Selmer guitars history

littlemark · March 22

I'll pass. Thanks Mario.

Russell Letson · March 22

I have a couple of plastic Macs, and they're actually pretty respectable instruments, and quite ingenious as pieces of design.

Enclosed tuners are not at all uncommon--most of my guitars have them. The problem with the tuners on the plastic Macs is that they were enclosed in the headstock and that they had cast aluminum gears that wore out or crumbled. Fixing them requires disassembling the headstock and probably replacing them with planetary banjo tuners. And since styrene plastic is pretty brittle and the headstock (like the rest of the guitar) is somehow welded together, the risk of ruining the headstock is pretty high.

The grande/petite-bouche distinction goes beyond the soundhole, particularly in frets-free-of-the-body (12 vs 14) and scale length (640 vs 670 mm).

wim · March 22

I’ve tried about 3 different plastic Macs and they all played/sounded pretty much the same, so I’ll award points for consistency. They all sounded awful though.

Scale length difference between D hole and oval hole is true for Selmer, but not really true for modern builders. They seem to primarily make D hole guitars (sans resonator) in the longer scale length and 14 fret to the body too, from what I've seen.

ChrisMartin · March 22

I bought a 'plastic Mac' many years ago (long since sold on to a happy buyer) and although the tuners on that one still worked I agree with Russell's thoughts on the design and shortcomings. If, or when, they fail, there is not much one can do to repair them. No matter though as the neck was very uncomfortable anyway, and if in the unlikely event somebody played one long enough to need it, how could it be refretted? Also, there was curious metal rod that ran through the body with a screw that could be accessed through that odd plastic plug in the middle that, I believe, was supposed to offer some tilt of the neck to adjust the action, but nothing helped.

Re Wim's comments about the sound, yes, they are nothing like one would want from a Maccaferri but they might have their own niche. Allowing for the awful 'playability' (or lack of) there was a tone there that might be described as somewhere between a cheap archtop and a resonator although with little or no sustain. As Russell said, somewhat brittle too so probably not going to last long if played regularly.

The only justification for it that I could see was they do look cute as a wall-hanger and will always start conversations with the curious. I have to admit that if that got as far as a playing demo it did not always end in a complimentary way.

I know there used to be a regular supply of bodies without necks turning up years ago and I did toy with the idea of fitting one with a regular - wood - neck to see if once made playable they could be used as some sort of grown-up ukulele or six-string banjo.

I never did see that experiment through, probably just as well.......

But even more weird, has anyone heard one of the plastic violins in action?

ChrisMartin · March 22

And then there were the plastic saxophone reeds...............

Buco · March 25

New episode, this one on Django, no plastics were involved in making of this video

https://youtu.be/bLmyiLUzeOs?si=WRy9AuNYBC6AKCVG

littlemark · March 25

I like the bit about it just being Jazz during his lifetime. It's only now given a specific genre after the fact.

Russell Letson · March 27

It wasn't just "jazz" but often "le jazz hot." I suspect that the "gypsy jazz" or "jazz manouche" labels were applied when string-driven jazz became a niche style largely preserved (as something like a folk tradition) in Romani communities. As powerful as Django's influence was on post-war jazz guitarists, American jazz followed the lead of horn- and piano-dominated bebop. When I was growing up in the 1950s, for every Johnny Smith or Barney Kessel, there were dozens (or even hundreds) of sax and trumpet players and pianists on record. Hell, there wasn't even space for a guitar in a bebop band until guitarists figured out how to play horn-like lines. (Charlie Christian was another pioneer but, like Django, died too young.)

scot · March 29

Mario Maccaferri was certainly a fascinating and original character and there is an astonishing amount written about him on the internet - by uke enthusiasts and all sorts of other people.. There is a very nice eulogy by John Monteleone here. https://luth.org/1993_0132900-mem-maccaferri/ And here is a recording from 1928. He played well, too.

Courante - JS Bach.mp3

Plastic is a word with all sort of negatives attached to it but it wasn't always the case. Up through the 60s it was a kind of miracle substance. Sadly most of the negatives are true and not very much of quality is made from plastic today. It's possible to make high quality plastic that looks good and doesn't deteriorate but it's expensive to make, and carbon fiber is better anyway. It's hardly fair to condemn MM for thinking you could make musical instruments out of plastic. He had crazy ideas and took risks the way people like that always do.

I remember some guys from NYC showed up at the Galax Fiddler's Convention around 1985 with a van stuffed full of Maccaferri guitars. I can't remember how much they charged for them but it couldn't have been much. I bought one and in those day I was as poor as a church mouse. I heard of people using them as canoe paddles...

Russell - please DM me, I have some questions about Augusta for you.