Taylor Guitars Wood and Steel Magazine Volume 86
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
LIMITED EDITION SHOWCASE All-Koa 12-Fret Walnut/Cedar GS Granadillo/ Cedar GA Honey Sunburst 300s Blackwood Baritones John Petrucci’s New: Cutaway Trey Hensley’s Acoustic Side Grand Orchestra + Flatpicking Fire Nylon 114ce-N 2 www.taylorguitars.com a store and noticed a new slotted- at all initially, but as we were working Now I can’t put this guitar down. I head 510e (which now resides at MY out how to fill the last afternoon before keep both the GS Mini and 322e on social Letters house). After all these decades of flying out of San Diego, I realized that the couch and play them alternately. I missing my ol’ J-45 (which I traded in we were only about half an hour away have thoughts of buying a 522e, but I on a trombone for one of our kids many and it would be a perfect way to round must say I am very happy with the three circles We'd like to hear from you. years ago, in a grandiose fit of lunacy), I off a memorable holiday. No one else Taylors I own — three sizes for different have finally found a real replacement! in my family is a guitarist, so I wasn’t occasions. This is the best guitar col- Send your e-mails to: It sounds exactly like what I remem- sure it would be anyone else’s cup of lection I have ever owned, and this year Join the Taylor community [email protected] bered and loved about my original J-45, tea, so to speak, but thankfully every- I want to do some busking to expand but better. I love the bass tone and one expressed the requisite amount of my singing/guitar playing and musical Facebook: @taylorguitars overall voice, which may be a bit better enthusiasm as we set off after checking horizons. Instagram: @taylorguitars focused and definitely better balanced out of our final hotel. Aruna Kalutanthri Twitter: @taylorguitars than I remember the guitar I grew up The tour was hosted by Steve from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with so many years ago. I also really your sales department. He was excel- Youtube: taylorguitars love the vintage V-neck feel, and the lent: very informative, educational and Google+: taylorguitars familiar, crisp look of the fine details. good-humoured too. I learned a lot, Birth of the Baritone 8 Music Aficionado: taylorguitars Thank you! particularly about the different proper- I only play guitar, and all my life I Steve Yetter ties of tonewoods. I was especially have collected and sung traditional and Santa Cruz, CA impressed to learn about how each antique music from around the world. guitar is fitted with an electronic tag so Always searching for instruments that that its whole life story can be tracked would best express the tones and the Better Than New from the moment it starts to be made. atmosphere of music and songs that I own a 2013 514ce (a highly I have one of those “big” birthdays are so deeply rooted in human feelings under-appreciated model) and recently coming up next year, and having spent and history, I have tried and played a sent it to you for repair. I had rested it the first 49 of my allocated trips around variety of 6- and 12-string guitars and against the couch to do something, and the sun without a high-end guitar, I am banjos. as my pooch pawed one of his toys very hopeful that turning 50 could mark I proudly own three Taylor guitars near my guitar, he somehow flipped my the start of the Taylor phase of my life. I now: an NS62ce, a K26e, and your Slick Pick guitar and caused the neck to smash have my eye on a 614ce or something baritone 8-string, which I recently It looks like Pat Simmons is wear- on the coffee table, putting two huge like that. Happily, as a result of the found at a resale. While I love the ing a thumbpick in the photos in dings on it in places where your thumb tour, my wife (not a guitarist) now has first two, I am amazed at the sound of Wood&Steel [Summer 2016 issue, would rub during chord movements, a much deeper appreciation of the true the 8-string. Its deep, warm resonances Vol. 85], but you can’t see the pick etc. I couldn’t live with it the way it was art form that is Taylor guitar-making, seem perfect to recreate the magic from the angle of the photo. What kind and generally don’t trust many people and she tells me she recognizes the of ancient Christmas music such as of thumbpick is it? It looks like a nice with my guitars, so I decided to send real artistic value rather than just see- “Down in Yon Forest” or “Coventry design, with some kind of elastic band. it to you in El Cajon to be fixed right. I ing the price. So my birthday aspira- Carol,” as well as add drama to old bal- Guy also thought it might be cool to have tions may hopefully come true. Fingers lads or spirituals. For the first time I can a bone nut and saddle put on. I am crossed! create a sound that may substitute for Ed. Note: It’s a custom thumbpick that totally blown away by the workmanship. Thanks again for your hospitality. the very complex Portuguese guitarra Pat made himself. You cannot tell that there was ever any Nigel Broadbent and maintain an almost authentic feel damage. Bravo! The bone appoint- Halifax, West Yorkshire, England of fado. Your instrument sounds just ments take the tone of this guitar to as great with an old Sephardic melody A Worthy Replacement the stratosphere as well. It smoothed as it does with early blues. I know it is Having grown up on a ’61 out something in the highs that really Taylor Trifecta and will be my cherished companion for [Gibson] J-45 with an Adirondack translates well when recording. This is I have had a Baby Taylor Mahogany years to come. spruce top, I was amused at what I why I bought a Taylor: because your for about six years. That’s all I could I would love to know who in your thought was hyperbole attributed to guitars play great, sound great, look afford at that time. I would take it camp- company had the original idea of add- Lutz spruce in your article “Mahogany great, and you do professional work at ing, backpacking, and wherever I went. ing the two extra strings to the baritone Makeover,” about the 500 Series, in all levels of your company. I am a Taylor Then last year I was hanging out at my guitar. the Winter 2016/Volume 84 edition of player for life. favorite music shop and got attached Giuseppe Fraschini Wood&Steel. The only other guitar that Robby Lapp to a koa Baby Taylor with electronics, Houston, TX I thought ever sounded remotely like since my old Baby Taylor didn’t have my old long-gone CMI-era J-45 was a any. I bought it out of impulse, and sold Ed. Note: As we shared in our story on Tacoma-made Guild D-40, which also Art Appreciation my old Baby Taylor. This year in January the 8-string baritone in the Fall 2009 featured a spruce top. However, I have My wife and two teenage children I fell in love with a beautiful GS Mini (Vol. 61) issue (“Range Rover”), the always preferred the “whumpy” low-end and I just returned to the UK from an Koa-e and couldn’t resist buying it. It guitar was an offshoot of two separate bass of the shorter-scale large bodies, extended tour through California, tak- sounds so big and amazing for its size models designed to celebrate Taylor’s despite never finding other J-45s that ing in San Francisco, Yosemite, Santa and has became my favorite guitar that 35th anniversary: a 6-string baritone could measure up to my first. Barbara, Huntington Beach, LA, San I play on the couch [or] while watching Grand Symphony and a 9-string Grand Shorter-scale instruments also give Diego, and various points in between. TV in bed. Symphony that was meant to add my aging fretting hand a break as well. When we got home, we asked our- Then in March I had this crazy some upper-octave 12-string flavor My 810 was a wonderful instrument, selves, “What was the best single thought and sold all of my old acoustic/ without going all the way. It turned out but longer scale length steel-string flat- thing about the trip?” One said whale electric guitars (Fender J5, Garrison that tonally, the two complemented tops moved me into a 414ce-N a cou- watching at Monterey. Another said the G20, Epiphone DR-500MCE and a each other in a uniquely captivating ple of years ago. (I always wondered San Diego Zoo. My wife was very taken Martin GPCPA4 RW I bought about a way, so our design team made a proto- why my first guitar teacher moved from with the Big Sur and San Francisco month ago) and ordered a Taylor 322e type 9-string baritone. The consensus a Gibson L-7 to a C-1 Classic in later skylines at dusk. We loved all of it. But (mahogany and Tasmanian blackwood). was that it was slightly too jangly, so years; now I know!) for me, the best single bit was the tour I loved the feeling of a Grand Concert we made an 8-string version, and voila! Recently I was steering a friend of the Taylor Guitars factory in El Cajon.