The Kostal MDW - A Modified Dreadnought with a twist!

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by Michael Watts

Hi Pip,

You're absolutely right, the 12-fret design adds a great deal to the timbre of this instrument (with the bridge in the sweet spot of the lower bout), as does the shorter scale length. It is a rich sound, although it's not designed to be a bluegrass cannon the MDW has plenty of headroom and poke, with the immediacy of response that comes from a smaller body. There's also the added range that the maple back and sides give me and a resulting sense of "options" when it comes to nuance and inflection when playing. It challenges me to be a better player.


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Thank you so much Michael! Sounds like the MDW is really an inspiring instrument!

Interesting you mentioned about the immediacy of response of a smaller body. I guess one of the challenges of making a bigger size guitar for fingerstyle is to maintain the focus and definition of individual note (instead of sounding "fuzzy"). I am not sure how this relates to the sense of immediacy (which apparently describes the happening of the sound in relation to time). Or are they just different descriptions of more or less the same auditory perception?

I would be interested to know if you and Jason have considered making a MD with shallower body to effectively decrease the volume of the box and perhaps achieve comparable results to "shrinking" the MD body to MDW?

Pip

[dcn]

This is such a striking instrument - the high-contrast binding and neck work wonderfully. Awesome, Michael and Jason.

[Michael Watts]

Originally Posted by Pippin

Thank you so much Michael! Sounds like the MDW is really an inspiring instrument!

Interesting you mentioned about the immediacy of response of a smaller body. I guess one of the challenges of making a bigger size guitar for fingerstyle is to maintain the focus and definition of individual note (instead of sounding "fuzzy"). I am not sure how this relates to the sense of immediacy (which apparently describes the happening of the sound in relation to time). Or are they just different descriptions of more or less the same auditory perception?

I would be interested to know if you and Jason have considered making a MD with shallower body to effectively decrease the volume of the box and perhaps achieve comparable results to "shrinking" the MD body to MDW?

Pip

Hi Pip,

yes, we did toy with the idea of a shallow MD but I wanted the immediacy of a smaller body. The MDW has a much faster response than my MD.

Originally Posted by dcn

This is such a striking instrument - the high-contrast binding and neck work wonderfully. Awesome, Michael and Jason.

Thank you, it was a lot of fun!

Here's a video about Maple in general which features the MDW in standard tuning too



This is proving to be an extremely inspiring instrument and I've been writing a lot of new material since we first met...

[yoni]

The "depth" of sound on the bourgeois was incredible...then you picked up the Kostal and it blew it out of the water. WOW!

[Michael Watts]

Originally Posted by yoni

The "depth" of sound on the bourgeois was incredible...then you picked up the Kostal and it blew it out of the water. WOW!

Yeah it's a lot of fun...

[Pippin]

Originally Posted by Michael Watts

Hi Pip,

yes, we did toy with the idea of a shallow MD but I wanted the immediacy of a smaller body. The MDW has a much faster response than my MD.


Here's a video about Maple in general which features the MDW in standard tuning too



This is proving to be an extremely inspiring instrument and I've been writing a lot of new material since we first met...

Thanks a lot Michael, as always.

It is remarkable how the MDW sounded different on these clips over the course of just two weeks or so...to me a lot crisper and articulate on the new recording.

Earlier recording:

Originally Posted by Michael Watts

Pip

[Cocobolo Kid]

Michael,

What a beautiful guitar, and in all aspects. I love the design choices on this one, and the birdseye, figured maple back and sides are gorgeous. I really like the color of the rosette too.

It might just be me, but the design on the tail of the guitar (the maple inside the two rectangles) looks like two nines flipped on their sides, for serial number 99. I don't know if this was intentional on Jason's part.



Congratulations on a world class instrument.

[Zacharius]

Beautiful guitars... [emoji1362]


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