Guild Jazz

Darryl Hattenhauer

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Acorn,

Yes, I once heard a great jazz guitar sound coming from behind me at a guitar show. I turned to see what kind of ax it was, and it was an old tele on the neck pup.

hf
 

NYWolf

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And yes, I'd agree, you CAN get a nice jazz tone on Franz pickup equipped guitar. It will take a good amp, and some tweaking, sure! But I said "it's not IDEAL", meaning that HB-1 or SD '59 will get you there so much faster and basically through any amp, without almost any tweaking. It's just my experience though. I have to confess, it's a shame, but I don't have a good tube amp. It's simply not practical for me to lug it around on public transportation, when sometimes I have to play 2 gigs in different parts of town on the same night. My main amp is ZT Lunchbox, and I tell you it's sooo much better sounds with Starfire with SD-1, than NS X175 with Franzes. I mean for any style, but especially for jazz. Come to think of it, the only time X175 sounded really good was through some Fender tube amp. But The Starfire sound consistently good through anything. I think it's pickups, am I wrong?
 

AcornHouse

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Also remember, Newark Street Franzes aren't really Franzes. They are copies, and we've heard of some issues that some have had with them. So it's hardly a fair statement.
 

bth88

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Acorn,

What is the concern with bigsbys?

dh/hf

My take? On a thicker maple laminate top or a solid body there's not as noticeable difference with a Bigsby on or off. On a lam or hand carved spruce top (very popular with jazz players) the pressure of the Bigsby baring down on the top due to the high tension of the strings can deaden the vibration of the top a bit absorbing some natural sustain. Spruce is a great natural tonewood be it use as a lam or better hand carved. Maple as compared to spruce is a much denser wood lacking the marked vibration characteristics you see in spruce. For example you start seeing maple lams being implemented more and more to help stem feedback issues moving into the electric era.
My guess is with your early electric jazz guitarists the novelty of the Bigsby wore off fairly quickly once one was installed on one of their spruce top jazz boxes and if your heroes are not using them you're less inclined to wanting to run out and modify your guitar to use one, etc. etc.
There might have also been a stigma back in the day that a vibrato system like a Bigsby was a "Hillbilly" guitar effect? That I can't say for sure but I have done tests with Bigsby's vs floating tail pieces on spuce and maple archtops and thought I'd share my impressions/findings.
 

NYWolf

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Also remember, Newark Street Franzes aren't really Franzes. They are copies, and we've heard of some issues that some have had with them. So it's hardly a fair statement.

That's a good point too, I have no experience with the originals. Also, I assume the Franz pickups reissues are different on American Patriarch series than NS? That would be interesting to compare too.
 

houseisland

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I am enjoying this thread greatly, and I am learning a lot from it. But we have come a long and confusing way from its beginning where poor amblecote57 asks for advice on choosing a Guild archtop.

If I dare to bring this thread back into focus, I would timidly suggest that amblecote57 look at a nice used X-170 for all the same reasons that I went looking for one (although I did not buy one). There are a fair number of them around. They are generally affordable. They are well made and are generally very pretty. People generally seem to look after them for some reason - I didn't see any wrecks for sale online while I was looking around. The X-170s seem to fall into the Goldilocks middle ground of the archtop world, not to big, not too small, but just right - they have a proven track record of versatility, which the sound post helps with. They have conservative old school necks without being a baseball bats. And the HB-1s would seem to be the essence of Guildness in humbuckers. And most importantly of all, if you don't like an X-170 you buy, it doesn't really matter, because you are not going to have to wait too long to resell it, I think. If you are in hurry to resell, you may have to take a hit on your purchase price, but if you can wait, you can probably recoup your money or better - something you will not easily do with the purchase of new instrument.

Yeas? Nays?
 

AcornHouse

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I am enjoying this thread greatly, and I am learning a lot from it. But we have come a long and confusing way from its beginning where poor amblecote57 asks for advice on choosing a Guild archtop.

If I dare to bring this thread back into focus, I would timidly suggest that amblecote57 look at a nice used X-170 for all the same reasons that I went looking for one (although I did not buy one). There are a fair number of them around. They are generally affordable. They are well made and are generally very pretty. People generally seem to look after them for some reason - I didn't see any wrecks for sale online while I was looking around. The X-170s seem to fall into the Goldilocks middle ground of the archtop world, not to big, not too small, but just right - they have a proven track record of versatility, which the sound post helps with. They have conservative old school necks without being a baseball bats. And the HB-1s would seem to be the essence of Guildness in humbuckers. And most importantly of all, if you don't like an X-170 you buy, it doesn't really matter, because you are not going to have to wait too long to resell it, I think. If you are in hurry to resell, you may have to take a hit on your purchase price, but if you can wait, you can probably recoup your money or better - something you will not easily do with the purchase of new instrument.

Yeas? Nays?
Good point. Thanks for getting us back on track.
And I second the X-170 recommendation. Can't go wrong with it.
 

JohnW63

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It would be rather cool to have sound clips of the original X-170 and the NS X-170, some day. Curious minds ( and NS owners ) would like to know !

Now, as for me, I know I couldn't justify a real X-170, given their prices , on the used market, with my electric and even less JAZZ experience. So, the price of a used NS X-170 fit the bill just fine !
 

AcornHouse

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The NS is an X-175, not an X-170. It has the Franz copies, while the X-170s have HB-1s.
 

mcflavin

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For what it is worth, I have an x-170 (1989 model) and I am taking Jazz guitar lessons and I can tell you that my teacher really likes the x-170. To me the tones are beautiful and it is easy to play because of its size. My teacher loves the size of the guitar as well -- it is very playable.

Steve
 

Darryl Hattenhauer

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bth88 (aka rocket 88)

Sounds logical. I don't have enough experience to know if they change the sound of a starchtop, but to my ear they really change the sound of a tele.

hf
 

bluesypicky

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's all a big sham! We've been duped. You can get any sound you want with any guitar.
I'm selling them all. But one.
 

houseisland

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X-170AB

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IMHO guitars definitely DON'T all sound the same! And regarding "jazz" sound, there's not only one – a lot of classic recordings by Kenny Burrell, Wes, and others were made with single coil pickup-guitars, especially P-90s. A Guild with a Franz or two can play exactly in this ballpark. Of course there's also the classic "warm" humbucker sound of later Wes, Jim Hall, and others, and HB-1s will get you there.
 

X-170AB

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Darryl,

I've also heard that Jim Hall retrofitted an HB-1 onto one of his guitars (I believe it was an ES-175).

And yes, Ted Greene is known to have liked and played a number of Guilds, from hollowbodies to an SF-IV.
 

bluesypicky

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HB1's can sound very jazzy warm. Now why would you retrofit an ES-175 with HB1's when you can get one of those:

 

NYWolf

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HB1's can sound very jazzy warm. Now why would you retrofit an ES-175 with HB1's when you can get one of those:



The only reason I can think of is those x175s are big, bulky, and heavy, and if don't match them in construction but still want this sweet HB1 sound, you'd do something like that...:star:

Nice playing, by the way!
 
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