Archtops and Selmacs

Russell Letson

I should preface this by admitting that I do not play lead in any style (unless one counts Piedmont fingerstyle, which is pomegranites to the apples and oranges of this conversation). But I do play on a range of kinds of guitars, and I've been paying attention to good guitarists in a range of traditions for a long time, and I have to say that one mark of a really good player is that he plays the guitar he has in his hands at the moment, getting out of it whatever it has to offer, adapting its capabilities to the demands of the genre and tradition.

That neck-position-humbucker sound that came to dominate American jazz after 1945 (and up until rock-influenced players started messing with signal processing) is as much a part of mainstream-jazz decorum as are the relatively limited textures of the piano. The traditional vocabulary of gypsy jazz grew out of what Django's Selmers could do: bends and vibratos and slides that are hard to execute on an archtop acoustic set up for big-band rhythm playing. Modern amplified archtops can be strung and set up so that those effects can be approximated, but the result will still not sound like even an amplified Selmer-style--it's going to be a compromise sound. So the "you gotta play a Sel-Mac" position is not simply moldy-figgery. On the other hand, those Sel-Mac textures do not entirely define gypsy jazz (or why the need to practice those arpeggios?), as strongly as the Selmac bark and voice might be associated with it.

The Moignard video is interesting--I wonder about the structure and stringing of that Koentopp. I'm betting it's built lighter than, say, the Eastmans (which echo the old Epiphone formula), and I'm pretty sure it's not strung with a 14-56 set, which is how I string my archtops. (They don't speak with lights.) Nevertheless, I'm also willing to bet that if, in the course of a set, Moignard were to alternate between the two guitars in that video, only the guitarists in the audience would spare more than a couple seconds noticing the sonic differences.

Interesting sidenote: the YouTube page with the Moignard video also has a link to this one of Julian Lage playing a Koentopp. To my ear, there's considerable overlap with what a Selmer-style could produce.

Bones

I feel like in a loud bar or something like that, tone is not so much of an issue anyway. You mostly need to be able to crank up the amplification to even be heard (and hopefully be able to hear yourself and your bandmates) and then feedback becomes the biggest issue. Then an instrument and pickup system less prone to feedback is a big plus (on some level even if the acoustic tone of the instrument is not the best) since the nuances of tone are lost in the noise of the crowd.

If you are amplifying in a situation where people are sitting quietly and listening (i.e. an auditorium) then feedback is easier to deal with since the monitors don't need to be so loud on stage.

Regardless of the type of construction (archtop or selmac) if you are playing acoustically (or light amplification) and like the tone and volume then it is all good. If you are playing with a lot amplification it's a whole different story and you want to be able to plug in and go without fighting a bunch of feedback issues the whole time even if tone suffers a bit. Those are two entirely different scenarios and finding one setup that does both well is a challenge. For an acoustic guitar it seems (from my limited gigging experience) easier to amplify for single note work if the guitar has relatively more high end response (to cut thru) and relatively less low end response (since that is where most of the feedback problems occur).

Jazzaferri

For the record my comment about bluegrass folks was NOT that they mostly play it on Martin's. I have no statistical data at all on what percentage of bg players play Martin's. They are pretty expensive and bg is not really a black tie world.

My comment was that there are some in that world that say bluegrass only sounds right on a Martin. Same as those folks that say GJ only sounds right on a selmac.

Pugs47

I'm in Marc's camp. I play in three different gypsy groups and most of the gigs are in restaurants, bars and events. Maybe 10% are concert scenarios. I've struggled with amplification for ten years. I've finally defaulted to using both the Bigtone and a Stimer 51 at the same time on my Shelly Park. I play with just the bigtone when pompeing and roll on the Stimer volume pot for lead. When recording I can get away with mics. This requires two separate inputs but helps with not having to overdrive strings when soloing. I also use archtops in some situations and employ a technique that Jim Hall told me about in an interview years ago. If you screw down the bucker as far into the body as possible and raise the pole pieces, the pickup is more microphonic and less magnetic. I'm not a techie so don't know the electronic properties involved, but in photos you can see that Jim had used that method to get a more acoustic tone with some amplification.
Also I would like to ask a question relative to the availability of archtops in Europe in the late 30s, 40s and 50s, when gypsy was flourishing. The states had many builders, Gibson, Epipihone, Stromberg, D'Angelico et al. Who in Europe at that time was building many archtops? If they were more readily available would they have been more prominent in the genre? Certainly today most of the videos coming out of Europe that I see on youtube are 50% archtop.

Al Watsky

The Jim Hall thing about dropping the pickup down and raising the screws is taking the strings out of the flux pattern of the magnets.
So if you can imagine the screw top having a little flame dancing above it , that would be the magnetic flux pattern , so raising the screws and lowering the coils removes the proximity effect of the coil which rolls off lows and mids.
That works for cavity mounted hum buckers but not much else. P90 pickups, which are surface mounted are often set up that way as well , it tends to accentuate the high and high mid frequencies.
Pugs is on the right track with the availability of arch top guitar issue in europe pre war. There were a couple of makers in Germany I think. But I'll bet that it was really a price point issue. Imported product was much more expensive, in part due to protectionist trade policies. So I would think that American Archtops would be a rare thing in prewar Europe.

Bones

Can anyone remind me what is the name of the solo piece that Julian does at about 3:50 in the vid.

Thanks

scot

By the mid 50s it was easy to get an archtop in France. The Jacobacci brothers made them under several different names, the best known being Royal which was popular with many guitarists including Matelot Ferret, Marcel Bianchi and Patrick Saussois. There were others - Favino made them, too. I never read anything about them being too expensive, either. I have many photographs of Tchan-Tchou, Bousquet, Lousson, Joseph Reinhardt, Eugene Vees, Henri Crolla, Babik Reinhardt, Matelot, Boulou, Elios and Sarrane Ferret, J-M Pallen, Marcel Bianchi and other guitarists who play/ed Django-influenced music playing archtops. Modern players like Ninine Garcia and the late Patrick Saussois among others often/usually played archtops. I have a picture of Lousson playing a cheap solid body electric, and one of Babik playing a Fender solid body of some kind. If "authenticity" is the issue then these photographs are proof that any guitar can be "authentic" because no one can be more authentic than Joseph or Lousson Reinhardt. Of course, it's also true that none of the above mentioned guitarists are actual gypsy jazz players.

As for amplifying at gigs, don't lose sight of the truth - that the audience could care less what kind of stage rig you have.

Full disclosure - I don't own an archtop and don't plan to in the future. The only one I ever had was an old Gibson L-7 and I didn't like it very much. But facts are facts.

scot

BTW, I read somewhere that back in the 30s, archtops were typically strung .016 to .064 with a wound B. Would take a MAN to play a two hour big band gig with that setup!

Craig Bumgarner

As far as volume goes, one of the loudest acoustic guitars of any type I ever heard was a Steve Grimes archtop, built ~ 2005. Steve was showing it off at a builders conference. A kid from Montreal tried it and shredded a couple Jimmy Rosenberg tunes for us. It was astonishing how loud and articulate this guitar was. Just saying it can be done today even if it isn't done that often.

Stringswinger

@Jon,

My bandmate hits his P-90 equipped ES 175's with a lot of power. The only thing immoral about that is the quality of his playing!

Regarding the history thing:

AFAIK, Levin, Hofner and Framus all made archtops in Europe back in the day. I am not sure about any others. When the guitar came into demand in the early jazz age, Gibson's archtop (the L-5) was the king. Other American companies copied it (Gretsch and Epiphone). Master American luthiers made their copies as well (Stromberg and D'Angelico). Martin tried to compete with the Dreadnaught. The Dreadnaught failed among the jazz crowd, but the bluegrass folks loved it and in the big picture of things, the Dreadnaught has been a bigger financial success than the archtop.

Maurice Selmer tried to compete with his guitar (The D hole being designed by Maccaferri and the oval hole being a Selmer original). While it was never successful in the jazz world, Django's use allowed for a limited production, say 500 or so guitars over a 20 year period (Many other Selmer guitars were not designed to be used as jazz guitars but have been converted to that use over time, so today there may be more than 500 Selmer jazz guitars in existence) as well as some French competition (Busato etc.) If one counts financial success as the ultimate vote, the Selmer guitar has been a failure. Today a top luthier building flattops or archtops is able to get 25K plus for their instruments. We have in this group one of the world's top builders of the Selmer guitar (Bob Holo) whose guitars sell for less than 5K. It has to be a labor of love for him, because at the price he gets for his guitars, he is not getting rich. That said, the selmer guitar remais popular among a small group of folks, especially European Gypsys.

Leo Fender created the Telecaster and Stratocaster for the Western Swing guys (another form of jazz) and Gibson thought jazzmen would like the Les Paul. While all three of those models never found much favor among the archtop loving jazz guitar community, they sure have been successful in the Rock, Blues and Country worlds!

I play jazz (Gypsy jazz, Swing, Bop etc.) on many different guitars. If it is a purely acoustic gig, one of my Selmer style guitars is used (I have an oval hole and a D hole) or less frequently, my Martin Dreadnaught or my Classical. If it is a VERY loud gig, a solid body (I have a Les Paul, a Telecaster and 2 Strats) or my ES-335 does the job. On most gigs, I use one of my archtops (I have 12 of them), which I admit are my favorites for tone and playability. I have heard recordings of my playing and find that I sound pretty much the same on whatever I play. Tone is in the fingers to a large degree. I doubt the non guitar playing public at most of my gigs cares a whit as to what guitar I play, or can tell the difference. I would bet that most, especially women would prefer the warm tone of the archtop guitar to the often shrill sound made by the Selmer guitar.

I think those who make pronouncements about what guitars one must play in order to sound "proper" are usually pompous fools. It is all about, as Bob Holo eloquently said earlier in this thread about "getting the music out of your head and into the room".

OK, I have spent enough time typing, now its back to playing guitar...I have a gig tonight...