Members Emory Posted August 19, 2018 Members Share Posted August 19, 2018 Annual trip to USA coming next week. I'm Oregonian and thought I'd like one of these perhaps (Oregon wood, eh?). Would like some input from you fine folks as probably none available to check out near where I will be, would have to buy online. I like Breedlove. I'm giving my Breedlove AD25/SR to grandnephew on this visit. He is studying music at Western Wash Uni. I prefer concert size over dreads... and what the hey.... when you have GAS, you have Gas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members navigate40 Posted August 19, 2018 Members Share Posted August 19, 2018 Hello I have had three Breedlove acoustics. A Pursuit Concert, a Stage concert and a Stage dread (currently). LOVED all of them. I regret letting the two concert sized ones go. That really is a great size and they have wonderful tones. The Pursuit series is, IMHO, a great value. They are solid spruce tops with laminate sides and back. I *think* the controls are side mounted, in this series. Satin back neck (BIG PLUS, IMO). The Stage series is all solid tone woods, satin back necks. I believe that the most recent models all have in the sound hole controls (even if some sites have a pic of them with side mounted ones). Both of these models are made in China, with US QC (that is excellent). I think the build quality and tone are excellent....I own and have owned a Martin, as well as quite a few less expensive guitars, such as the Epiphone Masterbilt's. I will always keep the Martin, but if I were to get another acoustic guitar, it would be a Breedlove Concert. When considering the external wood of a Pursuit series model, since these are laminate's, I am not sure that the external wood makes that big a difference in tone....I COULD BE WRONG....someone please correct or contribute, if this is the case. SO....if you like the look of that wood...by all means...go for it. Internal controls are said to be a positive because they can be easily replaced or upgraded. However, some Pursuit models have side mounted controls that have bass, mid and treb EQ....which is very nice. In my limited experience, side mounted EQ controls seem to do a better job at adjusting tone, than the single tone wheel found on the sound hole mounted ones. So...there are a number of things to consider. A Pursuit model might travel better and, if it has bass, mid, treb side mounted controls, enable more tone control when amplified. The Stage series has got to be one of the best values in a solid tone wood guitar. Most recent ones have internally mounted pre-amps with sound hole mounted controls that are easily upgraded to top of the line ones. Both models have an "exotic" series associated with them, with which you get some amazing woods. I had a cocobolo one that was figured beautifully and had great tone.....sad I let that go. I hope this helps.BestJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Idunno Posted August 19, 2018 Members Share Posted August 19, 2018 Couldn't tell you the model but I did play a concert size with myrtlewood B&S at a GC. I thought the guitar was one of the best I've heard. I don't think you'd be burned buying one online. BTW, GC seems to treat Breedlove like some red-headed step son. If asked, I'd put the Martins in the shatty room, the Gibsons beyond the shatty room with the pointy guitars and populate the hi-end room with the Breedlove line, Eastmans and Yamahas. But, no one there has asked me yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted August 19, 2018 Members Share Posted August 19, 2018 . . . The Pursuit series is' date=' IMHO, a great value. They are solid spruce tops with laminate sides and back. [b']I *think* the controls are side mounted, in this series.[/b] Satin back neck (BIG PLUS, IMO). . . . It depends on where you look. Breedlove's site says Fishman electronics with side mounted volume and EQ controls. GC and WWBW, for example, say L. R. Baggs electronics and a volume control in the soundhole, with pics to back it up. Breedlove may have changed the electronics after the model was launched. Who knows? Anyway, that said, I'm a Breedlove fan and I don't think the OP can go far wrong. Forum member Mickey McGuire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 20, 2018 Members Share Posted August 20, 2018 Which part of the US will you be visiting? If it happens to be Oregon you should pop over to Bend and test drive. Be forewarned that there are fires everywhere and the smoke is terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emory Posted August 20, 2018 Author Members Share Posted August 20, 2018 I'll spend most of time in home town of Portland. I see Clackamas GC says they have myrtlewood model in stock, so may get over there. I spend 1/2 my time in Bangkok, so hopefully smoke won't kill me. Real real shame the fires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emory Posted August 20, 2018 Author Members Share Posted August 20, 2018 It is confusing that Breedlove site doesn't include all myrtlewood in model choice, but does have myrtlewood & spruce top listed... hmm.... GC says solid top... and looks like they don't have that cantilever bridge support, which I think is pretty cool, or maybe they do but renamed it BBT?. Volume only is okay with me. As 95% of my playing is down at beach with Yamaha THR10 with beach road traffic noise in background, my considerations are along lines of does it play well, draw you into it, is it fun? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 20, 2018 Members Share Posted August 20, 2018 Apple Music used to be a Breedlove dealer but they are closed now as is Pioneer. Personally, if I was in the market for something like that I would take the time to drive over to Bend - its a pretty reasonable day trip. We are coming down to Portland this weekend - saturday night we are seeing Ben Harper at Goldendale, the sunday Judy Collins at Vancouver. Oh, yea, we'll see some family too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted August 20, 2018 Members Share Posted August 20, 2018 Yes, AFAIK the BBT is the same as the JLD support, just a new name. I suspect the all myrtlewood version might be a special run for GC/MF since I haven't seen it anywhere else. Myrtlewood is supposed to have characteristics of mahogany, rosewood, and maple, none of which are common as top woods so it may be an acquired taste or it may be the sonic equivalent of sliced bread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emory Posted August 21, 2018 Author Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 Sounds like a good weekend Freeman! Oooooh... Clackmas GC has one of these rare Tacoma jazz sort of boxes... $1200ish...ooooohhhh... I totally love my Tacoma jumbo, finish peeling or not... ... help me lawd! I got a sweet tooth and being thrown into the candy store... I'd love to go over to Bend, but not gonna make it this trip. Start my trip in 2 hrs and friend in Seattle says flight might be delayed 2 hrs due to all the forest fires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Danocoustic Posted August 21, 2018 Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 Cool guitar in that photo, Emory---like it very much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members navigate40 Posted August 21, 2018 Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 Found some info from the Breedlove site, regarding electronics. I had thought that the Pursuit line all had side mounted controls, and the Stage models (solid woods) had the new sound mounted ones. Well....as I see on the site, it seems that Breedlove has now transitioned all 2018 models to have the internal, sound hole mounted controls. LR Baggs EAS for the Pursuit line. 2017 Pursuit models appear to have side mounted Fishman USB controls, with bass and treb EQ. I have seen both models years currently for sale at GC and other places. Occasionally, online, you can even find 2016 models selling (at a very nice discount). The Breedlove site does say that different woods on their laminate (Pursuit) models, give different tones. I really cannot say. I guess it depends on the thickness of that wood on the laminate. Some laminates are fairly thick 3 ply woods, the cheap ones are simply veneer. I do not know, but I could be convinced that Breedlove does it right. As I have written before, I find the tone on their Pursuit models to be wonderful. The upside of the sound hole mounted controls is that they are easily upgraded or repaired. And cannot, in any way, detract from the tone imparted by the instrument body sides. LR Baggs seems to have some very high end pre-amps and pickups that use sound hole mounted controls. Most of the earlier Pursuit models that had side mounted controls, seem to have only bass and treb EQ. The Stage series ones that I have, have bass, mid and treb. IMHO - If you do not gig and will not be playing through and amp a great deal, the sound hole mounted controls are probably an advantage. If you are a very serious musician or a pro, you probably have a rig that has EQ for your instrument, and the onboard controls do not matter. [in you mic the guitar....does not matter. If you have a good acoustic amp, rather than play through a electric guitar amp (like me).....does not matter. If you know what you are doing ...unlike this tyro.....probably does not matter ] Just my $0.02.....YMMV Hope this helps [and.... ...just picked up a 2015 Breedlove Stage Black Magic Concert! It is being shipped ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 21, 2018 Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 Have a safe flight. Yes, SeaTac was experiencing some pretty long delays but this morning there has been an onshore push that is blowing (some) of the smoke out. Happy shopping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted August 21, 2018 Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 Sounds like a good weekend Freeman! Oooooh... Clackmas GC has one of these rare Tacoma jazz sort of boxes... $1200ish...ooooohhhh... I totally love my Tacoma jumbo, finish peeling or not... ... help me lawd! I got a sweet tooth and being thrown into the candy store... I'd love to go over to Bend, but not gonna make it this trip. Start my trip in 2 hrs and friend in Seattle says flight might be delayed 2 hrs due to all the forest fires. Dunno if you'll see this but your flight should have gotten in by now. That's a cool looking Tacoma. If it plays and sounds as good as it looks it would be hard to walk away from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted August 21, 2018 Members Share Posted August 21, 2018 . . . The upside of the sound hole mounted controls is that they are easily upgraded or repaired. And cannot, in any way, detract from the tone imparted by the instrument body sides. LR Baggs seems to have some very high end pre-amps and pickups that use sound hole mounted controls. . . . . . . IMHO - If you do not gig and will not be playing through and amp a great deal, the sound hole mounted controls are probably an advantage. If you are a very serious musician or a pro, you probably have a rig that has EQ for your instrument, and the onboard controls do not matter. [in you mic the guitar....does not matter. If you have a good acoustic amp, rather than play through a electric guitar amp (like me).....does not matter. If you know what you are doing ...unlike this tyro.....probably does not matter ] Just my $0.02.....YMMV Hope this helps [and.... ...just picked up a 2015 Breedlove Stage Black Magic Concert! It is being shipped ] I'm not convinced side mounted controls, what some folks refer to as a "barn door," affect tone, I just think they're, well, tacky. Taylor's approach with a few small, discrete knobs strikes me as an improvement, and controls in the soundhole are what I prefer. I'm not a gigging musician beyond playing Sunday mornings in praise band but my "good" acoustic has an aftermarket pickup with no controls at all. I play through the PA and our sound guy takes care of EQ, volume, etc. Too many controls are a distraction, IMHO. I'm actually mostly playing electric in public these days and I don't touch anything except the volume knob occasionally. Incidentally, if you want an improvement over an electric guitar amp, find a used bass or keyboard amp. Both work well for acoustic guitar. I played through a bass rig when the praise band was starting out. Then we got a bass player and he needed the amp. And congratulations on your pending New Guitar Day. Be sure to start a NGD thread when your Stage Black Magic arrives, preferably with lots of pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 22, 2018 Members Share Posted August 22, 2018 Emory, I hope your flight was good and you are comfortably in Portland now. May it be weird. I was interested in your interest in a myrtlewood guitar - as far as I know Breedlove is about the only company making them, They have a nice little page on their website where they compare different tonewoods, What I find very interesting is that they have changed that at some point in time - I have a hard copy of an old version that is somewhat different. My old one shows top woods from left ("pure, powerful, bold") as follows - myrtlewood, koa, mahogany, adi, sitka, PO cedar, red cedar, engleman, redwood. Its interesting that they dropped myrtle, koa and mahogany as top woods and reversed the order of several of the other. I'm guessing that is because they no longer offer those tops, but maybe they just decided things sound differently now. The back and side chart is similar to my old one, myrtle is a little more towards maple and they shuffled some of the rosewood family around, but the rankings seem to be pretty much what people like to think they hear, I've always been of the opinion that while back and sides do make a difference it is very small and often very hard to hear. I made three "identical" parlor guitars with sister cuts of Lutz for the tops, but different b&s - EIR, Madagascar rosewood, and Brazilian (yes, the real stuff). Multiple people have played them side by side and the concensus is that no one can tell the difference. I also believe that once you laminate back and sides the contribution of the woods are totally negated. However I also think that myrtle is a stunningly beautiful wood. My son who is a wood worker often uses it in his turning - bowls and pens and other little works of art. I think a guitar made from myrtle would be lovely and I'll be very interested in hearing what you think if and when you get to play one. Sorry about the rambling, I ran into my old copy of that Breedlove slide and it got me thinking.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 22, 2018 Members Share Posted August 22, 2018 My feeling about barn door controls is that they can provide two things - one is more complete controls (often three or more eq bands, volume, a battery indicator and a tuner) and they can provide a convenient place to mount the battery. I have replaced one that went completely bad and I disabled another and installed a different kind of p/u when it when bad. I don't like them, but they are convenient. Sound hole controls are much less invasive but also offer much less features, and they are kind of a pain to use. A frequent problem is that the double sticky tape comes unstuck, a little gel CA will fix that. The only good that I can see is that you can roll the volume off to nothing when you unplug the jack to avoid the big pop. I really dislike the battery bags up somewhere inside the guitar and of course the lack of a battery indicator. My favorite remains the passive K&K with the EQ and preamplification outside the guitar, I think they sound better than a piezo UST and certainly eliminates the problems above. The nice thing is that you can select a guitar for its acoustic sound, then add a pickup that does a relatively good job of reproducing it. Of course, milage should and will vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted August 22, 2018 Members Share Posted August 22, 2018 My take is that EQ should take place outside the guitar so lack of same isn't an issue for me. Volume should be a "set and forget" proposition so it doesn't matter where the control is. If you need more control buy a pedal. For that matter, my "good" acoustic has an aftermarket pickup with no controls whatsoever and I haven't replaced the battery in years. In my case, there's a metal clip attached to the heel block, which is preferable to a little bag held in place with Velcro IMHO. I was supposed to attach it to a small block of wood with screws and glue that to the heel block but I drilled pilot holes with a battery powered mini drill and screwed it directly to the block. Sure, a battery door and indicator would be nice but IMHO it's not a deal breaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cornholio Farquarth III Posted August 30, 2018 Members Share Posted August 30, 2018 I'd really like to get a CM some day if I could ever afford it. I've played them and they're a dream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mikeo Posted September 7, 2018 Members Share Posted September 7, 2018 I'd really like to get a CM some day if I could ever afford it. I've played them and they're a dream. Even better. Get the Line 6 acoustic and be done with it. Then download the CM app to your guitar. You could have it PLEKed and it will play like butta. Inside joke kids. [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"line-6-variax-acoustic-700-black-19662.jpg","data-attachmentid":32337065}[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emory Posted September 15, 2018 Author Members Share Posted September 15, 2018 Hello friends. I'm back in Thailand. For some reason I couldn't log in on friends computer in USA. Wasn't posting and dashing, or snubbing, just couldn't get on.... I did see (supposedly) the Breedlove with myrtlewood... but think they screwed up at GC as their tag said myrtlewood (designated "my") but label inside read "mh" (mahogany, I believe)... anyway, to make short story long, I didn't buy another guitar.... I decided to bring back my 68 or 69 Gibson SJN that had been sitting under friends bed for last year. It sounded lots better than I recalled (strings needing aging? as if...). Guitar I bought 10+ years ago I thought was fake but good enough for beach guitar, cost $100 with case. I think I posted details of my sleuthing back when, but can't find it. Turned out it is real tho looks fake... I'll let it acclimate for awhile so it can get that true wet cardboard sound, then install new bone nut and saddle (I think when it was modified back when former owner put plastic nut/saddle on....). Never changed a nut before and am a bit nervous regarding knocking the old one out... how much glue might have been used? Any advice from you wise and seasoned folks on least likely harmful way to remove the old? Don't suggest taking to a luthier. I've seen results here and was not impressed. Here's an old photo of git and me. Download FB data can be useful when get a new computer and too lazy to transfer photos + old computer in different city... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted September 15, 2018 Members Share Posted September 15, 2018 Welcome home. Was curious about that guitar - next time I'm down in Portland I might go out to GC and take a look at it. Hope the rest of your trip was good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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