hey whats up guys, i wanted to throw this question out there and see whats ur guys opinion on this subject since i really don't have any experience with hollow body guitars ...
since i recently joined a jazz big band im trying to decide on what "jazz box" to get, my budget is kinda limited, but its about $1,500.00 my first choice would be like an ibanez pat metheny model but its like double my budget soooo, another guitar i have seen was the epiphone joe pass and maybe pimp it out ... so far i havent decided yet, but i am looking to get bigger hollow body than like per sei, 335 i really thins hollow bodies i just like the tone of bigger boxes than the slim ones so anybody have any opinions that would be awesome thanks ....
IMO, probably the best budget archtop out there right now is the Epiphone ES175 copy.
It won't sound or play as well as a real 175 but it's a *lot* less expensive.
Its pickups are OK, but you might want to replace at least the neck pickup with 57 Classic.
The single pickup Epi Zephyr Regent is also a good bet but may be a bit more prone to feedback.
Except for the number of pickups the Epi 175 and Zephyr Regent are almost the same guitar but I believe the latter has a mahogany neck, even though the online info that Epi put out for many years said it was maple.
Most real 175's have mahogany necks and I think it's an important component of their tone.
The new-ish Ibanez archtop boxes seem to be pretty cool too but I don't have any experience with them personally.
If the band is a trying to peg an idiomatically correct traditional jazz big band sound (ala Basie) then yes a hollow-body archtop guitar is probably the way to go.
Traditionally it would be a bit bigger body than that of the 175's (17" or 18" lower bout, compared to the 175's 16") and you'll probably want to be using relatively heavy roundwound strings (at least .012"-.052") to get the most acoustic volume out of it as well as the most acoustic-sounding tonality from the amplified tone.
I believe that Freddie Green's Super 400 was always mic'd.
But if the band has more of a modern thing going on (e.g. The Boss Brass or later styles) there's no shame in using a solid-body.
Check out Ed Bickert's Tele tone on those Boss Brass records.
But Ed never broke into 4-to-the-bar Freddie Green Style chording.
I play a custom made Tele-style guitar made specifically for jazz in the big band that I play in regularly.
John Macleod's Rex Hotel Orchestra
When and if I do need to approximate a FG thing I sometimes use an old Samick HJ-650, the one with the 17" body.
Not made anymore. They sell for pretty cheap on eBay.
It's only a laminate body but comes pretty close to pegging the Gibson L-5 vibe.
Good luck.
BTW
I owned a single pickup Ibanez PM-100 for a couple of years.
It's the approx 3" wide model with the double cutaway.
I had to sell it because, although it sounded *exactly* like Pat Metheny's guitar which is what I was after at the time, it fed back at volumes that were way too low for any gig I would ever be doing with it.
If it were set up with relatively heavy roundwound strings it probably would have done a good FG style thing, but it would still have a feedback problem.
The thinner PM models don't have the feedback problem, but they won't have the true archtop vibe either for FG-style chording.
