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New and Bold Acoustic Guitars


Neal

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So what’s new in acoustic guitar stuff? What’s cutting edge, cool tech, great vintage reissue? Who is holding ears and fingers across the nation/world? Who sucks more than they did yesterday, and who is an unfound gem?

 

hey, uke for a bunch of years, talking to my guitars again.

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Taylor is rehashing their entire lineup with a new type of bracing pattern call “V bracing.” Basically, instead of an X brace with the junction in the middle there are now two braces that lock into the neck block like Martin’s A frame bracing but then they diverge and traverse across the length of the body and lock into the lining where the lower arms of the X brace would usually go. This supposedly frees up more space on the top to vibrate but reviews are mixed, with many Taylor die hards drinking the Kool Aid and traditionalists saying that they lack volume and definition. I haven’t tried one yet myself but I’ve always been inclined toward Martins so I see it as a gimmick.

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I don't know. I did read about the Taylor bracing change. Sounds like Bob's way of saving even more material cost. Smart guy, anemic guitars. Big fan base, though. There's a new music education facility (mall store front) opening near me. Gonna bet their interior decorator is Yamaha. If they take lazy instructors I might sign up for some evening hours.

 

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Howard and I have been edified (presuming I can speak for Howard..)! Hey, you gotta keep things interesting, and Taylor seems to be interested in the market, and marketing, so... All this new stuff, whether it makes a difference or not, is keeping names on minds and web pages.

 

Any new “vintage” makers or familiars making good “old” guitars?

 

 

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I'm glad I'm not in the market for a new acoustic guitar. I just got the Sweetwater catalog (its about the size of a small town phone book, however that analogy might be lost on some of our younger members). I scanned the 20 plus pages of acoustics, ranging from a nice D45 for $8799 (list is 12K) to $139 for an Epi DR-100 (payments of ten bucks a month). The Epi must be a better guitar than the Martin because its model number is higher, eh?

 

Sweetwater doesn't handle any of the one off boutique guitars where the real cutting edge stuff is going on - about the closest they get is some fancy Taylors with arm bevels and of course Andy's new V-Class bracing (from what I have read it sounds like Bob didn't have much to say about this). I think the last line in the text for the Builder's Edition K14ce sums up my opinion of where this guitar is headed "you have an instrument that's the envy of lifelong acoustic guitar collectors"....

 

To Neal's original question, I don't know where acoustic guitars are headed right now. It seems like a lot of the traditional brands are struggling to find lost identities but its easy to get lost in all the artist models and variations of established designs. I'm not sure I could justify the cost of many domestically built guitars from Martin or Guild or Gibson. I do know that there are some damn fine guitars coming from Pacific rim source - sometimes under the banner of the big guys. I also know there is some real junk coming in - remember that I get to fix it.

 

It seems to me that there are two very distinct camps in the high end hand built market - those builders who are trying to replicate the wonderful pre war Golden era guitars (if a 1937 D-18 is going for $100K there are people who will build you a duplicate for only $10K). The other side of that are the builders who want to incorporate every innovation possible in their guitars - sound holes and strange bracing and weird shapes. They too are selling (or so I believe) for 10 or 20 or 30 thousand dollars and I'm glad for the builder.

 

I'll tell one little anecdote because it kind of sums up my ambivalence about all of this. At each convention of the Guild of American Luthiers they have a "steel string listening session". Builders submit a guitar, usually a total of 30 or 40 of them, and the same individual plays each one (same riff). The builder stands up and tells about her guitar - woods, bracing, yadda yadda. Then another guitar and another builder. There is rarely a bad guitar, but there are some big differences.

 

The guitar that preceded mine was a very nice modern style instrument. It had about every buzzword you could think of - multi scale fan fret floating fretboard offset soundhole sound port lattice brace some kind of wood I'd never heard of.... You get the picture. Then my little mahogany 00 was played, I stood up and said "my guitar is the antithesis of the one you just heard. It is a tribute to those cheap little guitars from the Depression era, guitars many of us grew up listening to and loving". I sat down. The woman sitting next to me whispered "I liked yours better"

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I'm glad I'm not in the market for a new acoustic guitar. I just got the Sweetwater catalog (its about the size of a small town phone book' date='[/b'] however that analogy might be lost on some of our younger members). I scanned the 20 plus pages of acoustics, ranging from a nice D45 for $8799 (list is 12K) to $139 for an Epi DR-100 (payments of ten bucks a month). The Epi must be a better guitar than the Martin because its model number is higher, eh?

 

Sweetwater doesn't handle any of the one off boutique guitars where the real cutting edge stuff is going on - about the closest they get is some fancy Taylors with arm bevels and of course Andy's new V-Class bracing (from what I have read it sounds like Bob didn't have much to say about this). I think the last line in the text for the Builder's Edition K14ce sums up my opinion of where this guitar is headed "you have an instrument that's the envy of lifelong acoustic guitar collectors"....

 

To Neal's original question, I don't know where acoustic guitars are headed right now. It seems like a lot of the traditional brands are struggling to find lost identities but its easy to get lost in all the artist models and variations of established designs. I'm not sure I could justify the cost of many domestically built guitars from Martin or Guild or Gibson. I do know that there are some damn fine guitars coming from Pacific rim source - sometimes under the banner of the big guys. I also know there is some real junk coming in - remember that I get to fix it.

 

It seems to me that there are two very distinct camps in the high end hand built market - those builders who are trying to replicate the wonderful pre war Golden era guitars (if a 1937 D-18 is going for $100K there are people who will build you a duplicate for only $10K). The other side of that are the builders who want to incorporate every innovation possible in their guitars - sound holes and strange bracing and weird shapes. They too are selling (or so I believe) for 10 or 20 or 30 thousand dollars and I'm glad for the builder.

 

I'll tell one little anecdote because it kind of sums up my ambivalence about all of this. At each convention of the Guild of American Luthiers they have a "steel string listening session". Builders submit a guitar, usually a total of 30 or 40 of them, and the same individual plays each one (same riff). The builder stands up and tells about her guitar - woods, bracing, yadda yadda. Then another guitar and another builder. There is rarely a bad guitar, but there are some big differences.

 

The guitar that preceded mine was a very nice modern style instrument. It had about every buzzword you could think of - multi scale fan fret floating fretboard offset soundhole sound port lattice brace some kind of wood I'd never heard of.... You get the picture. Then my little mahogany 00 was played, I stood up and said "my guitar is the antithesis of the one you just heard. It is a tribute to those cheap little guitars from the Depression era, guitars many of us grew up listening to and loving". I sat down. The woman sitting next to me whispered "I liked yours better"

 

I got one too. Actually my wife's name was on it and she's never purchased anythiung from Sweetwater. I have, but that was 10 years ago.

 

In the recycle bin it went.

 

We have 2 luthier's here in town. One has been in biz for 35 years. I have taken a few guitars to him.

 

I love his guitars. A student of his is in the other direction and build some nice stuff too.

 

It's not inexpensive, and the wait time is long.

 

They like yourself are not in the business of manufacturing guitars, but they handcraft fine instrument one at a time.

 

I like my Martin's and Gibson's, however, they are like buying a Ford Truck or a Toyota car. More mass production. There are time limits on what they are willing to do, to build a guitar.

Good guitars, but if you want something special one really needs to look elsewhere, where you can choose all the aspects that would go into a build.

 

These are the kind of builds that the younger guy does. The older guy, doesn't even have a website. He doesn't have time, nor does he care. It's all word of mouth.

 

There's hole on the side of most of his build so the player can kinda hear what's the guitar sounds like.

 

 

 

 

 

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I have obtained three of the Epiphone Masterbilt arched top acoustic/electric reissue things, a Deluxe, Zenith and Olympic. . I play them every day, since obtaining them about a year ago.Simply put, I just like them. Comfortable neck on all 3 of them, to me.

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