GGJaguar
Reverential Member
I was noodling around on my Artist Award trying to figure out what it’s “missing” acoustically. I’m convinced Guild made the later Artist Awards (late 1980s to the Benedetto redesign) to be compromise between acoustic and electric tone in order to make them less prone to feedback. My ’48 Gibson L-7 was the best sounding acoustic archtop I had (gone, but not forgotten) and is my benchmark. I dragged out my 1953 Gagliano 900 aka Kay K-11 to play side by side. They are similar in that they are both a little over 17 inches wide and 3.5 inches deep, but the AA is all solid wood with carved top while the Kay’s body is laminated with a solid, pressed top. They both have 5-piece maple necks, but the Kay has no truss rod and is literally as thick as a baseball bat. The Kay has a Brazilian rosewood board and the AA’s board is, of course, ebony. The Kay is lightweight at 5.2 lb (2.4 kg) compared to the 6.7 lb (3.0 kg) Artist Award.
The AA has more clarity, but the Kay is louder and has a warmer tone. I made a couple of sound bites on each guitar with me doing my best fake jazz comping.
Kay K-11 tone sample
Artist Award tone sample
I know how the Kay “normally” sounds and I can say that the Kay's sound bite is not a fair representation because the strings on it are 3 years old and have lost their top end sparkle. It’s really a nice sounding archtop with fresh strings. The Kay is strung with D’Addario PB (.013) while the AA is fitted with a relatively fresh set of Martin Bronze 80/20 (.013). To my ears, the AA seems to be lacking some bottom end. I still have other sets of strings in the queue to find the optimum acoustic sound for the AA so I’m in it for the long haul. It could very well be that flatwounds may work best, but I’m going to stick with roundwounds for now.
Anybody play their archtops in “acoustic only” mode? What strings are you using?
The AA has more clarity, but the Kay is louder and has a warmer tone. I made a couple of sound bites on each guitar with me doing my best fake jazz comping.
Kay K-11 tone sample
Artist Award tone sample
I know how the Kay “normally” sounds and I can say that the Kay's sound bite is not a fair representation because the strings on it are 3 years old and have lost their top end sparkle. It’s really a nice sounding archtop with fresh strings. The Kay is strung with D’Addario PB (.013) while the AA is fitted with a relatively fresh set of Martin Bronze 80/20 (.013). To my ears, the AA seems to be lacking some bottom end. I still have other sets of strings in the queue to find the optimum acoustic sound for the AA so I’m in it for the long haul. It could very well be that flatwounds may work best, but I’m going to stick with roundwounds for now.
Anybody play their archtops in “acoustic only” mode? What strings are you using?
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