Description
This A1MASA Archtop guitar could be considered a lifetime milestone. Literally, I have always dreamed about owning a great archtop. As an apprentice luthier, my teacher had a Gibson L5 AND a Model 0! Likewise, we worked on all sorts of instruments such as ukes, ouds, bazoukis and plenty of violins. Also, we were a Gibson warranty center. Thus, I have Gibson roots (not Martin).
One day, a guy bought a brand new Cherry Sunburst L5S into the shop for a set up. Arguably, the sound was a little tight but that instrument was beyond beautiful!
That L5S is the inspiration for the fiery cherry sunburst finish on this A1MASA archtop. However, I’ve learned a lot since those days and I applied all of it.
Obviously, I chose some outrageously figured maple for a super cool jazz guitar. Also, I used some tight grained Sitka spruce and a maple neck as a great foundation for strength and resonance. Specifically, the strength part is important because I carved the top and back to minimum thickness based on some dogged research. That makes a wonderful baseline to build on with all the stellar features.
The first of which is sound…
While this guitar has a fine sound unplugged, it was intended to use in an orchestra. Furthermore, I try to build guitars that can do anything. That is why I used a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup. Guitar players consider it a rock and roll pickup because it is a copy of one that is in Billy Gibbon’s Les Paul. However, if you back the volume and tone off, you get a great jazz guitar sound. Notably, you can get lots of different sounds just by tweaking the controls. In other words, you could play your church gig in the morning. Then, a Latin jazz matinee followed by a rock show and close the night in a jazz trio using the same guitar!
A1MAS Features:
- Highly figured Master Grade AAAA Maple back and sides
- Tight grained Master Grade AAAA Sitka Spruce
- 2 piece maple high modulus carbon fiber reinforced neck
- Flamed maple binding with mother of pearl top purfling
- Bound ebony fingerboard and peghead veneer
- Gibson style trapezoid mother of pearl fret markers
- Gold standard Gotoh tuners
- Dunlop 6105 frets
- Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbucking pickup
- Hidden volume and tone controls
- Comes with tweed hardshell case
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