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This particular page was created 12/11/2005 and last updated 13/11/2005
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| | (This is a work in progress and a few parts are still missing. Please come back in an hour or two) New tenor guitars used to be impossible to find, but recently things have changed and today a number of manufacturers produce these instruments. This is an attempt to list all models available today. If you know of any items missing from the list, please contact me at frnordbe@online.no.
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CategoriesTo keep things organised I have split the tenor guitar buyer's guide into different categories based on instrument type and price range:
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Similar instrumentsThere are a number of instruments similar to the tenor guitar listed in separate categories here or at online-guitarist's sister sites irish-banjo.com and mandolin-player.com:
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Choosing the right instrumentAll the instruments listed here are of decent quality and well worth their respective price tags. They may however be very different in style and it may be a good idea to think a bit about exactly what kind of instrument you want:- Archtop, flattop and resonator
- Flattop guitars are the kind of guitar common today, while archtops and resonator guitar are rather rare these days. Without going too much into details (you can [link]read more about it here
if you want to):- Flattops tend to have a softer tone with more bass and treble.
- Arhctops tend to have a louder tone with more focus on the midrange.
- [link]Resonator guitars have a bit of the same qualities as archtops (perhaps with even more power) and also that unique "honky" tone many blues and country musicians love.
Acoustic, electric and electroacoustic guitarsTo put it simply:- An acoustic guitar is intended to be played as it is with no amplification.
- An electric guitar is mainly intended to be played amplified with an "electric sound" and usually have little or no acoustic tone.
- An electroacoustic guitar has a pickup system that attempts to recreate the sound of an acoustic as closely as possible. It may or may not have a fully acoustic tone in itself.
MaterialsThe most important part here is the top.- A laminate top consists of three thin layers of wood glued together. This makes it considerably stronger and also cheaper to manufacture (since the material quality is less critical). It can never give the richness and volume of a solid wood top's tone though.
- An assymetric laminate top is also made from three layers but with an important twist: the middle layer is considerably thicker than the others and provides most of the top's tone. The outer and inner layers are extremely thin and only there for looks and strength respectively. The result is in every way somewhere in between regular laminate and solid wood.
- A solid wood top usually provide a much better sound than any kind of laminate can, but the quality of the wood and how it's been treated is important here. Manufacturers from the Asian mainland usually use rather cheap wood that's not been properly dried and often covered with a thick layer of tone-killing laquer. As a result they're rarely better and often worse than assymetric laminate.
Scale length[skriv]
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Ebay and second hand instrumentsThere are currently two Ebay sellers who regularly offer new tenor guitars. One is Soares'y and the other is a Lark In The Morning retailer. Generally the offers at Ebay are neither better than worse than what you can get elsewhere.[Skirv om brukte instrumenter på Ebay og ellers]
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More tenor guitar information[skriv]
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