Acoustic Guitar Live Mic

badjazz

Bob Holo wrote:

. . . it's a '38. So, it is just prior to the truss rod and just after the introduction of the Frequensator.

I didn't know that epiphones were originally lacking in truss rods. That's kind of surprising to me. Was it true of all models?

MichaelHorowitz

Bob...I didn't know you had a Busato! :shock:

How is it? And when are you going to let me play it!

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Bob Holo

I've had the Busato a couple months now. There are a couple things on it that I need to stabilize or get stabilized. I'm primarily concerned about two hairlines in the peghead. I saw them grow a bit and so I immediately detuned it because the best time to stabilize is before breakage. It has been played a lot but is in surprisingly good condition. It has a dry rich banjo-ish sound. It's nice and loud though not blisteringly loud. Mike Burdette said it reminded him of the old classical guitars he played at the Luthiers convention in Tacoma last year. Evidently they brought out a bunch of old Hausers and Ramirez' and gave the classical builders a chance to play them (Mike used to build for Kenny Hill) When I get it stabilized maybe I'll come up and we can do a house jam or something - it's not that far. I can't imagine myself bringing it to DFNW because a person puts some hard miles on a guitar in those 4 days - hot - cold - wet - dry - bump - bang - bong... Dare I display my pathetic (though improving) skills as a player? Well... before I detuned it I sat down in the kitchen with my mp3 recorder and captured a few minutes playing Je Seul Se Soir (sp?) on the Busato - and the Park - and the guitar I built (the one Samson liked - petit bouche w/ the secondary soundhole) and just kept the recorder running - then spliced a few seconds together. This will give you an idea of the tone of the Busato.. though certainly not its potential as a musical instrument However, I will spend considerable time in my life attempting to live up to this guitar so it's a good thing.

I just came back from seeing the traveling show. Ted was in fine form and the show went well. The acoustics in that little hall got a bit crowded in the finale when everyone was on stage but it went off well nonetheless. I couldn't get over Wrembel - he brought out the fuzz petals and staked out some territory in the "Carlos Santana vs. Tchan Tchou Vidal" arena. It was cool - I've never heard anyone stretch the genre in that direction.

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Oh, and regarding the truss rods (for badjazz) 'Tis true. Epis didn't have truss rods till the late '30s... and actually - I prefer them before they did because the necks were so stiff and thin and playable. Epi Stathopoulo is often credited with the invention of the truss rod (though he called it the "thrust rod") He filed for the patent in 1937 and received it in 1939. Prior to that it was a non-adjustable support.

MichaelHorowitz

Well, I'd love to check out that Busato some day. I've played a few, and they've all been great!

'm

Bob Holo

And I'd love to hear you play it.

TenorClef

That Archtop is massive, i always thought they were smaller than Macs, most of the modern archtops seem around 16-17 inches in body lengths which is still smaller than modern mac copies. How big is that Broadway anyway, it must be louder than your macs surely?

On another note, i'm going to ditch my Schertler Dyn-G this weekend and will try doing a gig with just a condenser mic to make a comparison.

TenorClef

Just got back from a gig at a local restaurant, the condenser mic to my surprise was exceptionally clean and focussed and provided enough volume to be heard with clarity over drums, double bass, saxophone and piano. At last i can hear my guitar the way it should sound.

I'm not sure why i have'nt tried this before but i think for future gigs, certainly smaller events i will go with a condenser mic as i can power it through my AER Alpha for either comping or lead tone.

Cheers guys these threads are really really helpful!

badjazz

Bob Holo wrote:

Epis didn't have truss rods till the late '30s... and actually - I prefer them before they did because the necks were so stiff and thin and playable. Epi Stathopoulo is often credited with the invention of the truss rod (though he called it the "thrust rod") He filed for the patent in 1937 and received it in 1939. Prior to that it was a non-adjustable support.

I thought Ted McHugh invented the adjustable truss rod that is still used in Gibsons (I thought in the 1920s). Do you just mean the Epi-style truss rod that adjusts from the bridge end of the fingerboard? Wouldn't necks without a truss rod tend to be thicker than those with a truss rod? I thought that one of the big advantages to a truss rod was that they are stronger than wood and therefore allow you to make the neck thinner. Do you just mean compared to the older Epi's (that maybe had some different type of reinforcement)? Not trying to be picky, just trying to understand--I don't have much experience with Epiphones. Thanks.

BTW--That's a nice household of guitars!

Bob Holo

Yep, that's why I said "Epi... is often credited with the invention of the truss rod." ...sort of like Christopher Columbus... who is often credited with discovering America.

The 5 piece pre-truss necks of nicer prewar Epis are slim & sexy. The 5 piece construction makes them tremendously strong and I'm sure there was also some form of steel rod in there. Acoustic builder John Mayes, who apprenticed under Dana Bourgeois uses 5 piece necks. He screwed up a headstock once and decided it was too much trouble to fix so he was going to throw it away. But he was curious about how strong 5 piece necks are - or whether it was all just hooey. So, he put the neck on the ground and stood on the neck joint. Nothing... he had to bounce up and down several times to crack it. John is a pretty big man. He's not a giant, but he'd probably make a good linebacker.

For TenorClef... The archtop is only 17.5" across the lower bout. It looks big because of the exagerated curves and its body is pretty tall... somewhere in the ?? 21" range? (whereas Selmers are something like 15.875" x 18.625" and Favinos are scaled up a little from that... a bit over 16")

badjazz

ah, so it's the multiple piece necks that provide the strength, rather than just a 1 or 2 piece neck. That makes sense that it would be strong for that reason, and thus able to be made nice and thin. Thanks for the info.