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Here's an interesting set of photos (taken with some kind of special camera) of the insides of various flat top acoustic guitars. Interesting to see the different bracing patterns....

A Gallery of X-Bracing

All X-Bracing patterns really have evolved from the classic pattern that Martin devised after they moved from gut to steel string guitars. In general Martin have been hugely influential as regards the design of steel-string, flat-top acoustic guitars.

So here is an article with pictures of Martin's X-bracing and some of their own variations on that theme.

And speaking of violins, are archtop acoustics supported the same way?  That seemed to be the big rivalry between Gibson and Martin, right?  Martin made a steel-string guitar designed like a gut-string - but with different support to handle the increased pressure of steel-strings.  Orville Gibson, master mandolin maker, made his guitars like violins.  I wonder how they handle that pressure?

Some googling has revealed that arch tops are braced. Indeed there are different bracing schemes. Gibson, since Lloyd Loar's days at the company anyway, use parallel braces with the braces running parallel to the strings in the area between the f-holes. D'Angelico used x-bracing. The bracing is still necessary to counteract the tension of steel strings, but it is a lot lighter than it is with a flat top.

Though I do wonder how they cope with the strain of the strings pulling on the tailpiece. On the Smoothtalker it's easy because the rim is about 3/4 inch thick. I guess they must have some kind of block re-inforcing the tail.

The braced top I can understand. These guitars are built to take big ass steel strings - we're not talking 9s or 10s here. So some bracing is still necessary - but not as much as on a flat top. And you will note that the style of bracing does effect the sound. Also the layout of the guitars effects the bracing. Before Loar Gibson arch tops had a central sound hole and so X-bracing was forced upon them. Loar got them to produce arch tops with 2 f-holes. That allowed parallel bracing - which in turn gives more volume and more tops.

 
No. And the Smoothtalker doesn't count. George Gruhn said that there are generally 4 categories of acoustic guitars: Flat tops, arch tops, resonators and classical, but the Smoothtalker goes into a 5th category - "none of the above".


I am lead to believe that in quite a few cases Gibson arch tops with factory fitted pickups are made with laminated tops which
a) are cheaper
b) are more feedback resistant than a solid top
c) don't sound good

Early Gibson arch-tops where there was an OPTION for a pickup apparently sound great unplugged and even if they have pickups fitted.

I wouldn't make generalisations about "arch tops". Clearly there are lots of variables - always a good thing because it means there's a greater variety of tone.

For me we're in a golden age of flat top guitars right now because there are so many variations in body style, bracing patterns etc that give different guitars different voices. Larrivee, for example, use a variation on the Martin X-bracing. The tone bars between the rear legs of the X are parallel to the bridge rather than sloping. This gives them a different character from Martins, Gibsons, Taylors... Even their dreadnoughts have a different character to Martin, Collings etc...

It's a great time to be a flat top guitarist.