Solid-wood, hand-crafted, jazz guitars usually cost a lot of money. Upwards of $10,000 or more for some of them. With the Eastman Strings line of handcrafted archtops, you get solid wood, hand built quality for under $2,500.
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The Eastman Strings company, known for its high quality violins at great prices, has now entered the archtop guitar market with several models. These hand-made, produced-in-China guitars use 100 percent solid woods ù solid spruce tops and solid flame maple bodies. And they cost an amazing $2,000-$3,000, depending on on model.
Features
Gordon Roberts,Eastman StringsÆ marketing manager, sent me one of the early Uptown AR810 electric cutaway models, retail priced at $2,495 with a hardshell case. The guitar looks similar to a Benedetto ù with single cutaway and ebony pick guard with single floating pickup. The bound, three-inch thick, 17-inch wide body is made from solid flame maple, and the solid spruce top contains the classic F-holes complete with ivoroid plastic binding. The single cutaway makes for easy access to the upper frets.
The 25.5-inch scale neck, with 14 frets clear of the body, has an ebony fretboard with medium-low frets. The attractive, rather large, traditional headstock terminates the three-piece maple neck. The Eastman line of guitars all have 17-degree, angled headstocks, which enhances projection and sustain.
I should mention that the version I obtained from Eastman Strings had a thicker neck and felt fuller than the newer ones I played at the recent Winter NAMM show. The newer ones feel more like a classic Gibson. The nut width measures 1 11/16th. The made-in-Korea Jinho tuners have the classic, flared, metal tuning knobs. Very cool indeed. The adjustable truss rod is accessed from the headstock.
Eastman Strings pulled out one of its own violin-manufacturing techniques for the guitar finish. Instead of numerous coats of lacquer, the Uptown can be purchased with a hand-applied, violin varnish, which gives the wood a minimal protective coats, but enhances the woodÆs tone. Eastman Stringsalso offers a nitrocellulose lacquer option as well, which is applied in thinner coats to minimize acoustic dampening
Although many overseas archtop guitars are often thickly coated with lacquers and finishes, the violin varnish Uptown has a nice, attractive minimalist look that I find appealing.
Electronics are simple. The Kent Armstrong mini-humbucker floating pickup is mounted to the ebony pick guard, near the neck as with most single pick-up jazz guitars. The wires run under the pick guard into the bottom f-hole and then to the metal jack end-pin. The only control is the the pick guard-mounted, thumbwheel volume control.
The floating ebony floating bridge routes the strings to the nicely unobtrusive gold painted tail piece. Inside the body, the hand work looked good with cedar kerfing finely glued and placed without excessive glue run-off.
The audition
I first listened to the AR810 acoustically. With .013-.56 roundwound electric strings, the unplugged sound revealed a taut bass with a prominent midrange and smooth treble. (Put on some bronze wounds acoustic strings, raise the action and this guitar gets gets pretty loud).
The girth of the neck took some getting used to, but any model purchased today the neck is not quite as balky so my comments are kind of moot. The fret work was good ù with no buzzes ù and the notes resonated nicely without dying too quickly, which is the case with many laminated guitars.
When playing acoustically, the bass was not as full as other archtops I have tried. However, the guitar was brand new, out of the box. Over several months, the bass began to increase. Noted Washington, D.C. luthier and guitar builder Mike Dove, who set-up the early Eastmans, said the bass will not reach maximum for a couple of years, which is the case for almost any solid wood guitar.
Although some serious jazz players may be skeptical of a Chinese-made, archtop guitar for actual gigging or recording, they need not worry. Plugged into an amp, the AR810 nails that tried-and-true archtop sound. To get an objective read on the plugged-in sound, I used a Fender 1965 Twin Reverb reissue, miking it with a high-dollar pair of studio condenser microphones. The signal was recorded with a 24-bit professional recorder.
The recording revealed a very vintage, warm tone with good sustain. Picked notes had that just right, sweet Wes Montgomery sound. Jazz chords, and even more standard chords, also had that air of archtop fullness that you donÆt get from an electric solid body. The lack of acoustic bass did not matter when amplified. (In fact. too much bass, only increases feedback).
During the evaluation period, I kept theguitar pickup volume wide open to get the right level and tone. Turn it down too much, the high-end rolls off and the level drops.
How about feedback? I did notice that when playing in front of the amp at a decent level, the Eastman Uptown will feedback easily. But a lot of archtops feedback. This one did not feedback any easier than my custom shop Gibson L5CES. Jazz guys know the nuance of playing and amp positioning to prevent too much feedback.
I did not have any major criticism of the Uptown guitar. My test instrument had a few rough spots on the binding (but it was only one step from a prototype. Recent production models I have seen look good.) A hotter pickup or adjustable pole pieces in the pickup would be nice to get a bit more level if a player wants to raise the action.
