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Recently I finished my acoustic telecaster. An archtop with maple back&sides, sitka spruce top and rosewood one-piece neck. It plays great, as in: like a telecaster. With the combination of a Fishman Acoustic Matrix saddle pick-up and a stacked humbucker neck pick-up I can plug into a tube-amp for electrical sounds or to a PA-system for a clear acoustic sound.

Till now I'm satisfied with the concept of an acoustic archtop telecaster, and I want to make it again. But better. Being the first guitar I ever made, I'm sure the next one will be better. But I have two question in the design.

First: the Fishman piezo sounds great, but without amplification the guitar misses sustain in the bass sounds. The body of the guitar is only one centimeter (on all sides) bigger than an original telecaster body and only 65 mm inches deep at the sides. Is it possible to add more bass to the guitar (unamplified), but without a full size acoustic body?

Second: the pickups. Now the active piezo pickup and the passive magnetic humbucker go to seperate outputs and seperate amps. Is it possible to blend these signals on board?

Tips&advice, very welcome.



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1995825/Acoustic%20Tele/IMG_3085.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1995825/Acoustic%20Tele/IMG_3087.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1995825/Acoustic%20Tele/IMG_3091.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1995825/Acoustic%20Tele/IMG_3093.JPG

No answers to your questions, but I gotta say that is a cool guitar.
Well done!

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

@Chris:

At first I made the neckblock quite heavy, because I wanted the humbucker to be attached to the neck-block (and not to the top) to avoid feedback. Later on I dropped that idea and attached it to the top. In the picture you see the 'big' neck-block. Before 'closing' the body I made it a lot smaller, but I haven't got a picture of it.

So, the initial huge version of the neckblock:



Other pics:

Bookmatched maple:


Routing the back before carving:


Homemade thickness meter:


Back and top finished:


Bending sides:


Bracing sides:


More inside stuff:


Finishing top:


Routerthing for binding:


Binding (maple-wenge-maple):


Etc. etc. All probably not the way profs do. But it all worked pretty well.

Erik

I dig the photography, and the guitar. And yes you most certainly can blend the signal. I assume you are using two chords, one for each amp? I see a bunch of switches but no pots on the guitar. You would need a pot or two in there wired to blend the signal. I'm thinking that each pickup would go to the outter lugs of a pot with the center lug out to the jack. There's definitely a way to do it.

Ass for the bass response, the box is small so you aren't gonna get much bass. Also if the top is too stiff that would reduce bass response. But it's mostly meant to be plugged in right?

@Todd: Thanks. I'll look into these two options. I've tried to find a way to blend the signals with Fishman Powerchip, but that chip is not compatible with the Fishman Matrix, weird enough. Your tip might help.

Erik

Yes. The humbucker is standard wired, with two pots for volume/tone and a switch to split (single coil). (Two of the three 'switches' you see, are actualy pots, but wihout the knobs). The piezo goes straight to the Power Jack in the guitar. Blending the signal gives a big hum, so I need to 'buffer' the active signal to prevent is from influencing the magnetic signal. Preamps do that, but I'm not that good in electronics, and not everypreamp is compatible with every pick-up.

Erik