When it comes to western music, the best hollow body guitar always holds a great place. With the latest comeback of jazz and Americana revivals that are sweeping the nation, the demand for hollow body guitars has increased to a great extent. If you are instigating the process of selecting the right hollow body guitar, you should be aware of certain things. Remember that knowledge is power and so when you keep yourself aware of the fundamental knowledge in selecting the right guitar, you will surely be on the beneficial side. Just go through the models and make your choice:
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Top 10 Best Hollow Body Guitars
 | Gibson Memphis ES-Les Paul |  (5 / 5) | Check Price |
 | D'Angelico EXL102 |  (4.9 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Gretsch G5420T Electromatic Single Cutaway | (4.9 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Guild Starfire V with Guild Vibrato Tailpiece | (4.9 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Godin 5th Avenue CW |  (4.8 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Epiphone WILDKAT Royale | (4.8 / 5) | Check Price |
 | ESP Xtone PS-1 Black Cherry |  (4.7 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Ibanez Artcore AF55 |  (4.6 / 5) | Check Price |
 | Dean BOCA 12 String |  (4.5 / 5) | Check Price |
 | OE30 Oscar Schmidt |  (4.4 / 5) | Check Price |
Gibson Memphis ES-Les Paul
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This lightweight guitar features Les Paul-ES Mashup with low-end tones that are incomparable. The perfect combination of Les Paul and ES-335 in this guitar ensures powerful tones. In addition, the frivolous playing feel is something that any guitar player will low. The historic details, and curved C neck outline adds not just to the attractiveness, but also to the usefulness of this guitar. To ensure excellent durability and smooth tuning, bone nut is a part of this guitar from Gibson. This new guitar from Gibson comes with new and attractive finish colors. Yes, you will find your favorite vintage-style color and if you are not into vintage style, you can choose from the wide color choices offered.
D’Angelico EXL102
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The very design of this hollow body guitar is legendary. This guitar features a floating pickup that is designed with a view to ensuring the best acoustic tone. The guitar has both modern and contemporary designs, thereby making it the best choice for those, who love both. The guitar offers an exceptionally smooth turning radius with its Grover Imperial Super-Rotomatic tuners. This also assures the best tuning accuracy, thereby enabling the user to tune longer. You can be assured of wrist-ache free playing in this guitar for long hours. This is possible because of the slim C-Shape neck. Also, the reinforced signature stairstep tailpiece from D’Angelico ensures the utmost sturdiness and resonance as well. It also ensures comfortable string tension.
Gretsch G5420T Electromatic Single Cutaway
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This guitar is created with the essential playability, style, and sound from Gretsch. The G5420T is not just alive, but it is also resonant. It has a hollow body with a true FilterTron voice that is produced with great clarity and huge punch, apart from strong presence. The premium features of this guitar include black top Filtertron humbucking pickups, oversized Bound F Holes, greatly upgraded controls inclusive of master volume treble-bleed circuit. The guitar has a hollow body with a single cutaway. The body is made out of 5-ply maple and the body shape is Electromatic hollow. The bracing is sound post bracing in this great-looking guitar. This unit has a maple neck with a glossy finish to add to its attractiveness.
Guild Starfire V with Guild Vibrato Tailpiece
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This guitar has a deluxe double cutaway body that is loaded with excellent set of features. The features of this guitar will give fully-expressive voice to the unique playing style of every guitarist. The authentic guild voice produced by this guitar makes it the best choice for roots, blues, rock, and much more. The Starfire V from Guild has a mahogany body that has a curved top and back. There are a couple of F-holes present on each side of the guitar. The sophisticated white body binding, center-block construction, everything adds to the usefulness of this guitar. The rosewood fingerboard has 22 frets. There are individual tone and volume controls. You will also feel proud about owning this guitar due to its great looks.
Godin 5th Avenue CW
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This hollow-body guitar from Godin has a Canadian wild cherry archtop and the same holds in the backs and sides as well. The guitar has a silver leaf maple neck and a contoured high-gloss black headstock. The fingerboard is made out of rosewood and the guitar has a custom polished finish. The unit has an adjustable Tusq bridge from Graphtech. The body boasts a molded arched top and back. The classic looks of this unit is enhanced by the floating pickguard, cream binding enhance, contoured high-gloss headstock, classic F-holes, and an adjustable bridge. The rustic beauty of this guitar and its finish gives it a gorgeous satin sheen that gives it the look of the 19th century French polished finish.
Epiphone WILDKAT Royale
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The Epiphone WIKDKAT Royale from Epiphone is truly a royal guitar. The guitar produces an excellent vintage sound and it has a very smaller body. The small body makes it remarkably comfortable to play. The latest Royale has been outfitted by Epiphone with pearl white finish. The gold hardware and also the gold sparkle are features that make this guitar simply superb as compared to any previous models introduced by this brand. This guitar comes with the most popular Epiphone lifetime Limited warranty. Also, Epiphone offers Gibson covered customer service and guarantee round-the-clock. The guitar features a mahogany body and top material used is maple. The fingerboard has Pearloid dot inlays and the size of the fingerboard is 12” with 22 medium jumbo frets.
ESP Xtone PS-1 Black Cherry
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This guitar is shortly referred to as ESP XPS-1 BCH. The BCH here stands for Black Cherry Hollow. This guitar features a Mahogany body with rosewood fingerboard and maple neck. This unit comes equipped with LT 1D Tuners, TOM Tailpiece, and bridge. The pickups are passive ESP Designed LH-150. There are controls in this guitar for tone, volume and there is also a toggle switch. The bolt-on neck construction looks great in this guitar. The unit has a bolt-on neck construction and a scale with 22 extra jumbo. The thin U Neck Contour also adds goodness not just with respect to feel, but also with respect to looks. The black cherry color adds to the beauty of this semi hollow body guitar.
Ibanez Artcore AF55
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Artcore models were introduced by Ibanez in 2002. The AF55, which is part of the Artcore family, has a combination of both affordability and workmanship. This has attracted fans from around the world for this brand. Musicians will find that this guitar produces the purity of old school style jazz-box to a hybrid semi-hollow rocker. Similar to other Artcore products, the tone of this guitar is very great. This device is highly respected for its sustain, tone and also the way in which it holds the tuning. This family of guitars from Ibanez has pushed the boundaries of building guitars. The best features like Infinity R pickups, ART-ST Bridge, and many such features add to the value of this guitar.
Dean BOCA 12 String
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The BOCA 12 string from Dean comes in different shades. They are classic black, trans cherry burst, and trans amber. You can compare these three before you choose one. The black model is called as BOCA12 CBK and it has a right-handed dexterity. The top material is mahogany and the top contour is arched top with F Holes. The neck material is maple and the construction is bolt-on neck. C is the shape of the neck and fretboard material is rosewood in this great-looking guitar. There are 22 jumbo frets in this guitar and the nut is made out of PPS material. Mini Grover tuners, speed black knobs, chrome hardware color, tune-o-matic bridge, DMT design pickup neck, is other features.
OE30 Oscar Schmidt
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OE30 from Oscar Schmidt has a classic semi-hollow body styling. The versatile tone options, the best quality construction, and components, everything adds to the excellent features of this great instrument. This device is perfect for blues, jazz, and rock. It can be the best choice for anybody looking for hollow body guitar. There is a couple of volume and a couple of tone controls in this guitar. The bridge used in this guitar is tune-o-matic bridge with stop tailpiece. Rosewood fingerboard and maple bolt-on-neck are worth to mention. The body is Mahogany double cutaway. There are three different color choices to choose from this model. It comes with lifetime warranty and a couple of humbucker pickups. The 3-way pickup selector and chrome die-cast tuners are the best additions.
Let us find the answer to some fundamental questions here before getting into the details about the top models:
What is hollow body guitar?
When most musicians talk about a hollow body guitar, they are actually referring to an electric guitar with dimensions that are similar to that of an acoustic archtop. In fact, they are technically ES-335 kind guitars that are hollow bodied instruments as well. The uncertainty comes from whether or not the speaker sees the term ‘hollow body’ as a type division for a kind of instrument or as a literal specification. This generally differs from one musician to another.
How about the gradual development of Hollow Body Guitar?
Hollow bodied electric guitars were developed as a steady shift from acoustic archtops to electric devices. Once, the technology became widely available, professional guitarists started attaching pickups to acoustic archtops. Then, guitar manufacturers began to sell guitars with pickups that are factory installed. This is done by manufacturers to meet the requirements of gigging guitarists. In addition, to help to prevent feedback problems and to increase the stability of the electronics in the instrument, the manufacturers started attaching pickups in the way that we commonly see today. Even though many guitarists from around the world showed their gratitude for this move by manufacturers, it gained particularly popular in jazz music. This is the reason why hollow body guitar is widely used by jazz musicians.
What is a semi-hollow guitar?
A Semi-hollow guitar is something that is very much similar to that of hollow body guitar. But, the difference is that the former has a solid block of wood that runs through the middle of the guitar with hollow wings. In general, the feedback is the biggest issues in pure hollow guitars, but this will not happen in a semi-hollow guitar. In addition, semi-hollows also ensure a bit more sustain. This is because of the solid part of the body that connects with the neck of the guitar in a construction that is flow through.
Why should jazz musicians opt for hollow body guitar?
These days, this instrument is true that you can play jazz music on any instrument. However, most jazz musicians opt for hollow body guitars from stylistic and traditional choices. These guitars in general, use lower output pickups and they produce a warmer sound. This makes it the ideal choice for the majority of jazz sub-genres.
Making the right choice:
There is a quite large choice available when it comes to selecting the best hollow body guitar. So, selecting the right guitar turns out to be a tough task. The selection should be purely based on your personal preferences and your requirements as a guitarist. You can go for a hollow body guitar either for your live performances or your rehearsals. Whatever is the purpose, you know the importance of selecting the right one. You should get the real value of money that you spend on shopping for such an instrument, isn’t? This is why we have picked up some of the best hollow body guitars from different brands to make your selection easier and simple.
As you are looking for the best hollow body guitar, you can choose any of the above-mentioned models, but after evaluating your needs.