Members Carmenrago30 Posted January 5, 2016 Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 Hi Everyone, I am new here. I've never been part of a forum before and I know I am probably going about this the wrong way. I'm sure there have been plenty of discussions about tone woods. I have a few questions that maybe you all can help me with. My name is Carmen. I have been playing guitar since I was 13 and I am now 34. I am totally self taught. I just started having a guy come to my apartment to teach me theory and try to correct some bad habits in my technique. After basically 20 years of playing it's been a bit tough to break old habits. I'm 3 lessons in. I was getting frustrated trying to talk about things that I didn't have the words for. I know what things are but I don't know what to call them. 5ths and 7ths, augmented perfect major intervals etc. I hear them but never knew what they were called. I'm trying to fix that now and hopefully not too late in my life. I have have owned many guitars and I could start a store with the various pedals and gear that I own. Amps that I have bought and sold trying to get that perfect tone. I'm sure there are a lot of tone guys here that know what I'm talking about. I'm always searching. What I've come to find is that I enjoy playing acoustic much more than electric. That statement is slowly bringing me to my point. Slowly. I currently own a 2016 gibson studio T that I use with a vox night train tube amp. I have two acoustic guitars. The first one is a Breedlove 25th anniversary koa concert with cutaway. And the second is a seagull maritime dreadnought solid wood series with cutaway. The breedlove has laminate sides and back and as my ears progress and I play better guitars I have the itch to upgrade. I love the way the Breedlove feels and looks. So, I think I am going to either take a small step up to the stage series that are all solid wood or plunge in and have a custom built by one of their dealers. Im also thinking about going for a mid range guild all mahogany (the model escapes me at the moment. The price is around 1100-1300 on guilds site.) guild guitar. Every guild I have picked up I have liked esp solid mahogany. So my questions are is there a difference when just mahogany is mentioned as the wood used and when they say African Mahogany. Are they the same thing? Or two totally different woods? Also, does anyone own a high end or custom Breedlove? How do you like it? Also, when it comes to warm "mahogany" type sounding wood are there other options for that warm sound? Thank you all in advance and I truly appreciate any help you can give me. For years I have played alone. I have never had anyone to ask questions and trying to read up on the Internet can be great at times but sometimes it's nice to be able to ask someone specifically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted January 5, 2016 Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 Carmen, first and foremost, a big welcome to HCEG. I think you'll enjoy the discussions here and will find people that can be very helpful with all kinds of questions about these little wooden boxes. You'll need to filter some of the opinions just like anything else in life but in general I think you'll find folks to be very helpful. You'll also find lots of discussions on tone woods here and other places on the internet. I'll give you my humble opinion here (I build a few guitars and own a fair number built out of different woods) - I believe that the woods that a guitar is build out of is a small but important part of the overall sound. But I am also reminded of an article in a recent issue of a lutherie magazine that stated that in double blind testing no one could identify the woods that the guitars were made out of. So take all the discussion with a grain of salt and let your ears guide you. That said, there are three main "mahogany" species being used to build guitars (as opposed to the rosewood or maple families, and all the other woods). Honduran mahogany is genis Swietenia largely now comes from Brazil and is on the CITES list of endangered woods. It is still a popular wood for necks but because of increasing price and availability it is less used than some of the alternates. African mahogany (genis Khaya) is still available and is widely used for guitars, and Sapele, (genius Entandrophragma) is related to the true mahoganies and is widely used as a substitute. They all have very similar mechanical properties - density, stiffness, Young's modulus and speed of sound transmission - I think you would be hard pressed to hear any difference in guitars built in exactly the same fashion out of these woods. (as an aside here, I just finished building three parlor sized guitars using the same top woods and bracing but one is EI rosewood, one Brazilian, and one Madagascar. Right now I can't tell any difference but I plan on making some clips and posting here to see what others think) I'll add here that the common feeling about koa is that it is somewhere between mahogany and rosewood in tone - obviously if your Breedlove is laminated the body wood really doesn't have much impact. If you are happy with your Breedlove then certainly consider one of their higher end models. But there are so many wonderful guitars out there that you should just take your time, play everything you can, then buy the one that speaks to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Carmenrago30 Posted January 5, 2016 Author Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 I would love to hear those clips you mentioned. Thank you for responding. What you say makes a lot of sense. Thats what is a little scary about having a custom guitar built. Not being able to play it first. When I bought my seagull the store had two identical guitars. They sounded completely different. The set up could of been a little different I guess but such a drastic difference between identical guitars had me shocked. I went to the store at least once a week for a couple months and played the guitar I eventually bought. The sales guy would purposely switch their positions on the wall to see if I would notice and I always did. It was a running gag. Same wood, same model, same finish, but two different sounds and vibes. Vibe is the only word I can use. Feel maybe. I'm not talking about how the action is set up but more the guitars personality. What I'm trying to say is I get what your saying and it makes perfect sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted January 5, 2016 Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 Having a custom guitar built is a huge leap of faith. Its also a pretty scary undertaking for the builder - not only does he or she have to figure out what the customer is asking for, he has to be able to execute it. Its interesting that you feel that two "identical" guitars were anything but - stop and think about that. If two guitars from the same manufacture - same shape, size, woods, bracing, strings, yadda yadda - sound different, imagine how hard it is to start with a stack of wood and create the sound someone hears in their head.... I'll post the clips in about a month - the guitars are absolutely brand new and I want to give them a little time to break in. If you are interested, find the recent thread titled "A Pair of Parlors?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Carmenrago30 Posted January 5, 2016 Author Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 I have watched videos and documentaries on building guitars and it's the truest meaning of what an art-form is. It's amazing to be able to make something as beautiful and pure as a guitar or any instrument for that matter. I can only imagine trying to understand what someone has in their head and trying to make it a reality. Its truly amazing. I am going to find that thread you mentioned. I also found something in a tone wood thread that I found interesting. There was a guy on this site that was able to tell what power source powered a pedal. Wether it was a 9 volt or an ac adapter I guess. That's amazing and apparently he got it right every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted January 5, 2016 Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 Carmen, I don't want to hijack your thread and I did see the nice comments at the Parlor thread, but I thought you might be interested in a couple of my other builds. I've posted a number of build threads over the years but these two were certainly leap of faith deals. The first one is a good friend who came to me and asked for "an acoustic that looks like an ES-175". We had no idea what this critter was going to sound like, much less if it would work at all http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-41/31217963-lets-build-something-that-looks-like-an-es-175 Guess what, it sounds like an archtop (duh) And this one was last year, a fellow forumite asked if I could build him a left handed ES-335 (and ship it to Austria...). I said "sure" altho I had never build one before and it went kind of like this http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-41/31499639-lets-build-something-that-looks-like-an-es-335 This was a complete leap on both of our parts - it could have gone sour in a dozen ways. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled discussion..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted January 5, 2016 Members Share Posted January 5, 2016 Hi and welcome to the Forum. I hope you enjoy it here. You have excellent taste in guitars. I don't own one but I've liked every Breedlove I've ever played. You should be able to find something from the all solid wood Premier series for around $2000. Guild also makes an excellent guitar, although the lower end models are now being made in China if that matters to you. As Freeman said, play everything you can get your hands on and let your ears and hands--followed closely by your wallet, of course--be your guide. Good luck in your search. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Carmenrago30 Posted January 6, 2016 Author Members Share Posted January 6, 2016 Don't worry about hijacking anything man. I appreciate everything you've told me and shown me. Very much so. I'm about to get a cleaning for my teeth but when I finally get home I am going to go through both threads without a doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Carmenrago30 Posted January 6, 2016 Author Members Share Posted January 6, 2016 Thank you for the welcome. As for my taste thank you. I just know what feels and sounds right and Breedlove guitars feel good and sound great to play. My first experience with guild was one of the many days I spent at the music place trying to figure out if I wanted the Breedlove or the seagull. I eventually bought both but prior to doing so I was in the acoustic room playing with different brands/models and I saw a small guitar hanging behind the case that turned out to be a used solid mahogany top back and sides parlor sized guild guitar and it sounded amazing. I fell in love with it. I didn't have the money that day and I could of stretched the money I had to buy it but it would of been tight so I put it down. There was a guy that was in the room with me and we were kinda playing together which isn't something I've gotten to do often. I was playing nutshell on the Breedlove I ended up buying eventually and he was a Taylor guy. As I was playing the rhythm he came in with the leads. Good times. He then picked up the guild and bought it. He asked me first if I was gonna buy it and I said nah go ahead. Ugh. At the time I didn't want a parlor sized guitar and I was unsure. I regret that everyday. idk how old the guild was but it was around 600 bucks used. I've since played a few more guild guitars and I've liked them. I didn't know the lower end were made in China though. I haven't researched them the way I have other companies. Again thank you guys for welcoming me and dealing with my long winded posts. And I gotta say the seagull solid wood series gives a lot of guitar for the money. For 700 bucks you get a really nice guitar for the money. if your trying to stay under 1000 bucks and want solid wood it's the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Delmont Posted January 6, 2016 Members Share Posted January 6, 2016 Hi, Carmen! Welcome! Some quick answers: The various nationalities of rosewood differ only in appearance, not sound. Somewhere around 1970, Brazilian rosewood, which is very pretty, left the mass market. Now different regions boast assorted virtues. I wouldn't take any of it too seriously. Rosewood does have a warm sound. Conventional wisdom says that rosewood is better for big, rhythmic strumming and mahogany is better for fast picking. But I haven't found that to be true. So, as folks above are saying, just get a guitar that pleases you. Some folks like Breedloves, some don't. My own opinion: the best dollar value in a new guitar is Larrivee. If I were shopping for a new, off-the-rack guitar, that's what I'd get. And they're well within your price range. So try playing a couple to see what you think. My acoustics have all been Martins, Guilds, and Gibsons, and I've bought them all used. I've liked the Guilds best, but all that means is that the ones I've owned have happened to be great guitars - at least, great for my playing style. So, again, just test drive guitars until you play one that knocks you out. Then you're there. The tone quest never ends. That's why it's so much fun. Happy hunting! Delhttp://www.thefullertons.net( •)—::: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ski219 Posted February 11, 2016 Members Share Posted February 11, 2016 I own 2 Guilds, both maple. The made in China guitars are designated GAD: Guild American Design, and now Cordoba, who bought Guild from Fender last year are calling the made in China models The Westerly Collection. This makes it easy to tell which models are not made in the states. If you want some information about Guilds there is no better place to go than here: http://letstalkguild.com/ltg/forum.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted February 12, 2016 Members Share Posted February 12, 2016 I had a Guild 12 string. I bought it new in '74 and kept it for a long time. Great guitar (F-412) but I'd run the 12-string to its limits and decided to get into 6 string again. I let it go and haven't even thought about 12 string with any seriousness since. I've played a few at the stores and the best I played was a Breedlove somethingorother model. Guild wrote the book on 12 string guitars, AFAIC, but I'm not savvy on the newer Guilds since it was acquired. I'm not especially curious about Guild anymore since that occurred. Same name, new game; the vibe is gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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