WTB Acoustic Guitar

[Lucas]

I'm going to have a crack (again) at learning David Rawlings style finger picking. Only guitar I have in the house is a POS......

Has anyone got a decent instrument they would like to part with? I'm thinking I can afford up to a grand (max). Doesn't have to be as big as a dreadnought - I really like solid all mahogany.......

[Ben M]

I have a Seagull S series S6+CW with the optional LR Baggs Duet II installed.
http://www.seagullguitars.com/products6%2Bcw.htm
http://www.lrbaggs.com/Manuals/duet2_manual.pdf

Hand made in the Village of LaPatrie, Quebec from ancient timbers.
Currently has nashville tuning meaning all the small strings from a 12 string packet. Great for picking sweet stuff. Comes with hard case. Very well looked after and no marks.

cheers
Ben

[Text_Edifice]

Where are you based Lucas? I know of a lovely mahogany parlor going in Bris that does the rawlinss sound

[Lucas]

I have a Seagull S series S6+CW with the optional LR Baggs Duet II installed.
http://www.seagullguitars.com/products6%2Bcw.htm
http://www.lrbaggs.com/Manuals/duet2_manual.pdf

Hand made in the Village of LaPatrie, Quebec from ancient timbers.
Currently has nashville tuning meaning all the small strings from a 12 string packet. Great for picking sweet stuff. Comes with hard case. Very well looked after and no marks.

cheers
Ben

What kind of moola are you thinking....

[Lucas]

Where are you based Lucas? I know of a lovely mahogany parlor going in Bris that does the rawlinss sound

Regional NSW.

To be honest I'm not sure if I should want mahogany or not....... Maybe something a little more versitlie? Dunno...

[lonearranger]

I'm going to have a crack (again) at learning David Rawlings style finger picking. Only guitar I have in the house is a POS......

Has anyone got a decent instrument they would like to part with? I'm thinking I can afford up to a grand (max). Doesn't have to be as big as a dreadnought - I really like solid all mahogany.......

If you want that Fhole accoustic thing then maybe checkout some 50/60s guitars stuff from hofner/Kay/Silvertone/Eko/Framus etc. I think the epiphone olympic that Rawlings uses was not a very high end guitar in its day. Interestingly its a flattop fhole, and the fholes are in 3 parts, some good shots of one that was for sale here http://www.archtop.com/ac_33olympic.html - note the lifetime guarantee - wonder if gibson would still honor this?

All that said I am not sure how much of Rawlings sound is the guitar and how much is him.

[Lucas]

I'm sure at this point I would make most guitars sound bad.... I might steer clear of anything too vintage until I get to the point that I know what I'm doing.

[Alistair]

Are you sure that Epiphone is a flat top? Looks like a pretty shallow arch, but an arch nonetheless to me. Not that it really matters, just wondering.

[Lucas]

I thought it was an archtop too....

[lonearranger]

Are you sure that Epiphone is a flat top? Looks like a pretty shallow arch, but an arch nonetheless to me. Not that it really matters, just wondering.

No, only based it on a cursory glance, and the lack ot the pronounced arch, and the back looking flat - so no I am not sure at all, and after looking at some more pics suspect I was wrong.

Here is another pic of Gillian and David, not looking their most flattering, but showing off a few examples :
http://network.gillianwelchanddavidrawlings.com/albums/photo/view/album_id/22/photo_id/162

If you flick thru some more of the photos you will see Gillian with a Martin peghead acoustic, as opposed to the j50 we normally see her with.

[chribble]

All Mahogany Models I can think of.

1) OM15 style Martin
2) Guild D series (China)
3) Old Guild D20

There is a yamaha on ebay at they moment, but I wouldn't pay $800 for it.

Seagull's are nice. I have a cedar/rosewood. The headstock is kinda ugly....
The tone is great though, and wide string spacing.

[Lucas]

Yeah I saw the Yamaha - wasn't sure about that one.

I'm amazed at the quality of guitar that can be had for under a grand these days. All solid wood & decent electronics. The Chinese made Eastman I strummed the other day was unbelievable for the price. Comparing it to Taylors, Martins, Cole Clarks & Matons it took a doubling of price to see a significant improvement in tone. The feel of the Eastman was immediately playable (at least for my ignorant fingers) too.

I think part of my fascination with maple is purely aesthetic - I really need to do a blind comparison. Someone needs to make a toneboard shootout CD....

[Julian Nichols]

Best mahogony guitar I've played is the Martin 00015S (S = slotted headstock), I think it is discontinued now but in the last couple of years I have seen a few sold for under a grand second hand. If you can find one of them, they are beautiful guitars.

[Text_Edifice]

About three or four years ago I decided I wanted a new guitar. I had a dreadnought (my first instrument) but I'd outgrown its 'derivative' sound and wanted something a bit more distinct, an instrument I could make my own.

My song-writing was (and is) heading in a blues / country / jazz direction and I really liked the sounds I heard on the Welch / Rawlings albums – and their influences. I wanted something that had just a touch of boom, a 'dry' / 'even' / 'prominent' midrange and singing highs.

After trying many many instruments I came to the conclusion I wanted a small body guitar, probably solid wood (though Rawlings guitar has a ply top from memory). I also discovered that price, and in some cases wood quality, weren't as good indicators of whether or not I'd like a guitar as body shape (0, 00, 000) and age. Most of the new parlor's I played (Maton / Martin / Tanglewood etc.) didn't have the same magic as many of the cheaper Stella / Harmony / Sears grot-boxes or Japanese made acoustics form the 60s / 70s.

I got to try a couple of 100 year old luthier-made parlors and early 20th C Martin's, which were lovely, but not quite what I was after. Actually, I'm lying here, there was a very old Martin I tried in Singapore that was gorgeous but $4500 too much for me to seriously contemplate and didn't feel like it would be 'my' instrument.

Along the way I also learned a bit about the difference that bracing; bridge-pieces; bridge / nut material; neck profile / width; etc. made to the sound I could get out of the instrument – this helped me narrow my search.

Last year I was living in Vietnam and bought a cheap-ish travel guitar from a luthier in Ho Chi Minh city because I didn't want to travel with my dreadnought (which had come close to being crushed to death by Thai airways a few years ago). It was a simple, unadorned, parlor style guitar (spruce top / Koa back and sides / rosewood fingerboard) and I'd initially thought I'd sell it before flying back to Australia.

Eight months later the instrument had become 'my' guitar and I brought it home, paying more than I bought it for to install a custom pickup system. The instrument is a little idiosyncratic, sounds best with silk and steel and has a really wonderful, distinct tone and nothing else I've played since coming back to Australia feels quite like it.

This post got a bit rambly but here's my .2c

Don't look for something that sounds like Dave Rawlings - find an instrument that you can speak through in your own voice.

You'll definitely find something for under $1k that does this if you look hard enough – just be patient, be prepared to play and listen to a lot of instruments and (for the money) I'd be looking at older Japanese or cheaper US made models.

[Lucas]

I might just learn to play guitar first, on something that wont piss me off. Then I'll go on the hunt for some esoteric tone...

[Text_Edifice]

Sorry Lucas - got a bit carried away.

Have a look for Japanese made 'vintage' models or older parlors – if you're ever up in Bris there's a guy who restores lots of these types of instruments who would be worth making a visit to.

[Lucas]

Please get carried away - that is how I learn...

[lonearranger]

Sorry Lucas - got a bit carried away.

Have a look for Japanese made 'vintage' models or older parlors – if you're ever up in Bris there's a guy who restores lots of these types of instruments who would be worth making a visit to.

One you might want to look out for are the yamaha dynamic guitars from the 60s - they were a nylon but I believe are braced to take steel strings as well - read up on them there is lots of info on the net re which are supposed to better etc. Have seen them on ebay from time to time and there are some in australia.

[Lucas]

cheers

[Alistair]

I've been checking out this David Rawlings guy a bit the last couple of days- I didn't really know him, but do know Gillian Welch so I guess I've probably heard him quite a bit without realising it. He's pretty cool, I like it.
Thoughts on the sound/playing-
That super percussive, midrange punch is very hard to get out of anything but an archtop guitar. A flattop is going to be more scooped in the mids and bright, even a great flat top. In contrast, a small body archtop is going to be dry and operate in a much smaller frequency range, which helps it cut through.
Generally you're also going to get a wider string spacing on acoustics, which is going to make it damn hard to pick those flatpicking lines he plays. Not impossible, but quite a bit harder. I know you mentioned him fingerpicking, but I couldn't find any clips of him doing that. I'm sure he does, but even on slower tunes he was flatpicking. I'd love to see him fingerpicking if anyone has a clip.

[Text_Edifice]

Pretty sure Rawlings is a flat-picker actually. None of his stuff on the Gillian Welch albums springs to mind as being finger-picked.

[Lucas]

My mistake.

I just found this article:

http://www.acguitar.com/issues/ag76/CoverStory.html

[onebaldbloke]

I'm about to sell my 50's Harmony Monterey F hole archtop.

Ta,
Bob.

[Aearth]

I may have a Larrivee OM-03 with pick-up for sale:
Details:
ll Solid wood Construction, Single Piece Mahogany Neck, Canadian Sitka Spruce Sound Board & Bracing, African Ebony Fretboard & Bridge, Canadian Maple Body Binding, Mahogany Back & Sides, Symmetrical Parabolic X-Bracing, Hand fit Dovetail Neck Joint, Rounded Larrivee Headstock, White Inlaid Larrivee Logo, Multi-Strip Inlaid Rosette, Ping Tuners w/ 18:1 Ratio, Ivoroid Fretboard Binding, Exclusive Beveled Tortis pickguard, Microdot Fretboard Markers.
$1000.00

nIC

[Text_Edifice]

Lucas, if you didn't end up buying Nick's guitar (or anything else) you may want to check out this one:

http://www.musicswopshop.com.au/SwoppyI ... SS%2022573

I think the brass nut and body size will get you in the ballpark of the tone you're after and it's within your budget.

I don't know anything about the guitar other than seeing it in the Music Swop Shop inventory so can't offer any guarantees / recommendations etc. other than if I was on the lookout for the type of guitar you've described I'd want to give this one a play.