it (in an in ...
guitar is generally recognized as the world's first commercially successful Spanish-style electric guitar. The
ES stands for Electric Spanish, and it was designated ''150'' because it cost $150, along with an EH-150
amplifier
An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost th ...
and a cable. After its introduction in 1936, it immediately became popular in
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
orchestras of the period. Unlike the usual acoustic guitars utilized in jazz, it was loud enough to take a more prominent position in ensembles. Jazz guitarist
Eddie Durham
Edward Durham (August 19, 1906 – March 6, 1987) was an American jazz guitarist, trombonist, composer, and arranger. He was one of the pioneers of the electric guitar in jazz. The orchestras of Bennie Moten, Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie ...
is usually credited with making the first electric guitar solo, but it was ES-150 player
Charlie Christian who popularized the jazz guitar as a solo, not just a rhythm, instrument. The ES-150's top was not carved on the underside, making it unsuitable for acoustic use.
In 1951, Gibson released the L5CES, an L5 with a single
cutaway body and two electric pickups, equally playable as either an
acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
or an
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
. This innovation was immediately popular, and while purely acoustic archtop guitars such as the
Gibson L-7C The Gibson L-7C is an archtop acoustic guitar and one of the few archtop guitars still in production from major makers without an electric pickup.
Gibson
Gibson may refer to:
People
* Gibson (surname)
Businesses
* Gibson Brands, Inc., an Ame ...
remain available to this day, they have become the exception. In 1958, the L5CES was redesigned with humbucking pickups; most, but certainly not all, subsequent archtop guitars conform loosely to the pattern set by this model. The electric archtop was particularly popular with jazz musicians
Tal Farlow,
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel (October 17, 1923 – May 6, 2004) was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Known in particular for his knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies, he was a member of many prominent jazz groups a ...
and
Johnny Smith.
Other manufacturers introduced electric archtop guitars, notable examples including the
Gretsch White Falcon and various
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music ...
models. Some of these instruments have a distinctive "twangy" sound and were taken up by
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...
and early
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...
artists such as
Duane Eddy and
Eddie Cochran
Ray Edward Cochran (; October 3, 1938 – April 17, 1960) was an American rock and roll musician. Cochran's songs, such as " Twenty Flight Rock", " Summertime Blues", "C'mon Everybody" and " Somethin' Else", captured teenage frustration and desir ...
. Similar models remain popular in
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
.
Gibson's last innovation in archtop design was the creation, in 1955, of "thinline" models with a reduced body depth. Notable thinline models include the successful
Gibson ES-335
The Gibson ES-335 is the world's first commercial semi-hollowbody electric guitar, sometimes known as semi-acoustic. Released by the Gibson Guitar Corporation as part of its ES (Electric Spanish) series in 1958, it is neither fully hollow nor fu ...
, introduced in 1958, as well as the
Epiphone Casino
The Epiphone Casino is a thinline hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone, a branch of Gibson. The guitar debuted in 1961 and has been associated with such guitarists as Howlin' Wolf, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartne ...
, introduced after Epiphone was acquired in 1957 by CMI, Gibson's parent company.
These were more feedback resistant, comfortable to hold and easier to play standing up. The first thinlines were hollow bodies. Later thinlines such as the ES-335,
ES-345
The Gibson ES-345 is a stereo guitar manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Company. The guitar was produced from 1959 to 1981. It was designed as a jazz guitar and an upscale version of the ES-335.
History
The 345 was developed in 1958 as an upscale ...
and ES-355 were semi-hollow. Thinlines can be classed as
semiacoustic guitar
A semi-acoustic guitar, hollow-body electric, or thinline is a type of electric guitar that was first created in the 1930s. It has a sound box and at least one electric pickup. The semi-acoustic guitar is different to an acoustic-electric guit ...
s, although not all semiacoustic guitars have an arched top. Thinlines became popular with mainstream pop and rock artists during the 1960s. The ES-335 and similar guitars were taken up by, and remain steadfastly popular with, electric blues players;
B B King's various "Lucilles" are based on the ES-335.
The 1970s and 1980s were a low point of interest in archtops, with many rock and pop (and some jazz and blues) players switching to
solid body guitars. One manufacturer for this period was
Robert Benedetto.
Interest in archtops was revived in the 1990s. Archtops had long been expensive instruments, with a level of finish and ornament to match. Boutique luthiers such as
Roger Borys
Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic languages, Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", " ...
and
Bob Benedetto
Robert Benedetto (born October 22, 1946 in The Bronx, New York) is an American luthier of archtop jazz guitars. In 1968, he made his first archtop guitar in New Jersey and has handcrafted nearly 850 musical instruments. His guitars appear on many ...
brought the aesthetics of the instrument to even greater heights, making them attractive to collectors, and also continuing to innovate in technical design. The Benedetto style of acoustic/electric archtop has itself been copied by luthiers such a
Dale Ungerand
Dana Bourgeois
Dana Bourgeois (born 1953) is a luthier, writer, lecturer and is considered one of the United States' top acoustic guitar makers. Bourgeois's innovations in design and voicing techniques have earned him worldwide acclaim for his acoustic guitars fr ...
. Most of the accessories (
pickguard, bridge, tuner buttons, knobs, etc.) are made of wood (ebony or rosewood) instead of metal and have a clean acoustic look. It is estimated there are nearly 10
archtop guitar luthiersin North America alone.
Contrastingly, mass-market archtop guitars became more affordable in the late 20th century, due to a combination of low labor costs in Asian countries and
computer numerically controlled
Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a pie ...
manufacture. Most major guitar marques include at least a couple of archtops in their range, albeit not necessarily manufactured at their own facilities.
Ibanez
is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, ...
sells an extensive range of archtops under the
Artcore marque. The
Samick
Samick Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. (Hangul: 삼익악기, also known as Samick) is a South Korean musical instrument manufacturer. Founded in 1958 as Samick Pianos, it is now one of the world's largest musical instrument manufacturers and an ow ...
corporation sells archtops under its own name besides manufacturing for other companies. Gibson sells inexpensive Asian-made archtops under its
Epiphone
Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his f ...
brand, such as the
Epiphone Dot
The Epiphone Dot is a semi-hollow archtop electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone, a subsidiary of Gibson. It was introduced in 1997Fynn CallumMy Love for the Epiphone Dot Red Dog Music, 5 February 2013 as a more affordable version of the Gibson ...
.
Renewed interest in acoustic music has also led to the revival of purely acoustic archtops, such as the
Gibson L-7C The Gibson L-7C is an archtop acoustic guitar and one of the few archtop guitars still in production from major makers without an electric pickup.
Gibson
Gibson may refer to:
People
* Gibson (surname)
Businesses
* Gibson Brands, Inc., an Ame ...
The Loar Lh-600 Godin 5th Avenue and the
Epiphone
Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his f ...
Century Series.
Recent technical innovations include
Ken Parker's use of carbon fibre in high-end acoustic archtops, and the Godin Montreal
hybrid guitar.
Construction
Archtops usually have three-a-side
pegheads and necks similar in width to a steel-string acoustic rather than an electric. High-end models traditionally have "block" or "trapezoid"
position markers.
The top or belly (and often the back) of the archtop guitar is either carved out of a block of solid wood or heat-pressed using either a solid top or laminations, the latter being a less expensive construction method. The belly normally has two
f-hole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board.
Sound holes have different shapes:
* round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins;
* F-holes in instruments from the vi ...
s, the lower of these partly covered by a scratch plate raised above the belly so as not to dampen its vibration. The arching of the top and the f-holes are similar to the violin family, on which they were originally based. The contours of the arching profile are usually derived in an ad hoc fashion.
The tops of Gibson's archtops were
parallel braced. X-braced designs were introduced later, giving a tone closer to that of a flat-top guitar.
Sitka spruce
''Picea sitchensis'', the Sitka spruce, is a large, coniferous, evergreen tree growing to almost tall, with a trunk diameter at breast height that can exceed 5 m (16 ft). It is by far the largest species of spruce and the fifth-larg ...
,
European spruce
''Picea abies'', the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.
It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the largest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very clo ...
, and
Engelmann spruce
''Picea engelmannii'', with the common names Engelmann spruce, white spruce, mountain spruce, and silver spruce, is a species of spruce native to western North America. It is mostly a high-altitude mountain tree but also appears in watered canyon ...
are most often used for the resonant tops of archtop guitars, although some guitar builders use
Adirondack spruce (Red spruce), or
Western red cedar
''Thuja plicata'' is an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to western North America. Its common name is western redcedar (western red cedar in the UK), and it is also called Pacific redcedar, giant arborvitae, w ...
. Archtop guitars often have
Curly maple
Flame maple (tiger maple), also known as ''flamed maple'', ''curly maple'', ''ripple maple'', ''fiddleback'' or ''tiger stripe'', is a feature of maple in which the growth of the wood fibers is distorted in an undulating chatoyant pattern, produc ...
or
Quilted maple
Quilt or quilted maple refers to a type of figure in maple wood. It is seen on the tangential plane ( flat-sawn) and looks like a wavy "quilted" pattern, often similar to ripples on water. The highest quality quilted figure is found in the West ...
backs. Full-sized archtops are among the largest guitars ever made, with the width of the lower bout in some cases approaching 19 inches (47 cm).
The original acoustic archtop guitars were designed to enhance volume, so they were constructed for use with relatively heavy strings. Even after electrification became the norm, jazz guitarists have continued to fit strings of 0.012" gauge or heavier for reasons of tone, and also prefer
flatwound string
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments such as the guitar, harp, piano (piano wire), and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material that a musical instrument holds under tensi ...
s. Thinline archtops generally use standard electric guitar strings.
Many vibrato systems cannot be fitted to an archtop owing to the need to cut large holes in the belly to accommodate the mechanism, with the exception of the
Bigsby vibrato tailpiece and the long tailpiece versions of the
Gibson Vibrola. These vibrato systems mount on the surface of the guitar and need no body routing. Other systems have been used and trialed since this time.
Various use of the term "archtop"
Although "archtop" normally refers to a
hollow-bodied, arched top instrument, some makers of
solid-bodied guitars with carved bellies also refer to these as archtop to distinguish these from
flat top guitar
A flat top guitar is a type of guitar body model which has a flat top (as opposed to archtop). The term "flat top" is usually used to refer to the most popular type of steel-string acoustic guitars; however, electric guitars such as the Fender ...
s. For example, Gibson refers to the standard
Gibson Les Paul
The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that was first sold by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1952. The guitar was designed by factory manager John Huis and his team with input from and endorsement by guitarist Les Paul. Its typica ...
as an archtop to distinguish it from flat top models such as the
Les Paul Junior
The Gibson Les Paul Junior is a solid-body electric guitar introduced in 1954 as an affordable, entry-level Les Paul. It was first released with a single-cutaway body style; models with a double-cutaway body style were later introduced in 1958. T ...
and
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
.
A continuum exists from these solid body, purely electric instruments to purely acoustic instruments similar to the original Orville Gibson design, including:
* Solid body instruments, such as the Les Paul standard, with a carved but nonsounding belly.
* Instruments with semihollow bodies constructed from plates of wood around a solid core, having no soundholes, such as the
Gibson Lucille or
Brian May
Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury an ...
Red Special
The Red Special is the electric guitar designed and built by Queen's guitarist Brian May and his father, Harold, when Brian was a teenager in the early 1960s. The Red Special is sometimes referred to as the Fireplace or the Old Lady by May an ...
.
* Instruments with a solid core but hollow bouts and soundholes (usually f-holes), such as the
Gibson ES-335
The Gibson ES-335 is the world's first commercial semi-hollowbody electric guitar, sometimes known as semi-acoustic. Released by the Gibson Guitar Corporation as part of its ES (Electric Spanish) series in 1958, it is neither fully hollow nor fu ...
. In these, the bridge is fixed to a solid block of wood rather than to a
sounding board
A sounding board, also known as a tester and abat-voix is a structure placed above and sometimes also behind a pulpit or other speaking platform that helps to project the sound of the speaker. It is usually made of wood. The structure may be spe ...
, and the belly vibration is minimized much as in a solid body instrument.
* Thin-bodied
semiacoustic guitar
A semi-acoustic guitar, hollow-body electric, or thinline is a type of electric guitar that was first created in the 1930s. It has a sound box and at least one electric pickup. The semi-acoustic guitar is different to an acoustic-electric guit ...
s, such as the
Epiphone Casino
The Epiphone Casino is a thinline hollow body electric guitar manufactured by Epiphone, a branch of Gibson. The guitar debuted in 1961 and has been associated with such guitarists as Howlin' Wolf, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartne ...
. These possess both a sounding board and
sound box
A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vibr ...
, but the function of these is purely to modify the sound transmitted to the pickups. Such guitars are still intended purely as electric instruments, and while they do make some sound when the pickups are not used, the tone is weak and not normally considered musically useful.
* Full hollowbody semiacoustic instruments, such as the
Gibson ES-175; these have a full-size sound box, but are still intended to be played through an amplifier.
* Fully acoustic instruments with either a pressed laminate wood or hand carved top. One example in the latter category, almost cello-like in construction, is the
Gibson L-5. For amplified use, these guitars are fitted with floating pickups in the neck position attached either to the base of the fingerboard or the edge of the pickguard. The finely tuned soundboard is left to vibrate freely as no hardware other than bridge posts come into contact with it. Today's "carved tops" may also incorporate piezo electric pickups. These instruments have a full-size body and a powerful acoustic tone suitable both for chords and for melody work.
All of these types may be loosely described as "archtop," but only the last possesses the characteristics most often associated with the type.
Bass guitars
Archtop 4-string
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...
s have been manufactured since the use of electric
pickups became popular. The most famous example is the
Höfner violin bass
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
used by
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. On ...
.
Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and W ...
makes a range of archtop 4-, 5-, and 6-string
bass guitars
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
.
Framus also makes a range of archtop
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...
s.
Other variations
4-string (tenor),
7-string,
9-string, and
12-string
A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...
archtops have been manufactured.
A few luthiers
offer archtopped
Maccaferri guitar
The Selmer guitar — often called a Selmer-Maccaferri or just Maccaferri by English speakers, as early British advertising stressed the designer rather than manufacturer — is an unusual acoustic guitar best known as the favored instr ...
s.
The
Mohan veena
Mohan veena refers to either of two distinct plucked string instruments used in Indian classical music, especially Hindustani classical music which is associated with the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.
The first of these was a mix o ...
is a cross between an archtop and an Indian
veena
The ''veena'', also spelled ''vina'' ( sa, वीणा IAST: vīṇā), comprises various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent. Ancient musical instruments evolved into many variations, such as lutes, zithers and arched harps ...
.
Some electric archtops also have
piezoelectric pickups, making them
hybrid guitars.
A relatively small number of ukulele makers offer instruments with flat tops but arched backs, generally of heat-pressed laminate construction with high-quality veneer; that design concentrates the uke body's internal resonance upward toward the sound hole, "like a parabolic mirror," according to the German seller RISA, whose Koki'o brand line of ukuleles all feature arched backs.
See also
*
Archtop mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 s ...
s were developed at the same time for similar reasons.
References
Bibliography
Robert Benedetto: ''Making an Archtop Guitar''
External links
– Downloadable plans for a small-bodied archtop guitar designed by R. M. Mottola, on th
Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information Website
Specialist archtop dealerArchtop Guitars in Jazz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Archtop Guitar
Blues instruments
Guitars
Rockabilly instruments
it:Tipi di chitarra elettrica#Archtop