This chamber of air gives a hollow body guitar a much more acoustic-like tonality, but comes with a trade-off. Hollow bodies, as you might expect, are made up of a top, back and sides and are empty inside, much like an acoustic guitar. Semi-hollow body guitars such as Gibson’s ES-335 feature a top, back and sides, but also use a large wooden centre channel to help reduce feedback, giving them a distinctly more solid-type tonality. Solid body guitars, that’s your standard no-holes electric are exactly that - dense pieces of solid wood. The pickups have enough vintage jazz flavour mixed with brightness to lend the M-75 to classic jazz, funk and soul tones, even pushing into rock territory under some moderate gain making this an excellent choice hollowbody away from the pointed stereotypes.įirst, let’s define what a hollow body is, or rather isn’t. The back and sides are mahogany, and thanks to its smaller dimensions and thinner body, it presents a different kind of hollow body guitar that while easier to wield, doesn’t compromise on sound. Unlike many of the guitars here, the M-75 Aristocrat (not to be confused with the chambered, solid body Aristocrat) has the appearance of a solid body singlecut thanks to that virgin spruce top and Franz P90 Soapbar pickups. Revived under the ownership of Cordoba, the brand’s electrics all fall into the Newark St Collection, which recalls the designs Guild was building in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Guild cut its teeth making hollowbody archtop guitars, so you can rest assured that you’re in good hands with its reissue Starfire models. It’s a bit of a wildcard in the pack, offering a lot of tonal variation that you just won’t get without that piezo.
Best of all, there’s two outputs offering a blend of the magnetic/piezo sounds, or you can send them to individual outputs for even greater control. So, not only do you get some excellent magnetic sounds that go beyond spank-a-like rock’n’roll, but the hollow, acoustic properties are present too. It’s not truly totally hollow, as that bridge is mounted to a soundpost that bridges the front and back of the guitar internally, but it’s certainly not a semi-style centre channel. But there’s more, and the clue is in the name because this guitar is also carrying a PRS Piezo Stoptail bridge - mounted to a small feedback-busting sound block which bridges the top and back internally - co-designed with LR Baggs, to give you some very convincing acoustic tones. The pickups are a pair of PRS 58/15 S humbuckers, giving this guitar a warm, vintage electric tone with added richness thanks to the hollow construction that fits right into the PRS wheelhouse of jazz, blues and rock. The PRS SE Hollowbody II Piezo (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)has a lot to offer, particularly if you’re looking beyond old-school jazz sounds or 50s twang, so if versatility an options are key it’s a must-try.įorget retro designs, the PRS Hollowbody II brings the familiar PRS doublecut shape, with a laminate maple top and back (both capped with flamed maple) sandwiching the mahogany sides, and it offers a very different proposition to the rest of the guitars in this selection. The Gretsch Falcon (opens in new tab) will be a ‘one day’ for many, but if you’ve got the readies, it’ll deliver its pedigree right now. Obviously, a hollowbody Gretsch has its own sound, and thanks to a comprehensive range it’s possible to achieve at multiple price points. We’ve done our best to make this list as varied as possible - buying a hollow body shouldn’t mean that you’re tied to one or two examples of the format. In this guide, we’ll be taking a look at the plethora of options on the market, from the smoky, round pluck of a jazz box to the biting rock’n’roll brightness of ’50s-inspired models, but we’ll also be making a stop at funk, Americana, blues, fusion, classic rock and more along the way. Take a look at the options, and it’s clear that the hollowbody sound - of which there’s definitely more than a couple - is still going strong today, but with so many variations on the theme it’s a wide road to navigate when choosing the best hollowbody guitar for you. Sure, it might have come under threat from the convenience and sheer abundance of solid and semi-acoustic electrics, but the hollowbody's massive innards isn’t just home to air, it holds a tonal secret that its construction rivals simply cannot recreate. From the earliest days of the electrified guitar through rock’n’roll, rockabilly, punk, and classic rock, the hollowbody has seen the lot.
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