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That's quite a pile of words, Michael, but you the most significant issue with
true hollow body electrics for any rock styles is the vibrating top causing
feedback. Surf is generally played louder than rockabilly and feedback is more
easily avoided with the solid body Fenders. Can we all think of very loud
rockabilly bands? Yes. But the stage volume with a doghouse bass has got to be
kept to a reasonable level and the guitar has to follow. Surf bands with a
Fender bass don't have that problem.
What you mention follows in significance. Yes, single coils are gonna come
through the reverb cleaner than humbuckers.
Those are techinical thoughts. I think the biggest reason we play surf with a
solid body Fender is historical. The music was developed that way and therefore
we're accustomed to surf having that Fender Guitar to Fender Reverb to Fender
Amp sound.
-Marty
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael S Springer
To:
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [SurfGuitar101] hollowbody guitars
Since I got back into electrics as an adult about
6 years ago, it's occurred to me that there are guitar
design elements, and signal chain elements that
emphasize things like clarity, punchiness, and string separation,
and there are guitar design elements and signal chain elements
that tend to add a fullness, richness, and complexity to the tone (but
often
at the price of muddiness).
These represent two opposite tonal directions,
there is a certain tension between them,
and they have to be kept in a certain balance.
What constitutes a pleasing balance varies according to personal taste,
but also with the genre or style of music being played.
How does this relate to Surf Music and hollowbodies?
Fender guitars have a <lot> of elements that tend towards
clarity, punchiness, and string separation:
Bolt-on necks, single coil pickups, and often 50's fenders
had maple fingerboards. And since these guitars
were often run through a'60s Fender blackface amp with a sparkly high
end...
you've got a <very> bright sound that emphasizes a note's attack phase,
and you need something to balance it-
I think much of surf music's distinctive sound is because
the main balancer/sweetener for all this punchy treble is
REVERB!
Country electric guitar is tonally similar, and there is a connection
with
surf since Leo Fender was originally designing guitars for guitarists in
C&W bands,
and as far as his roots, wasn't Nokie Edwards a country picker?
But in that genre, they tend to use slap echo to balance the treble
rather
than reverb.
Gibsonoid guitars have a <lot> of elements than tend in the opposite
direction:
humbucker pickups, set necks, often at least partially mahogany bodies-
or <hollowbodies>!
Reverb, echo, delay, and natural acoustic resonance (hollowbodies or
resonance chambers) all tend to extend and flavor a note's decay phase.
Rockabilly guitar is related to surf guitar, and often uses these kind of
guitars,
but with very bright single coil pickups.
While some of these guitars can be very bright, it's
mostly due to the pickups, and I would think that with
rosewood fingerboards, set necks, and hollowbodies, they would sound
muddier at the same reverb settings that would just sound surfi-licious
on a solid body Fender with single coils.
So with less reverb, it might sound less distinctively "surfy".
But maybe some prefer to replace some of that reverb with a little
hollowbody resonance.
Michael
.
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