You can already find lists of jazz guitars under $1,000, and one of them admits that you don't need a hollowbody to play jazz. The Gearnews buyer's guide notes that Telecasters and Jazzmasters turn up on jazz stages. Before you buy anything, test how much warm, round tone your current guitar can already deliver.
The guide (source) says a beginner jazz guitar needs a warm neck pickup, a body that stays controllable at home volume, and a neck that handles chord changes. This exercise turns that into a repeatable test. Change one lever at a time, level-match every take, and let your ears decide.
What the levers are (and what they are not)
The Gearnews guide calls the body the biggest part of a jazz guitar's sound, after the player's fingers. A hollowbody gives the most acoustic character, but it is also more prone to feedback on stage. A solid-body may not replace that character, and the test below shows how much of it you miss.
The guide also names levers you already control:
- Neck pickup: It describes this as the warm pickup.
- Tone control: The Squier Classic Vibe '60s Jazzmaster has a rhythm circuit that switches on the neck pickup alone, with its own volume and tone thumbwheels. Gearnews says this gives you a preset for darker sounds.
- Flatwound strings: The Gretsch G2420 ships with roundwound .010-.046 strings, and Gearnews suggests flatwounds for a jazzier sound.
- Humbucker vs. P-90: Humbuckers sound rounder and generate less hum. P-90s have more bite and attack but pick up more noise.
The guide does not measure any of this, so it gives no numbers on how close a solid-body gets. That is why you run the test yourself.
Step-by-step: the level-matched A/B exercise
Gearnews names the levers but not the settings. The values below are starting points, so adjust them by ear.
Starting settings
| Stage | Setting | |---|---| | Guitar pickup | Neck pickup only | | Guitar tone knob | Rolled to roughly 3-4 | | Strings | Your current set first, flatwounds in variants E and F | | Amp sim | Clean model, gain at zero, no drive pedal in front | | EQ low-cut | High-pass near 80 Hz | | EQ high-cut | Low-pass around 3-5 kHz, start near 4 kHz | | Compressor | Gentle, low ratio, a few dB of gain reduction at most | | Reverb | Short room, low mix |
The procedure
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Write the test part. Pick one 8-bar chord progression and use it for every take. A ii-V-I turnaround in a comfortable key is one suggestion. Play it at one tempo with a click, using the same voicings and picking-hand approach each time.
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Set up the session. Create one track per variant. Record the clean guitar signal (DI) alongside the amp sim output so you can re-process any take later. Keep input gain identical across takes and avoid clipping.
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Record variant A, the baseline. Play your guitar as you normally do: default pickup selection, tone knob fully open, current strings, clean amp sim. Add no EQ, compression or reverb.
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Record variant B, neck pickup. Switch to the neck pickup only. Change nothing else.
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Record variant C, tone rolled off. Keep the neck pickup and turn the tone knob to roughly 3-4. If you can reach both a humbucker guitar and a P-90 guitar, record each as its own variant. That lets you hear the round-versus-bite difference the Gearnews guide describes.
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Record variant D, the DAW chain. Take variant C and add the chain from the table: low-cut near 80 Hz, high-cut around 3-5 kHz, gentle compression, short room reverb. Process the same take from step 5 instead of playing it again, so only the chain changes.
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Restring, then record variants E and F. Fit a set of flatwound strings, let them settle, and retune. Repeat the neck pickup and tone 3-4 settings and record the result dry as variant E. Then add the same chain as variant F. Restring last because it is the one change that is awkward to undo.
Level-match before you listen
Louder usually sounds better, and that bias will wreck your test. Before listening, match every variant to within about 0.5 dB using your DAW's loudness or RMS meter over the full 8 bars. Lower the louder takes with clip gain or a trim plugin. Don't push the quieter ones into clipping. For more on this, see related: how to test ai mixing advice in your daw, level-matched.
Then compare blind. Rename the tracks to letters and shuffle their order, or ask a friend to do it. Listen without looking at the names, note your ranking, then reveal.
What to listen for
Listen for the same four things in every variant, and write a short note per take. See full coverage of how to design a uk hardcore reese bass (daw guide) for additional background.
Warmth. Does the tone feel round and soft, or thin and glassy? The neck pickup and tone knob both aim at this, so compare A, B and C closely.
Pick attack. How sharp is the front edge of each chord? According to the Gearnews guide, a P-90 should have more bite than a humbucker. The high-cut and the compressor can both soften the attack further.
Note decay. Hold the last chord and listen to how it fades. Does it ring, die quickly, or bloom? A guitar's body may show itself here, but treat that as a hypothesis to test, not a promise.
Low-mid mud. Rolling off the tone and cutting highs can pile up energy in the low mids. If chords turn cloudy, raise the low-cut slightly or dip the muddy region in the EQ. Re-check the level match afterward.
Keep the notes honest. If you can't tell two takes apart blind, that is a result.
Also read: see finalist 2 pricing: credits vs monthly vs lifetime plan
Decision rule: strings and EQ, or a hollowbody?
Work from your blind-test notes.
Keep your guitar and change strings or EQ if:
- Variants C through F sound clearly warmer than A, and your favorite take is one you would happily use on a recording.
- Your complaints are about brightness, mud or harsh attack, which the tone knob, flatwounds and EQ addressed.
- You accept the Gearnews point that Telecasters and Jazzmasters appear on jazz stages and that jazz works on solid-body guitars.
Shop for a hollowbody if:
- You still hear a gap in note decay or acoustic-like resonance after you have used every lever.
- You want archtop character when playing unplugged.
- Your current guitar's neck makes chord changes a struggle. Gearnews lists a neck that handles chord changes as a core need.
Weigh the trade-off before you buy. According to the guide, a full hollowbody resonates more and feeds back earlier. A semi-hollow has a center block, which reduces feedback and gives a tighter sound, so it sits between hollow and solid bodies.
If you do shop, the Gearnews guide covers six options. They range from the Harley Benton Manhattan-Standard, which it calls the cheapest full hollowbody archtop on its list, to the Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin with a single neck P-90. Check current prices yourself.
What to do next
Save your best blind-test settings as a DAW template, and repeat the test after any restring. Revisit the hollowbody question only when your notes keep pointing to the same missing piece.
