Acoustic Guitars

hey, thanks for this pashmina. i went on david's site, emailed him cos i'm a lefty and was wondering, and he's sent me one cheap - it's a bit of a weird conversion. it's still ace though, a really nice instrument. slightly resonator-y sound from a floating bridge. played it last night at a friend's housewarming while i was pished, good fun.

can someone recommend the best way to lower a movable bridge (i guess sanding is the only option) or a place to order a one in a different size?

You can go at it from the other way and shim the neck.

Oh wait on an acoustic guitar uh I guess probably not....

i ended filing it down a bit and putting ultra light strings on it which helped. i found that if i lowered the action to a normal height it buzzed really bad on the 13th fret and up, which i guess means the neck needs setting. unfortunately i aint a goddamn luthier

its playable with the high ass action using ul strings so whatever

My 20-year old shitty epiphone acoustic guitar is on its last legs, and I need to get something new. Unfortunately, it seems like going into a store and trying out a bunch of guitars is not really the standard way of finding a good new guitar anymore - stores are gone, and the ones that are left have limited inventories and so much seems to be done online.

But I really know next to nothing about acoustics beyond simple things like Martins are highly regarded and super-expensive. Any recs as far as brands and models go? I want a steel string, something I can finger-pick but not too huge or wide a neck. Having pickups/electronics is not important or desired. Prefer something that just sounds purty that I can play country and folk stuff with.

also something that's not a million dollars - a grand is probably my upper limit

ugh I'm going to have to go to Haight Ashbury Music if I want to try anything out, it looks like

Well?

I didnt mean i was going today! My free time is limited.

I was hoping to be able to tell you "you can get a low-end Larrivee for a grand," but I checked, you can't. they start right around 1250, which is pretty expensive, still, in my mind. you can get a Taylor in that range (like, pushing right up againt a grand), a lot of people really like Taylors, I have never connected with one. whereas Larrivee makes incredible guitars imo. honestly though my favorite playing guitars, the ones I play around the house or take into a studio, were not costly -- they're old, sometimes beat-up, things I bought online. it's a risk! but, like -- this 1970 Guild here -- it's rebuilt, doesn't have the original neck, so collectors don't have much use for it, but I'd wager it plays beautifully. The video linked from the listing sounds great, those early 70s Guilds are just some of my favorite guitars in the world (and are really expensive when they're all-original), I play one almost daily here in the house -- they are wonderful to have around and to play for my kids.

You might also cast around online for parlor-sized Gibsons of the 50s, which play RAD as hell and sound incredible but aren't the big-monster Gibsons (or super-early ones) that command the giant prices. I think I got my LG-1 for under 1k, that was 10 years ago and the Gibson market's always going up but the parlor ones aren't as loved I don't think.

God damn it I'm kinda not buying guitars now, I had a sickness about it for a while before I had all kinds of havin' kids expenses, but this thread caused me to look at a listing for a 1963 Epiphone Cortez which I kind of really want and can't justify

thx for the tips I hadn't considered Guilds

guitar collectors are the weirdest

The guitarist in my band sometimes used a guild acoustic and I thought it was a fantastic sounding guitar.

I recently accidentally came by one of those cheap starter Jasmine acoustics and I actually think it sounds pretty good for $100 or whatever it retails for. I tend to like "thinner" sounding acoustics over "fuller" sounding acoustics.

Encountered a guy playing a Guild this past Saturday and it seemed pretty nice.

don't tell me his name was tom

Eh, no. Does that guy even play acoustic?

I went to Haight Ashbury Music Center on Saturday and man that was just depressing. Rows and rows of Yamahas, Ibanez, and Taylors, almost everything with crappy built-in electronics (why do people even bother with these, I have never understood it, much less heard them make a decent sound). A lot of Martins as well, but no Gibsons and no Guilds, and none of the Martin models I was particularly interested in. These guys have an inventory/space at least as big as Guitar Center, so this doesn't bode well...

looks like I may have to resort to the internet/ebay after all

http://www.steveswanguitars.com/
http://www.gspguitar.com/
If price were no object: http://www.om28.com/

Bad news wrt the hopes that Gibson parlors might be cheap - the parlor guitar market is exploding right now. I sell 3 times more parlors than dreadnaughts right now. It's crazy.

Keep an eye out for guitars made under the name "The Loar" and also for the "Recording King" models. They do a torrefied top model that is crazy good and sells for $500. Both of those (which are actually from the same parent company) are the best thing going for under $1000 right now in my opinion.

ahh appreciate the pro tips here jjjusten. I think I can probably go as high as $1,500 - but it does seem weird to me how at first glance there appears to be very little mid-range between a few hundred dollar models and the several thousand dollar models.

how do people feel about these Blueridge guitars - I've never played one, they had a few at HA

jjusten speaks wisdom. I have a Recording King in the 000 style, I think they call it an RO 06 - a good $500ish guitar. It plays very nicely fingerstyle or not; it has gigged reliably and has yet to be damaged by curious toddlers, drunks, or drunk toddlers. I would not exalt it to the ages, but it suits my needs fine and its existence protects a beloved very old guitar from the rigors of daily use.

The missing mid-range between affordable instruments and the serious boutique stuff seems explicable to me. At this point, it seems like mass-produced instruments can be made pretty consistently and are mostly pretty good. Certainly light-years beyond the entry-level instruments of my own Cretaceous childhood. I speak not of jokey untunable sub-$100 toy-store things, but the ubiquitous offerings with respectable names on the headstock that are affordable to mortals.

A $5,000 guitar is better than a $500 guitar but it is not ten times as good. And what difference there is may only be discernible to a professional, expert, or hypersensitive crank.

If I had $100 I would not buy a guitar with it. If I had $500 I could probably be satisfied with any of dozen different more-or-less-indistinguishable choices by the usual suspects (Epiphone, Yamaha, Ibanez, a few others I'm not thinking of right now). If I had $1,500 I might be tempted toward a new Martin or Gibson, but would also check out high-quality used instruments.

I'm kinda impressed by the Martin X series. I got turned onto them by a hippy bluegrass player around here that goes down to Costa Rica a few months a year. He said first time he went down there the humidity completely screwed up an acoustic he had but those laminate necks on these Martins did fine.

Martin advertises them as "working man guitars" and they seem to me to kinda fit the bill. They are kinda loud like most Martin dreadnoughts and the stock electronics are not bad.

I think they are pretty good guitars for the money. Other things are to look for an older used Alvarez or some other acoustic made in Japan in the 80s.

I can't believe I waited so long to post here. Slipped my mind. I have a handful of nice enough electrics, but my acoustic is a beat up Seagull S6 which is fine for a starter - which it was when I started - but nothing remotely special. I've been shopping around for a new (old) acoustic for the better part of a year now, but the combination of price and variety has overwhelmed at stymied me. For a while I was aiming for a Martin D28 or D35 (this would be my forever guitar and a belated birthday present). but then part of me was thinking, hmm, Gibson J-45 is pretty classic, or even the J200. Then I heard a Martin jumbo, the J40, and it sounded pretty good, too. Latest thing that's caught my eye was a 1970 Gibson Southern Jumbo, which is going for not a terrible price; I've heard it's very similar if not identical to a J45. And then I've recently stumbled upon a late '60s Dixon Hummingbird, lawsuit-style Japanese rip of a Gibson Hummingbird, that many love, and which goes for a steal. And then, adding to the confusion, I've read that it's actually the southern jumbo and Hummingbird that are similar, if not identical.

Anyway, I have no idea what to do, and when faced with a room full of 300 guitars, have even less idea what to do.

I ended up getting a Gibson Dove, arrived on Saturday. I had been trying to get a Hummingbird but just got priced out of various ebay bids. Can't say I'm disappointed, the thing is a beauty

an old one or a recent one?

I couldn't afford any that old, this one is from 2006

Anyone know what this thing is?

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/32966559_402657696868331_2238164976147628032_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=ccc239571e9f70720e2b038e9e7e84b5&oe=5BBFB0C6

actually apparently it's a puerto rican cuatro 10-string guitar. Anyone know what make? (longshot I realize)

What if anything can anyone tell me about the Aria Japanese Gibson clones? There's a local dude selling a cheap lawsuit era '70s Aria J180 Everly Brothers jumbo and it looks pretty cool:

https://images.craigslist.org/00303_ihSWADuRnPz_07K0ak_600x450.jpg

idk about their acoustics but I have a generally favorable impression of Aria

my second bass was an Aria knockoff of the classic 80s Kramer strat type body with P/J pickups and a pointy head stock, still have it for sentimental reasons

I just have had such a tough time pulling the trigger on any acoustic. I've got some nice electrics, but my only acoustic is my original Seagull starter, which has always been hard to play. There is just such a wide range of craft/sound/price to acoustics, and unlike electrics there's no easy way to, say, swap out the pickups.

i've got an aria 505 acoustic. great guitar, lovely and bright

I bought a 1971 yamaha acoustic from a consignment shop a decade ago and it's probably the best $100 I've ever spent, if that can be extrapolated to other 70s japanese acoustics. It sounds good and plays really well and was in great shape, but isn't as nice as my cousin's 90s Martin that I babysat for a while.

I didn't realize it at the time but it's a red label 'nippon gakki' model that people kind have a thing for; the cheapest one on reverb right now is $600 and is in much worse condition so I feel like I got a crazy score

This one is I guess all maple, with a glued headstock repair. They're asking $390, which is a lot lower than the going rate (and this particular Everly one doesn't come up in many searches) but ... yeah, I dunno.