Comfortable dreadnoughts?

[s2y]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

No beer gut, comfortable with dreads = one data point towards my theory

No beer gut here and also comfy with dreads.

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by s2y

No beer gut here and also comfy with dreads.

Add another. Who knew beer guts were risk factors for shoulder injuries?

[s2y]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Add another. Who knew beer guts were risk factors for shoulder injuries?

Crashed my time trial bike at 40mph on a descent and landed on my right shoulder this spring.

[lgherb]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Add another. Who knew beer guts were risk factors for shoulder injuries?

You'd think that all of those "16 ounce curls" would help strengthen the shoulder!

[MartyGraw]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

Gibson does NOT make dreadnoughts - they make Jumbos - J45s, AJs, Sjs - all Jumbos because that's what the J stand for.

.

So are you saying Dove's, Hummingbirds, County Westerns, Songwriters are not Dreds? Sorry but I wholly disagree...

[iim7V7IM7]

Like many, my very first experience playing an acoustic flat top was a dreadnought back in the early 1970s. As a child, it felt HUGE to me, but they were the ubiquitous definition of what a steel stringed acoustic guitar was. Even after I grew up to be a 6’-3” man, I found the 25.4” scale, a 15-5/8” lower bout width, combined with a 4-7/8” end block depth both ergonomically uncomfortable and had a timbral imbalance in the bass registers. I think they are designed for certain genres of music like bluegrass or ensemble situations where volume a bass from the low E and A strings are important.

I play acoustically seated mostly and their lack of a narrow waist (most dreadnoughts are about 10-3/4”) they sit on my leg awkwardly. I have larger 16” flat top guitars but; 1) they have much narrower waists to rest on my leg easily and 2) they are less deep in the 4” to 4-3/8” and wedged. I actually find 17” archtops more comfortable than dreadnoughts but they have narrow waists and are only 3” to 3-3/8” deep at the rims. Dreadnoughts do many things very well as do Mod-Ds (hence their tremendous popularity) but they are timbrally and ergonomically my last choice in a flat top.

[jaymarsch]

Maybe it is just me, but I find a deeper bodied smaller guitar more tonally satisfying than a large shallow guitar and it is more comfortable for me. The builder has a lot to do with it. I have a deep body grand concert and it has nice deep bass (It is German spruce/cocobolo) and very balanced with good volume. I also played an Adirondack topped OM which has a tad bigger lower bout than my concert and it had a great voice as well. You can also look into builders who use the wedge shape. (Originally developed by Linda Manzer, I think and builders like Tim McKnight and others make use of it in their builds.) I do not think that there are many guitars that can match the tone and volume of a dread but I think that you can get close with the right builder to be satisfied and still take care of your body. My two cents.

Best,
Jayne

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by s2y

Crashed my time trial bike at 40mph on a descent and landed on my right shoulder this spring.

Face/shoulder planted on my MTB over a year ago in Tahoe, right shoulder is still stiff. Dreads are OK though!

[s2y]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Face/shoulder planted on my MTB over a year ago in Tahoe, right shoulder is still stiff. Dreads are OK though!

I ended up with 2 plates and 8 screws. Also damaged a tendon in my right pinkie. Could have been a lot worse at the speed I was going. Thankfully, I was wearing a helmet.

[gmr]

I have a Gibson J45 and an Epi Masterbilt j45me. The ever slightly smaller slope shoulder shape and the shorter scale length somehow seems to make these big bodies feel more manageable for me.