Scharpach Archtop Guitar

The Archtop (the Vienna):
Scharpach is proud to build a guitar as desirable and exciting as the Vienna Archtop. They are just as proud of the people who play them. The Vienna is built for the most passionate guitar lovers.

Scharpach believes that design details should enhance the beauty and the basic shape of the guitar. You can see that all proportions are perfectly balanced, a dynamic powerful elegance. Yet this is done without any overt features that would distract the eye. The architectural purity of the design gives the guitar a clean shape that represents the essence of the sound.

The guitar is made using an approach of craftsmanship similar to what has been utilized for hundreds of years by fine violin and cello makers. In particular, Scharpach is using acoustical design principles and starting points which are similar to Stradivarius for his top carving, while adapting those to guitar acoustics. Stradivarius had quite a different approach than those of other great makers of that time.

A separate, but equally interesting issue is the open headstock, which is not common to Archtops, featuring countersunk machine heads. Scharpach wanted to have the string rollers run horizontal for perfect tuning and harmonic balance of design. This idea sounds logical but is far from simple to construct. It uses a new design for the machines and also requires some new construction methods in order to achieve an aesthetic fitting of the machines to the headstock. The result is truly exceptional and original. And these extraordinary machines tune like no others!

The plate that covers the machine is hand-engraved and can be silver or gold plated.

The Vienna Sunset:
Just over 15 years ago, Theo Scharpach started to use tops he had bought from the widow of A. Lang, who was a well-known German guitar maker living in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany, and passed away in 1975.

Although some of the topwood may have minor visual flaws, it is acoustically far superior to most. The roughly pre-cut tops sound like a bell. It is estimated that they had been stored to dry in the workshop of Lang for more the 40 years. The wood itself would therefore surely be more than 250 years old. At the time Lang bought his wood, the supply of high quality wood was no problem.

The tailpiece is cut from a solid block of a specially selected brass, and is not cast. This method, although considerably more time consuming and labor intensive, creates a superior quality piece. It takes about 8-10 hours for each part of the tailpiece to be cut, after which it is hand-polished. It is then is heavily gold-plated using fine jeweler's techniques as opposed to industrial plating. The tailpiece also features an engraved bird which symbols the "S" in Scharpach.

The guitar has a powerful and well-balanced acoustic sound and is very easy to play. It produces just enough bass and strong fat punchy trebles, still with rich harmonics. The guitar does not have the midrange-emphasised sound that sometimes is typical for Archtops, nevertheless is still cuts through.

New for 2008, Scharpach Guitars is offering their crown jewel, the Vienna Sunset Archtop, in several new finishes. The 2008 line-up of finishes is as follows: Vienna Sunset: A custom sunburst Vienna. Golden: No shades but a beautiful mellow golden yellow. Vienna Golden Shade: Golden yellow with orange running into brown shades. Vienna Traditional Brown:inspired by the many beautiful brown colors used by the Violinmakers of Cremona. Natural Blonde: Simply a natural blond with the slightest tint.

The Vienna Sunset is priced from $21,000, excluding shipping, taxes and any import or export duty.

Specs:

MP3 Soundclips:

Vienna Sunset acoustic with Elixer bronze strings:

1. clip 1 (676 Kb)
2. clip 2 (654 Kb)
3. clip 3 (497 Kb)
4. clip 4 (948 Kb)

Track 1 and 2 are fully acoustic recordings of the guitar strung with Bronze strings (Elixer), and are only recorded with a microphone. Track 1 is played with a pick and 2 only with fingers.

During the recordings of track 3 and 4 the Vienna is strung with D'Aquisto flatwounds. Both recordings are made using the Scharpach Humbucker amplified with "acoustic image." The recordings are made by placing a microphone in front of a 12" cabinet.

The more wooden sound of the third track appears by putting the mic in-between the guitar and the 12"cabinet for adding a bit more of the acoustics of the guitar.

Track 3 is played by Maarten van der Grinten and track 4 is played by Jesse van Ruller.

The machines are protected by gold plated covers which are also cut from one solid piece of brass. The engraving is styled in art deco/ nouveau designed by Theo Scharpach. The plates cover custom machines that are also designed by Theo. He did not find one machine maker world wide who understood his wishes, so he had to design and produce them himself. The stringrollers narrow down in the middle to keep the string in position and each is sized differently to fit elegantly into the varying size of the headstock slot.

The finger rest is made of solid ebony and is resting on the humbucker and is only fixed with one screw. The floating humbucker itself connects without any screw to the neck. The housing of the humbucker is designed by Scharpach as well as the custom poles and the wiring of the coils. The housing is cut out of one massive block of custom material.

The new tailpiece is cut from a solid block of a specially selected brass, and is not cast. This method, although considerably more time consuming and labor intensive, creates a superior quality piece. It takes about 8-10 hours for each part of the tailpiece to be cut, after which it is hand-polished. It is then is heavily gold-plated using fine jeweler's techniques as opposed to industrial plating.

Scharpach uses only wooden purflings and the finest German Riegelahorn (tiger striped maple). You can notice this also in the F-hole. The f-hole is designed according to the calculation method and principles used by the Cremona makers.

The tailpiece also features an engraved bird which presents the "S" in Scharpach.

The inlay is designed by Theo Scharpach and cut by Paul Bordeaux. The style of the inlay in the fingerboard shows the tree of nature and is an Art Nouveau inspired design of ornaments. This kind of inlay follows Scharpach's wish to have his archtops present a strong traditional appearance. A modern style of inlay might harm this. The inlay parts of the tree that are wider are pointing out the positions of the frets: 1-3-5-7-9 etc., with accents on the first fret position, the twelfth and the end of the fingerboard.