Cheap Electric for a Gypsy Jazz Player?

aidan_s

Hi all,

I'm mostly a gypsy jazz player but after a cheap electric to achieve two things:

1. A quiet practice instrument (for playing manouche style but late at night etc)
2. An electric I can take along to a blues or straight-ahead jam if the mood takes me

Key thing is in both scenarios I want to keep my technique as consistent as possible with how I play on a selmac (broken wrist, rest stoke etc). My budget would be around $600 but curious if this might be an interesting broader discussion as I imagine others might be after the same thing at different price points - found past posts on quiet practice guitars (eg yamaha silent) but of course that doesn't double well as your only electric..

I've thought of picking up one of the Ibanez hollowbodies - they're nice guitars for the money and have closer to correct dimensions for the technique than a solid/semi-hollow, but stock they're quite bloomy and have a bit of a 'delicate' feel to them that doesn't encourage digging in. Not sure if putting a set of thick rounds on one/pumping up the action/lowering the pickups might achieve something with a bit more bark/snap & that you can hit a bit harder, but worried it might still turn out a bit too loud acoustically for late-night apartment playing. Anyone found a good solution?

Cheers!

wim

My 2 cents on this- keeping the technique consistent just doesn't work. Unfortunately. It is difficult (at least for me) to use GJ technique without feeling like a bull in a china shop, and the sound isn't good. Significant adjustment of right hand technique is necessary when playing on electric. The scale length and the distance between strings is also problematic, and throws off muscle memory.

It is less about the broken wrist and rest stroke patterns, which still work to some degree, the main problem is the string tension. The electric strings don't "push back" hard enough, something about the lack of bounce back means a much lighter touch is required.

Joonas

I have one of those Ibanez hollowbodies. One of the more "expensive" out of the Artcore series. I am disappointed about that guitar. It has several problems but the biggest problem of all is that the neck is warped. That's something that can't be fixed. It is also very choosey about strings and they have to be thick. Acoustically it sounds dead, although that's probably something to be expected. Maybe I just got a lemon but it is what it is. Some kid would probably be really happy with that guitar but my Harley Benton Flying V (which I sold before buying the Ibanez) was actually a much better guitar, albeit it was a solidbody of course.

MikeK

Hi Aidan

This is a recurring topic that comes up on the forum from time to time. I played only archtops for several years on my gypsy jazz gigs in Asheville NC (I play around 140/year) and had a great time doing that. But alas, I settled back in to only playing GJ guitars a couple of years ago. (Mainly for the things Wim said and for the fact that I cant replicate the percussive nature of comping on a GJ guitar on an archtop, no matter how nice or expensive it may be). If you're interested in an inexpensive quality archtop, I have an Epiphone Zephyr Regent for sale for $725 (+ $150 for shipping). PM me if you want more details, or just type in the guitar in the search engine here & you'll see my post for it from last year. I even had my luthier move the fretboard dot to the 10th fret, like a GJ guitar. As you probably know, Django played archtops in the final years of his life, so it must be ok, right?!