Solid body guitar for a gipsy player?

Jazzaferri · July 2012

335s and the various iterations of that design are imo the most versatile of the electric guitars.

Jon · July 2012

crookedpinky wrote:

What about buying a basic gypsy guitar - e.g Stagg/SX/Skylark, Ozark or Richwood - stuff it with foam, rags or anything which fills up the body and stops as much acoustic production of sound then add a pickup ( you might need to cut the top a bit to fit say a cheap humbucker or single coil ).

That way you get a reasonably silent guitar with gypys dimensions which will let you practice gypsy techniques. I susoect that there are few solid bodies which will match neck widths, scale length and string action to let you do that.

I think this is the best idea. No solid body ever made will feel like a gypsy guitar. Just get a cigano and stuff it full of material. Some kind of acoustic foam might help dampen even more sound. Then you also have a spare real guitar if you ever need one. If you need to amplify it or want to hear it through headphones, a stimer would work fine. At any rate, it'll certainly be very "dry", which is what we're all looking for in a guitar, right?

Tele's are awesome, but I don't think practicing gypsy jazz on them will bring you much joy, or improve your rest stroke picking (I know there some people that use them, but not many...)

Good luck,

Jon

Bohemian · July 2012

Telecaster.

Jazzaferri · July 2012

The thing withh 335 type guitars they actually work well with strings of the same size as one finds on a gj guitar. I use a set of thomastic steel strings on my Kay which have a very similar feel to the gj in spite of the shorter scale.

I love telecasters used to have one BUT not my idea of a gj or even electrified gj sound.

Elliot · July 2012

Funny you should mention it, because I saw a video from a guy from Japan once who basically took a Tele, replaced the neck to get it to the right length, and it was amazing how gypsy it sounded as a result. He kept the bridge pickup and made new sides on it just for comfort. He had offers to buy from all over the place but he wasn't interested in making any more.

frater · July 2012

As a rule of thumb: when in doubt, grab the tele...

muddy · November 2018

Im with Eddie Archtop... a telecaster has a good minic feel, the fixed bridge working, better for me anyway, than a strat. Of course the shape is wrong and 9th fret issue.... but at worst, it will make you mentally nimble after a bit, and EVERY guitar brings you on a different journey. Never hurts to expand your horizons.