Hollow body advice please

Hello master luthiers:

I'm about to embark on building up a hollow-body guitar and need a bit of advice on how to proceed. I'm getting a body like this:



which is already routed for a dano neck [I just so happen to have a spare needing a home]. I need 2 tones to round out my guitar sound palette - a traditional "jazz box" and a steel acoustic - and was wondering if I could get both out of this guitar.

My thinking at this point is to put a "jazzy" humbucker in the neck position and a piezo tunomatic at the bridge with a trapeze style tail piece. I would appreciate any thoughts, suggestions, whatever you may have to guide me along.

Trevorus said:

Here's where to go. Trapeze tailpiece, piezo bridge, and flaoting humbucker coming off the end of the fingerboard. That would be the ideal setup IMHO.

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I've never heard of a "floating humbucker" before - any links you can provide? Suggestions on the piezo bridge would also be helpful. The best sounding piezo's I've heard are on the PRS Hollowbody II, but as near as I can determine they are customized L.R. Braggs. Seems some sound like crap so I want to avoid a mistep if I can.

Yeah I mean a guitar-guitar. I have a dano double-neck I converted from a 12/6 to a 12/baritone and have an extra neck kicking around. I know this is a bass forum but thought if you guy's can luthier a bass you can luthier a regular guitar.

That's pretty sweet payment for a couple of nights sleep-over! It's funny - I've been looking for a longhorn body for about a year [love the look - they're so funky] and came up empty. Within the last few weeks they seem to be popping up regularly.

Thanks for the links. I can figure out the mounting for the Kent Armstrong but I don't see how the Benedetto gets mounted.

On the LR Braggs - would that fit in a wooden base plate or is it intended to be mounted in the body of the guitar? As you know, the longhorn body is completely hollow and there would be nothing to mount it to.

Any suggestions on wiring, pots, and such? If I go with a suspended humbucker there's virtually no way to run wiring or mount the pots and jack except fishing through the f-holes. I don't have the body yet, so I'm not sure if there's enough room to do any inside work. I just took another look at the PRS DVD and they have quite a big plate along the edge of their hollow body with 2 jacks and a battery compartment. Guess this would be an option if it doesn't compromise the stability of the body. Suggestions? Thanks for the help so far.

BTW - Dano used to make a longhorn bass and baritone - same neck, just different number of machines. Jerry Jones still offers them but I think they are the masonite variety. Anyway, Allparts and Danoguitars.com both sell baritone and bass necks. I got my baritone off Allparts booth on the last day of last winters NAMM.

A quick google answered most of my questions - but here's one a voice of experience is needed for:

Is there a tonal difference [or any difference/issues I should be aware of] between keeping the body intact and using suspended pups vs. routing and mounting a standard pup?

Thanks for the help.

T-34 said:

Basically, they use suspended pickups to let the top vibrate freely. "True" archtops are fine acoustic instruments. Imagine cutting additional hole or screwing the pickup on the violin top.

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That's kinda what I thought but needed confirmation from a pro.

Thanks Trevorus. It appears the way Benedetto does it is to mount the pup and the controls on a pickguard which saves having to route anything. I guess one could run the wiring out a jack/strap button at the bottom of the bout [not sure if my terms are right here or not]. That would really only leave the issue of what to do with the piezo electronics/battery assembly. I may be able to do a setup so it's mounted on the pickguard as well.

They're shipping the body today and I expect it by this time next week. My understanding is that it's completely hollow with no bridge block. Here's a shot of it on end showing that it is an archtop though not as extreme as some:

Nice longhorn JSP.

This is where I'm at currently after digging around for info. I'm leaning toward an ebony bridge like this:



The stuff I've read on tuneomatic types are that they don't transfer the sound to the body as well as the ebony. As far as pups go - the Benedetto is ridiculously expensive [I'm in Canada] and the reviews on them are not that great. Kent Armstrong has some side mounts that are much more reasonable. Best pricing I've found is at Invalid Link Removed.

The reviews on the Fishman tuneomatic are not that great and the Fishman system is quite expensive as well. I have an RMC equipped Godin and while they sound pretty good [with and op amp upgrade] they don't transfer the subtle string dynamics like vibratto, pitch bends, etc. The way the Fishman is designed leads me to believe I'll run into the same situation and the reviewers state it has a definite "piezo" sound.

I'm leaning toward the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] system. The piezo's mount just inside the F holes under the top and run out to an endjack. The reviews claim this is the most authentic sounding pup system and when I think about it it appears to me that this system would "hear" more of the tonality of the interplay between the strings and the body as a system than a bridge-mounted piezo.

A couple of questions - there are 2 types of tailpieces available - metal and ebony/wood. The higher end archtops use the wood type while the quasi-archtop-electrics use the metal. Any ideas on the difference in tone between the two? Are there grounding issues that the metal will handle better than the wood? It appears to be standard practice to drill a hole and mount an endjack - will this compromise the body as in the above example of the violin?

Thanks for the time and help. It's great to be able to bounce ideas around - makes the whole process a lot more fun and informative.

JSPguitars said:

Have you posted this over at the MIMF forum?

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Don't know that one - care to point me in the right direction?

I could have the body routed like they were done originally, but I'm liking the idea of a traditional acoustic archtop treatment. Cutting up the body and mounting pups [which is what I was originally going to do] would turn it into just another electric and I already have lots of flavours of those.

I understand it has a sound post in the bridge area like a violin but I've heard nothing about a bass bar - perhaps JSP can take a peek in his and confirm what's inside. Mine's on a truck rumbling across the country and hopefully will arrive in one piece mid-week.

Theoretically the body should act as a resonating sound chamber just like a violin or traditional archtop - not as big as an archtop but bigger than a violin - so it really comes down to whether the sound is appealling or not. This project isn't mission-critical - I've got lots of other guitars and I'm doing this one for fun and to see what I can coax out of it.