Talk:Semi-acoustic guitar

Hybrid Guitar

I thought the correct name was a Hybrid Guitar. Because its electric and acoustic. Zora72 16:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

@Zora72: A hybrid guitar has both piezoelectric and magnetic pickups, while a semi-acoustic guitar only has magnetic pickups. Adding a piezoelectric pickup to a semi-acoustic guitar will automatically make it a hybrid, I think. You could say that a hybrid guitar combines acoustic-electric guitar and semi-acoustic guitar, but only if it has a hollow body or semi-hollow body, and some hybrid guitars have solid bodies, while semi-acoustic guitars always have hollow or semi-hollow bodies. - WorldQuestioneer (talk) 01:31, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Anybody know about this? Is it any different then an acoustic-electric? Friday (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

An acoustic guitar uses its body to amplify the feeble sound produced by the strings alone. An electrical guitar uses coils in its pick-ups to do the same (it does not have an empty body). The semi-acoustic guitar has pick-ups similar to an electrical guitar (the very same, sometimes, depending on the guitar), but also has an empty body, which produces a different sound (a "rounder" sound, whatever this means ;) ).

A Google search will give out [1], for instance, where you can see typical examples. The Emperor, featured on the image previously on this article, is another example, with a wider body and a single cut-away. Rama 16:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Really? I've never heard of this called a semi-acoustic. I would call that a hollow-body electric, which is a type of electric, not a type of acoustic. The description in this articl of it being a classical with steel strings is wrong then, is it not? Friday (talk) 16:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this is a difference in dialect. In the United States, we call these things hollow-body electrics, but it sure looks like that's exactly what they mean by "semi-acoustic", from the link you posted. I'll try to fix up the article a bit. Thanks for the response. Friday (talk) 16:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, "classical with a micro" is really wrong, that quasi certain.

I make no mystery that English is not my native language; in French, "guitare semi-acoustique" is without a doubt a hollow-body electric. Now, could it be possible that "semi-accoustic" in English would refer to an electrified version of a steel-string accoustic guitar (like this one) ? That woule be a bit odd, though, because these have typically a larger body than classical guitars, so I'd almost say that they are "most acoustic"... perhaps we should ask on talk:guitar. Rama 16:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Terminology and purpose of this article

I can't really tell what this article is supposed to be about. It seems to be giving kind of a meandering history of amplified guitars and lumping all kinds of instruments under a rubric that's not commonly used. I'm a professional guitarist with a long-time interest in the variations of electric guitars, an instrument collection, and a few reference books, and in my experience "semi-acoustic guitar" is ambiguous and rarely used by knowledgeable people. These are the main terms for the different types of electric guitar that people use:

Hollow-body aka archtop -- Fully hollow guitar (typically with two "f" shaped soundholes, though other configurations exist), typically with one or more electro-magnetic pick-ups. These evolved from purely acoustic guitars, and some models exist both with and without pick-ups. Classic examples are the Gibson ES150, Gibson ES175 and Gibson L5. These guitars produce the characteristic warm "jazz guitar" tone associated with Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, etc. Their resonant properties are also known for causing problematic levels of feedback when amplified.

Solid-body -- the body of the guitar is solid wood rather than hollow, which reduces feedback and makes them more suitable for loud amplication and distortion, but also tends to make the tone brighter and less suitable for the classic jazz guitar tone. They are more commonly used in other genres of music, such as blues, rock, and country. Classic examples are the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul.

Semi-hollow -- a compromise between hollow-body and solid body. The first mass produced design was (is) the Gibson ES335, which is a thin-bodied hollow-body electric that has a rectangular block of wood sandwiched between the top and back running down the center for the full length of the body. This design allows for both the warmth of a fully hollow body and the brightness and feedback resistance of a fully solid body. Though there are other design variants (e.g., solid bodies with chambers cut into them, varying sizes and shapes of center blocks), most semi-hollow electrics on the market are based on the ES335 design. Classic models are the Gibson ES335, 355 and 345; Guild Starfire series; Ibanez John Scofield Model. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psychlist (talk • contribs) 20:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

redirect?

I think this should redirect, probably to Acoustic guitar. Anyone have any objections? Friday (talk) 15:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I do, see above. Rama 16:04, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Now I wonder if this should redirect to Electric guitar. Perhaps that's as good a place as any for discussion of solid versus hollow bodied. Friday (talk) 16:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, where I come from, an acoustic guitar that can be plugged in (usually having peizoelectric pickups) is called an acoustic-electric. But, it's still definitely an acoustic. Friday (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, I just noticed Archtop guitar which also may be relevant. Friday (talk) 16:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Archtop guitar reminds me of something indeed :p Rama 16:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Is this settled? A semi-acoustic guitar is a type of electric guitar, and may also be an acoustic guitar. But IMO it deserves its own article. However, guitar should not be capitalised. Andrewa 01:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I say it should redirect to Archtop guitar. It would certainly be less of a mess 2601:19B:C700:7CA0:348F:7887:1067:6F66 (talk) 02:14, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Merger?

We all know that "Hollow Body", "Semi-Acoustic" and "Electric Acoustic" are common interchangeably-used terms for electric guitars with a sound chamber, and for acoustic guitars with pickups. However, I believe we should draw a fine line here. Hollow Bodies should be restricted to electric guitars originally designed as an electric guitar, but with a sound chamber. Electric Acoustics and Acoustic Electrics are acoustic guitars but designed with a piezoelectric transducer, condensor microphone and/or electro-magnetic pickups. Any other confusions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, I Support the merger, but Electric Acoustic guitars should then be split into an article of its own, and not be classified under Hollow Body or Semi-Acoustic. Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 13:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Semi-acoustic...

I think semi-acoustic guitars are those which have a solid block inside. For example D'Angelico New Yorker, Gibson L5 and the Ibanez GB models etc are acoustic guitars (or hollow body/archtop) and Gibson ES335 and it's copies etc are semi-acoustics. So hollow body = acoustic and semi-hollow = semi-acoustic. But that's only my opinion, I might be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.148.213.76 (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

cleanup time

This page is a muddled mess, largely someone's personal essay, attempting to prove that a jazz guitar (built as an acoustic guitar with carved top and back) is somehow the same as both a chambered-body guitar and a semi-hollow like the Tele Thinline (solid-body with open chamber).

For starters, I am blanking the Examples list, and will remove it unless some credible outside source(s) can be found to validate this mass. From there, I will begin paring back the unfounded opinion and conjecture, and then we shall see if what remains is worthy of continued existence.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 04:29, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Consistent spelling needed

Could someone make a decision in this and other articles (like Gibson ES Series) as to whether you want to spell "hollow body guitar"/"hollow-body guitar" with or without a hyphen? This article spells it both ways.
Bebop (talk) 23:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Removing unnecessary information

I removed the Variations section as it contained too much of a fan's point of view rather than neutral point of view. The information did not have any sources backed up and was overall unecessary. -- Gch07405 (talk) 06:57, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I restored the section, which had 7+ references to WP:RS sources. The wording in the section is fairly neutral. Can you give an example of what you see here as a 'fan's point of view'? Dialectric (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)