Greg D
2003-08-07 10:26:21 UTC
mark,
You didn't get screwed on the price. We had to stand in line for months
online and many, if not most of us never got one of those special deals
from a few years back.
As for swapping the pup - don't. You'll ruin the distinctive tone and not
gain much if anything (assuming your 145 has the US-made DeArmond). For
example, I bought an X-155 (wish I'd kept it) with 2 DeArmonds. I ab'ed
it with my Epi Joe Pass which had the SD '59 PAFs in it. Know what? I
ended up selling the 155 becuse I thought it redundant as it sounded as
good as the SD pups. In short, it sounded excellent and I didn't need to
realy nice sounding archtops that sounded very similar. Antithetical to
my usual philosophy, I know.
So don't waste your money on new pups. Enjoy that axe as she is.
Greg
You didn't get screwed on the price. We had to stand in line for months
online and many, if not most of us never got one of those special deals
from a few years back.
As for swapping the pup - don't. You'll ruin the distinctive tone and not
gain much if anything (assuming your 145 has the US-made DeArmond). For
example, I bought an X-155 (wish I'd kept it) with 2 DeArmonds. I ab'ed
it with my Epi Joe Pass which had the SD '59 PAFs in it. Know what? I
ended up selling the 155 becuse I thought it redundant as it sounded as
good as the SD pups. In short, it sounded excellent and I didn't need to
realy nice sounding archtops that sounded very similar. Antithetical to
my usual philosophy, I know.
So don't waste your money on new pups. Enjoy that axe as she is.
Greg
I thought I'd post this here, as often people ask for low-cost archtop
recommendations. I think I've found a winner here, and thought the
info could be of use to others.
I've wanted an archtop since January, when I decided to give up the
blues and learn jazz. It's been real slow going, but I'm making steady
progress. But back to the topic at hand.... I waited until recently to
purchase an archtop, mostly because I wanted to make sure that I stuck
with the practice regimen that jazz is requiring of me. About a month
ago I decided it was time to get one, so I started looking around.
Unfortunately, this was not a pleasant experience. Nothing under $1000
locally was available, and I went to every music store I could find in
the area. As many people have probably found out, trying to locate a
used quality archtop for that price or less is kind of hard unless
you're willing to do mail-order. After reading a lot of reviews of
archtops from the usual sources, I decided to bite the bullet and try
ebay when I saw that a natural finish, mint X-145 came up for sale. I
think I overpaid for it ($360, especially considering these things
were blown out, as many of you know, for $249 just a couple of years
ago when Fender bought DeArmond). But considering that legato guitars
is/was selling a squire x-155 for almost $800, I figured what the
heck. I also worried that the X-145, which does not have the DeArmond
Goldtone pickups which are supposed to be better for jazz but instead
has 2 DeArmond Dearmitron pickups. The Dearmotrons I think were made
for more of a twangy style. I figured for the price what the heck. My
other option was to spend a couple hundred more on an Epi archtop, but
I wasn't thrilled with the few I was able to try.
First off, when I first got the guitar I immediately put size 12
Labella flatwound strings on it. I had never tried flatwounds before,
but I figured that would give me a more suitable jazz tone. Boy, was I
wrong. On this guitar, it absolutely ruined the tone. I still can't
get over how bad those strings sounded on this guitar. I'm just not
cut out for flatwound strings I guess. After 4 days of struggling with
those, I took em off and put on Tomastik BeBop strings, and
immediately this improved the tone drastically. It took a few days for
the strings to fully stretch (no buzziness about them, and much
warmer). Now I love the tone of the guitar. And acoustically, it is
quite loud. In fact, I usually don't play it through my amp. I tried
the Epi archtops and none of them gave any decent volume when not
plugged in. The guitar has some rough spots - for example, the f-hole
binding is sloppy, and the knobs are really cheap and cheesy looking
(but those I'll replace with a $10 set of replacement knobs). The more
I play the guitar, the more I love it. It stays in tune very well, and
probably what is most surpising to me is that, although it is a pretty
"deep" archtop (about 3 and 1/4" body depth), it only took a couple of
days to get used to playing it (I've been playing a Telecaster for the
past 7 years!). In fact, it has really helped my right-hand technique,
as my picking arm is on more of a fixed axis due to my having a
built-in rest spot for my right arm! I'm able to pick from the elbow
much more steadily now. I always had trouble with that before.
I like the guitar a lot as is, but am thinking that, perhaps I shoudl
try and improve the tone by putting in a seymour duncan '59 pickup in
the neck. The only archtop that I liked a lot that I tried in the
store was one at my local sam ash, a gibson es-175 that cost close to
$3000. It has PAFs in it (I believe), and I like that tone a lot. I'm
handy with a soldering iron, so I may try this. If anyone has any
thoughts concerning that, please let me know.
One thing I don't like about the guitar when I received it - the
previous owner said it was played less than an hour, and after
inspecting it over the past week I'd say he probably wasn't lying
about that as there isn't a scratch on it anywhere. However, the
rosewood fretboard looks like it is kind of dried out in a couple of
small spots at the higher frets. I'll look on the web for some type of
fretboard conditioner or something. They aren't damaged, just dry
looking. Wierd. I didn't know that a fretboard could do that, as my
only other guitar I've played for years has a maple fretboard.
All in all, it's a great guitar for the price. I'm very happy with it.
I would have never risked buying an archtop off ebay since I couldn't
play it, and I'm sure there are plenty of clunker dearmond's being
sold since it is a budget guitar, but I took the risk and I think this
one is a keeper.
That said, now that I know I enjoy the feel and of course sound of an
archtop, I do think I'm going to save some money and later this year
when the great american guitar show comes around my way again (Philly)
I'll see if there are any used archtops I like.
recommendations. I think I've found a winner here, and thought the
info could be of use to others.
I've wanted an archtop since January, when I decided to give up the
blues and learn jazz. It's been real slow going, but I'm making steady
progress. But back to the topic at hand.... I waited until recently to
purchase an archtop, mostly because I wanted to make sure that I stuck
with the practice regimen that jazz is requiring of me. About a month
ago I decided it was time to get one, so I started looking around.
Unfortunately, this was not a pleasant experience. Nothing under $1000
locally was available, and I went to every music store I could find in
the area. As many people have probably found out, trying to locate a
used quality archtop for that price or less is kind of hard unless
you're willing to do mail-order. After reading a lot of reviews of
archtops from the usual sources, I decided to bite the bullet and try
ebay when I saw that a natural finish, mint X-145 came up for sale. I
think I overpaid for it ($360, especially considering these things
were blown out, as many of you know, for $249 just a couple of years
ago when Fender bought DeArmond). But considering that legato guitars
is/was selling a squire x-155 for almost $800, I figured what the
heck. I also worried that the X-145, which does not have the DeArmond
Goldtone pickups which are supposed to be better for jazz but instead
has 2 DeArmond Dearmitron pickups. The Dearmotrons I think were made
for more of a twangy style. I figured for the price what the heck. My
other option was to spend a couple hundred more on an Epi archtop, but
I wasn't thrilled with the few I was able to try.
First off, when I first got the guitar I immediately put size 12
Labella flatwound strings on it. I had never tried flatwounds before,
but I figured that would give me a more suitable jazz tone. Boy, was I
wrong. On this guitar, it absolutely ruined the tone. I still can't
get over how bad those strings sounded on this guitar. I'm just not
cut out for flatwound strings I guess. After 4 days of struggling with
those, I took em off and put on Tomastik BeBop strings, and
immediately this improved the tone drastically. It took a few days for
the strings to fully stretch (no buzziness about them, and much
warmer). Now I love the tone of the guitar. And acoustically, it is
quite loud. In fact, I usually don't play it through my amp. I tried
the Epi archtops and none of them gave any decent volume when not
plugged in. The guitar has some rough spots - for example, the f-hole
binding is sloppy, and the knobs are really cheap and cheesy looking
(but those I'll replace with a $10 set of replacement knobs). The more
I play the guitar, the more I love it. It stays in tune very well, and
probably what is most surpising to me is that, although it is a pretty
"deep" archtop (about 3 and 1/4" body depth), it only took a couple of
days to get used to playing it (I've been playing a Telecaster for the
past 7 years!). In fact, it has really helped my right-hand technique,
as my picking arm is on more of a fixed axis due to my having a
built-in rest spot for my right arm! I'm able to pick from the elbow
much more steadily now. I always had trouble with that before.
I like the guitar a lot as is, but am thinking that, perhaps I shoudl
try and improve the tone by putting in a seymour duncan '59 pickup in
the neck. The only archtop that I liked a lot that I tried in the
store was one at my local sam ash, a gibson es-175 that cost close to
$3000. It has PAFs in it (I believe), and I like that tone a lot. I'm
handy with a soldering iron, so I may try this. If anyone has any
thoughts concerning that, please let me know.
One thing I don't like about the guitar when I received it - the
previous owner said it was played less than an hour, and after
inspecting it over the past week I'd say he probably wasn't lying
about that as there isn't a scratch on it anywhere. However, the
rosewood fretboard looks like it is kind of dried out in a couple of
small spots at the higher frets. I'll look on the web for some type of
fretboard conditioner or something. They aren't damaged, just dry
looking. Wierd. I didn't know that a fretboard could do that, as my
only other guitar I've played for years has a maple fretboard.
All in all, it's a great guitar for the price. I'm very happy with it.
I would have never risked buying an archtop off ebay since I couldn't
play it, and I'm sure there are plenty of clunker dearmond's being
sold since it is a budget guitar, but I took the risk and I think this
one is a keeper.
That said, now that I know I enjoy the feel and of course sound of an
archtop, I do think I'm going to save some money and later this year
when the great american guitar show comes around my way again (Philly)
I'll see if there are any used archtops I like.