2012 My Music. My World. My Choice
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2012 Photo: Takako Harkness PMKM-W2201 My Music. My World. My Choice. This catalog is printed with Specifications subject to change without notice. FSC™ COC certified paper and Printed in Taiwan ©2012 Walden Guitars. eco-friendly soy ink. PMKM-W2201 When people ask me for advice in choosing a guitar I tell them that the best possible guitar is the one that makes you want to pick it up and play it all the time. CONTENTS 01 Introduction 02 Body Shapes 03 Tone Woods 04 Design Features 05 Model Numbering System 10 Madera 16 SupraNatura 22 Natura 30 Concorda 36 Standard 40 Classical 52 Artist Pages 54 Spec Sheets Sean Harkness Windam Hill Records (BMG) Solo Artist Seanharkness.com Brian Kramer, dobro Speedoharmonica Jones, harmonica Photo: Takako Harkness Your music reflects your attitude and how you live your life. So does your guitar. Walden is an expression of the choices you make, choices that matter and make a difference. Playing a Walden says that you want more than just a great instrument. You also want a guitar that is built in a responsible and ethical way. Why choose Walden Guitars? It comes down to the details. How it was made. Who made it. Where the materials came from. Features and specifications you don't notice immediately because they are just right. The way your guitar looks and sounds — how it effortlessly responds to your touch — like a great guitar should. Responsibility. We do not outsource our manufacturing and our guitar shop is the only one in Asia with a certified 100% Pure Chain-of-Custody. Walden Guitars is committed to developing legal sourcing for all our materials and supports the management of the world’s forests. Beauty is in the details you see. High-grade soundboards, Mahogany necks, and Indian Rosewood bridges and fingerboards guarantee rich, dynamic sounding guitars that improve the more you play. All bodies and necks are fully bound and incorporate the understated elegance of tasteful trim designs. Quality is in the details you don't see. Walden Natura and SupraNatura line guitars are coated with Nitrocellulose lacquer which opens up more and more as it cures and hardens, allowing your already great sounding guitar to sound better and better. Madera and Concorda line guitars Walden Guitars is the vision of American Luthier Jonathan Lee who learned his trade while feature a Polyester/Polyurethane high gloss finish, offering another partnered with Master Luthier Charles Fox. Together they built hundreds of handmade guitars great choice for Walden players. We build with traditional Lutherie in their small shop in Sonoma Country, California. Ten years later, Jonathan now leads a group woods and allow them to cure, dry and stabilize before transforming of skilled builders in the small town of Lilan, Northern China, incorporating the standards them into a Walden guitar in a humidity controlled environment. Inside established by generations of guitar makers and the precision of contemporary tools and each steel string instrument we incorporate a scalloped-X spruce- technology. braced soundboard, bolt-on neck, and a 2-way adjustable truss rod. The results: great sounding, high quality, mid-priced instruments you will be proud to call your Fine instruments are a lifetime investment and our guitars will make own for a lifetime. this musical journey with you. In the following pages you will discover the Walden Madera, SupraNatura, Natura, Standard, and Concorda lines of guitars. We trust these pictures and descriptions will inspire you to go and play a Walden guitar because the sound of a great guitar is something that is beyond words. We hope you will allow Walden Guitars the opportunity to appeal to your heart and touch your soul. waldenguitars.com BODY SHAPES TONE WOODS Choosing a Walden guitar begins with the essential step of discovering the best body shape for you. Every guitar has The magic of great tone is produced by the woods used in building great guitars. Each piece of wood its own unique voice which is a product of choosing the right body shape, as much as the right wood configuration. contributes its own distinctiveness to the voice of your instrument. Proper seasoning is an absolute necessity As your musical partner, your guitar must feel good in your hands and rest comfortably in your lap, while providing when building a world class instrument. We use only quarter sawn, bookmatched woods imported from around all the complexity, volume and nuance you would expect from a world class instrument. the world. Tonewoods are seasoned and air dried before entering our kilns. Kiln dried woods then undergo our high-frequency drying process, insuring the woods' stability. Finally, it will equalize in humidity and temperature D DREADNOUGHT G GRAND AUDITORIUM O ORCHESTRA MODEL control rooms before being transformed into a Walden Guitar. 9 Upper Bout 11 ⅝" Upper Bout 11 ⅜" Upper Bout 11 16" Waist 10 ⅞" Waist 9 ½" Waist 9 ⅜" Lower Bout 15 ¾" Lower Bout 15 ⅞" Lower Bout 15 ⅛" Depth 4 ⅞" Depth 4 ⅝" Depth 4 ⅛" Length 20" Length 19 ⅞" Length 19 ⅜" Sitka Spruce Engelmann Spruce Western Red Cedar (Picea sitchensis) (Picea engelmannii) (Thuja plicata) North American solid Sitka Spruce North American solid Engelmann The voice of Western Red Cedar produces a loud and balanced Spruce is a beautiful, rich whitish is characterized by dark, rich voice with a strong fundamental. soundboard wood. With the volume and smooth tonality. Solid Cedar Sitka tops are sought after by and crispness inherent to all spruces, top guitars are favored by players with a strong attack. Engelmann adds its brilliant complex fingerstylists and musicians with a The Dreadnought body design Walden's Grand Auditorium body has a Walden's "O" body OM guitar is overtone structure. lighter touch. dates back to the early 1900s. This slightly wider lower bout than our traditional reminiscent of the pre-war guitar for grandfather of modern guitar body Dreadnought and a narrower waist and which it is named. Smaller than our "G" shapes is respectfully represented upper bout. The Grand Auditorium speaks body shape, the O body is popular among by the Walden Dreadnought. It with ample bass balanced by clear and finger-stylists and female players. A delivers the powerful bass, round brilliant trebles while the rounded contours shallower side depth makes it easier to mids, and crisp trebles expected are visually pleasing and comfortable in play and contributes to its focused voice, from this body shape. your arms. great for a studio "tracking" instrument. S STAGE N NYLON CLASSICAL T TRAVEL GUITAR P POINTFIVE Upper Bout 11 ⅜" Upper Bout 11 ¼" Upper Bout 9 ¾" Upper Bout 8 ⅞" Central American Mahogany African Mahogany Sapele Mahogany Waist 9 ½" Waist 9 ½" Waist 8 ½" Waist 7 ¾" (Swientenia macrophylla) (Khaya ivorensis) (Entandrophragma cylindricum) Lower Bout 15 ⅞" Lower Bout 14 ¾" Lower Bout 13 ¼" Lower Bout 12" One of the most traditional woods Also known as Khaya Mahogany, its Sapele Mahogany has bright striped Depth 3 ½" Depth 3 ⅞" Depth 4 ⅜" Depth 3 ½" used for acoustic guitar necks, interlocking grain contributes to grain and is clear and responsive. Length 19 ⅞" Length 19 ⅛" Length 17 ½" Length 16" sides and backs, illegal logging excellent strength and stability. Both beautiful and brilliant, Sapele and unsustainable export levels African Mahogany is an excellent is an excellent tonewood for back are threatening to render big-leaf choice for neck material. and sides. mahogany commercially extinct in the near future. The Stage body shape is The traditional classical guitar The "T" body shape is a ⅞ sized The PointFive body has a 21.5” based on the Walden Grand body originated in the early guitar with a 24.2" scale length. (547mm) scale and body dimensions Auditorium cutaway body 1800s. By the 1920s, Spanish- The short scale contributes to within the range of measurements Ebony Indian Rosewood Katalox based designs emerged as the with a reduced side depth its easy playability. Similar to detailed by the European Guitar (Diospyros ebenum) (Dalbergia latifolia) (Swartzia cubensis) of 3 ½". This creates a thin- standard for the classical guitar. a parlor guitar with a slightly Teachers Association for ½ sized Ebony is the traditional fingerboard One of the world's most prized Katalox, sometimes called Mexican body acoustic-electric that The Walden "N" remains true wider lower bout, the T is braced instruments. For parents that material found on violins, classical guitar woods for back and sides, Royal Ebony, is native to Central is particularly suited to to its heritage and delivers a appropriately for its shape and genuinely want their child to learn live playing. The "S" has a voice that has a mellow, singing produces surprising volume. It how to play, the P5 provides a quality guitars, and high-end steel string Indian Rosewood is visually America. It compares well to Ebony clear and precise acoustic quality with good bass presence. has a focused voice, making it instrument that is not an impediment instrument due to its hardness, gorgeous. Sonically, Indian Rosewood and is stronger than Teak or Hard voice, even when played particularly pleasing as a solo- to learning. With bracing optimized stiffness, and resistance to wear. is complex, warm and deep. maple. It is one of the few available unplugged. lead instrument. for this smaller body, the P5 has a Ebony is a very dark wood, often fingerboard woods responsibly unique voice, elegant design, and black, but sometimes dark brown. harvested in FSC certified forests. remarkable tone. DESIGN FEATURES MODEL NUMBERING SYSTEM Carbon Graphite & Glass-fiber Neck Reinforcement Design [Body Shape] Last number indicates additional features: All Walden 1000-4000 Series guitars feature a modern thin-profile Grand Auditorium “1”= Mahogany top (for example: D351) neck. This is reinforced with two rails of Carbon Graphite, a “2”= 12-string guitar (for example: D552) feature unique to Walden among comparably priced instruments, which increases stability and adds harmonic content.