Circa 000-12, Maple, Sick

[LaFaro]

what a beauty... this guitar is a real looker and I suppose, that she sounds even much better than she looks... your sound description reminds me very strong of Miss Maple, my maple guitar... and she is getting even better and better.... not looking so "classcial", but with all sound characteristics, you described so well

[Kerbie]

That guitar is just silly-gorgeous! I could run out of words on that one… maybe the prettiest Maple guitar I've ever seen. Sick… what it makes me feel when I realize I don't own it…

[fazool]

I was about to post, on the other current thread about headstocks, how I don't care for square, flat-topped headstocks (ala Martin shape). This has changed my opinion totally. I find this gorgeous.

[MikeD]

I essentially had John build me the same guitar last year, with a few minor changes to the main part of the build... carbon reinforcement in the neck instead of an adjustable truss rod, maple neck instead of mahogany, a solid headstock instead of a slotted headstock and mine has a cutaway. All I can say is it's one heck of a guitar! She was great from day one and over the next year she settled in a bit, and now she's fantastic. I can't say enough about John's guitars. I have owned 3 of them over the years (and played over a dozen others) and his stuff keeps getting better and better!

[justonwo]

That's awesome, Mike! I believe this guitar sold, by the way. There goes my chance . . .

[GWF]

It's up on the OM28.com website. It's a stunner.

[GWF]

Originally Posted by MikeD

I essentially had John build me the same guitar last year, with a few minor changes to the main part of the build... carbon reinforcement in the neck instead of an adjustable truss rod, maple neck instead of mahogany, a solid headstock instead of a slotted headstock and mine has a cutaway. All I can say is it's one heck of a guitar! She was great from day one and over the next year she settled in a bit, and now she's fantastic. I can't say enough about John's guitars. I have owned 3 of them over the years (and played over a dozen others) and his stuff keeps getting better and better!

I like the maple neck, especially the dark portion on the back of the headstock.

[massimo]

Would you please care to elaborate a bit on the tonal qualities of maple? I am curious.

Thank you
Best regards
Massimo

[justonwo]

Originally Posted by massimo

Would you please care to elaborate a bit on the tonal qualities of maple? I am curious.

Thank you
Best regards
Massimo

I'm not sure that I've played enough maple guitars over the years to have a good feel. I think it can be really hard in some circumstances to isolate the effect of one part/element of the guitar vs another. In many ways, this guitar is not unlike my adirondack/mahogany 000-12. I think what I can say is that the top feels/responds different than my adi topped 000-12 and OM - the Euro top feels a little bit more "played in," but I honestly can't tell you what the characteristic of the maple is. It's just one of those magical guitars that seems to have a lot of everything. I'm not sure how much that has to do with the maple and how much of that is that it's just a stellar guitar (I think the latter). Sorry, that probably doesn't answer your question very well, but sometimes it's hard for me to assign qualities to back and/sides woods. This is one of those cases.

[GWF]

Originally Posted by MikeD

I essentially had John build me the same guitar last year, with a few minor changes to the main part of the build... carbon reinforcement in the neck instead of an adjustable truss rod, maple neck instead of mahogany, a solid headstock instead of a slotted headstock and mine has a cutaway. All I can say is it's one heck of a guitar! She was great from day one and over the next year she settled in a bit, and now she's fantastic. I can't say enough about John's guitars. I have owned 3 of them over the years (and played over a dozen others) and his stuff keeps getting better and better!

Originally Posted by massimo

Would you please care to elaborate a bit on the tonal qualities of maple? I am curious.

Thank you
Best regards
Massimo

If you are interested in a Circa, give Jslo a buzz. I thought about buying one, and after calling and speaking to John, I KNEW I wanted a Circa. The man is amazing.

[EverettWilliams]

Thought that one was almost perfect. Had it a maple neck, I would have bought it myself. But, IMHO, mahogany has no place on a maple guitar.

[justonwo]

I wonder if the owner of this guitar is an AGF member. I’m curious how the tone has evolved.

[Carey]

It's a beautiful guitar. I wouldn't mind having a 00 like that.

[gitarro]

That circa ooo in maple is one of the few times that i have been tempted to break my unnoficial rule about owning more than one example of a luthier's work at the same time!

[MikeD]

My maple 00 (pictured above) has continued to get better over the last year. It's simply an amazing little guitar. I brought it to Woodstock again this year and it was a huge hit with everyone that stopped by the house and played it. I really can't imagine a more perfect 00 sized guitar. I owned another Circa 00 before in Honduran RW/Adi, and this maple guitar is more of what I like in an instrument in terms of tone and response when it comes to a small body guitar.