Calling all guitar gurus part II

Hey guys...the deed has been done.

I really appreciate all the suggestions you guys have made and all the infomation has been more helpful than you probably realize.

So here's what I walked out of the store with today.

New Martin HD-35 with L.R. Baggs Dual Source (to be installed later. I ended up buying it at Gruhn's. They were extremely helpful. They set me up with a bevy of differnt guitars that I wanted to try in a nice quite room. The way I was leaning was for an HD-28V. They didn't have a new one in stock. They did have a used HD-28LSV that was pretty sweet, but the neck was just a little wider and for my small hands, it seemed to make just a small, but noticable difference in playablity for me. But I did get to judge the tone. I used a D-41 as a baseline because that was my favorite sound before this stop. I picked up the HD-35 (first time I tried one) and fell in love with this particular guitar. That's all she wrote. I played it, I loved it, I bought it :D.

They gave me a pretty fair deal I think. $2,045 for the axe, $195 for the Dual source & $60 for installation. He really worked it to keep me close to my $2,500 budget. I ended up walking out $2,549.18 lighter :D. He knocked about $155 off their marked retail price of the guitar and gave me pretty good deal on the Dual source (probably $50 or so cheaper than some other quotes installed). So he knocked off a total of around $200 (which almost covered the sales tax on it - I hate Tennessee's 9.25% sales tax. It's a killer on these kind of purchases). So anyway, I think I got a pretty fair deal.

I ended up choosing this guitar because it seemed to have that nice Martin tone yet it seemed a bit more balanced as C7 mentioned earlier. The HD-28lsv was very nice, but I could tell it was a bit boomier. I thought this one would be a good workhorse for both studio and gigging. Well, that was my reasoning anyway.

Thanks again for all the help. I have learned a lot. :)
 
Outlaws said:
Ya know..........

I am suprise that of all the questions Jagular asked, not one was in reguards to the 2 peice backs of the 28 series, and the 3 peice backs of the 35 :p
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It's my understanding that the 3-piece back came about because Martin had a lot of small pieces of Brazilian rosewood and they wanted to be able to make use of them. Seriously.

From what I understand about backs, the "type" of wood and the density/properties of it has much more to do with tone than the physical construction of the back itself.
 
Jagular........

Glad to hear you found an instrument you fell in love with.

Just wait until it's broken in!
 
Great!

Very happy to hear the 'I found the tone and playability I wanted' story'

I am very partial to Collings guitars, but if everyone liked Rocky Road there would be no market for Butterscotch.

Enjoy!
 
First off, I do not think it likely that you need a dual source pick-up system. It depends on the style of music, and the situation you are playing in, but they are quite expensive, and unless you are a high profile artist make lots of money, or are a working guitarist doing at least a hundred shows a year, I do not think it has enough value to bother. It will not sound like your guitar, and I think the improvement is usually very minimal. Add to this the increased tendency towards feedback due to the microphone involved, and I just do not see that they are worth it. That is what I tell customers who come into my shop, and if I am telling you not to give me your money, I must actually mean it. In addition, this will give you a couple hundred dollars to spend on your guitar, instead of the electronics.


Jagular said:
1. The D-28 and D-35 have non-scalloped top braces where the HD-28 & HD-35 have scalloped top braces. What does this mean and what difference might it make?

You must remember that when they first started building Dreadnaughts, they where still used to building gut string guitars, and the scalloped bracing C.F. Martin I came up with was not designed for the higher tension of steel strings. The H in HD stands for Herringbone, and is a reference to the fact that prior to sometime in the early forties (I don't have the book with me), they used a Herringbone for the purfling on all of the 28 style guitars. When the company the got the Herringbone could no longer supply it, they stopped using it. At about the same time, they realized they where having a lot of warranty claims due to the lightness of their tops, so they stopped scalloping the braces, and moved the X-brace closer to the bridge. These two moves made the top less prone to stress damage, but also changed the sound. I would tend to describe the non-scalloped guitar as being tighter, with less balance between the highs and the lows. They tend to be wonkier, if you understand what that means.


2. Top braces on the 35’s are ¼” compared to 5/16” on the 28’s. What difference might this make?

Again, this is making the top lighter, and so it will tend to open the guitar up a little more.


3. The HD-28 & 35 has a zig zag back purfling where the 28 & 35 have just a solid back. What does this mean and what difference might it make?

None what so ever, except in appearance. This is what was traditionally done when they where using the Herringbone Purfling. It is kind of like why so many builders like to use slot heads for 12 fret guitars. Because that is the way Martin used to do it.


4. The HD-28V has a couple differences. The top bracing pattern is forward shifted. What does that mean? The bridge style is “Vintage belly drop-in – long saddle”. What does that mean?

It means that the braces have been moved to the original position. The bridge means that the saddle (the white piece of bone, or these days Micarta) is in a slot which continues out the edges of the middle part of the bridge. This is bad, as it will approximately double the cost of set ups on this guitar. It is a gigantic pain in the ass, but some people like the look.


Like I said, I liked the sound and feel of all of these so far for different reasons. I haven’t tried an HD-35 yet. I’m going to take a half day off and go down to Gruhn’s here in Nashville and try out a bunch more guitars. Maybe they have one down there :D.
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Good. I could talk for days at you, and you would be no nearer to understanding what you want to know. What you need to do is play guitars. You are fortunate to be near a great guitar shop (Gruhn's). Play every guitar they will let you play. Play guitars which are WAY out of your price range. Learn what you like, and what you don't like. Even if you don't figure everything out in one session there, who cares? I mean, what could be more fun than spending a day in a music store playing guitars. In the end, it only matters if YOU like the guitar you buy.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
You will love this guitar more every day. Good job!

I'm a tone freak, so I'll add an alternative point of view from Light's on the issue of dual source pickups, for these reasons.

1. An undersaddle transducer will give you very good gain before feedback, which an internal mic will not. But it will never sound like the acoustic guitar itself. You will get a highly colored sound and if you went with this alone, you would come to depend on contouring the hell out of it to approximate the natural sound.

2. The internal mic, depending on its type and placement, will give you a much more accurate tone, but it will be twitchy to handle and if you had it all by itself you would end up pretty frustrated trying to get a controllable gain.

3. The secret is using a good blender with decent EQ when playing live. I'm learning that a local monitor makes a world of difference and and that by blending the two signals through an acoustic amp on stage, then micing the amp or sending a direct line to the board, I can get loads of tone. Most of it will be from the undersaddle, but the edges are handled by the internal mic.

4. Learn to play with a mic anyway. Look for an MXL 603s in a shockmount (about $100 or a little less) and experiment with the sweet spot - between the soundhole and the 12th fret, about a foot or so away. The 603s is a tad on the bright side; you won't even need any EQ with a D35. Keep the little sucker right in the case.

You'll get a huge sound with this setup.
 
Treeline said:
1. An undersaddle transducer will give you very good gain before feedback, which an internal mic will not. But it will never sound like the acoustic guitar itself. You will get a highly colored sound and if you went with this alone, you would come to depend on contouring the hell out of it to approximate the natural sound.
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A mic inside the guitar does not come close to the sound of the guitar. Or at least, not the sound of the guitar any where you can actually hear it (or at least, the strings are awfully damped when you have your head going throught the soundhole). I would contend, in fact, that NO microphone can ever duplicate the sound of an acoustic guitar.

What I was saying was not that the dual source pickup will not improve the sound (though it will never sound like the guitar itself), but that it is not worth it unless you are going to use the pickup a LOT. It sounded to me like they where picking up instillation as part of the purchase price, which is helpful, but you are still spending a lot of money on a pickup. I have seen many people get pickups put in their guitars, and then they NEVER use them. If you are a performing guitar player who plays out a lot, then go for it. If you are a hobbyist who plays at a church gathering every now and then, it is simply not worth the extra money, as you are unlikely to use it enough to learn how to make the most of it. If you need it, great, but don't waste your money if you don't need it.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Hey Light & Treeline. Thanks for the information and different perspectives on the subject. I appreciate both sides.

Light – I don’t feel too bad about buying it. The one gig that I have coming up (pending contract finalization) is one that I really want to sound good at as I may (or may not) have a chance to make an impression. I am in the process of trying to get my chops back (what little I had anyway :D) and I intend to start playing out at writers nights around Nashville in early 2004. You know what they say about intentions though :p :D May still be overkill, but that’s ok. I shouldn’t have to buy another pickup system for awhile.

Thanks again guys.

BTW…I played a lot this weekend and man do I love the tone of this guitar :D
 
hmm.... a lot of good points here about the mic/piezo/whatever methods... true, even with a blender you're not going to get an "authentic" sound, but... I saw Chuck McCabe and Jay Howlett here in town and they were both playing Breedlove guitars running this way, with the dual mic/pickup setup, and ran through a nice little Fishman blender. Best acoustic sound i've ever heard through a PA. simple as that.
 
I was running sound for a festival / benefit stage on Saturday night and one of the acts was a fellow named Stephen Kiernan from Ferrisburg, Vt. He showed up with a brace of Breedloves and proceeded to knock every sock off in the entire joint. His 12 string (I believe either a dark rosewood, cocobolo or ebony) was equipped with a dual source setup; undersaddle and internal condenser, similar to the b-band I put in my Taylor. He ran each guitar through a small Fishman pocket blender and I ran an XLR from each into a dedicated channel on the board. I had the guitars EQ'd flat. One vocal mic was hot.

My PA is a simple Mackie CFX board driving a pair of Mackie SRM450 cabs.

I've never heard a twelve string sound so good through anything.

The bass notes rang like an eight foot grand piano and the trebles were hitting me like a hammer dulcimer cascade. On top of it all, the guy can play. Started with Leo Kottke and nailed tune after tune. I just about lost it, though, when he did Rickover's Dream by Michael Hedges. I know that piece well (just can't play it even a little). He nailed it.
 
nice to see another forumer recognizing the beauty of Breedloves.

Jay Howlett and I were talking after the last show i saw them at, and he was saying that the Breedlove 12-strings are the best sounding, best-playing 12-strings he'd EVER seen and heard. And from what I heard from his and Chuck's guitars, i believe it. he said something to the effect of "Unlike most 12-strings, which are rather difficult to play at first and FEEL like a 12-string, the Breedlove 12s feel MUCH more like playing a 12-string, and it's just a much more graceful guitar".

I want one very badly. Breedloves are great.
 
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