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  #46  
Old 02-25-2016, 03:11 AM
Michael Watts Michael Watts is offline
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Originally Posted by westman View Post
now I'm confused, I watched these two videos of good clear standard guitars then it struck me the player was playing in DADGAD which I'm interested in trying. I followed the players links and was surprised to find the guitar he had custom made is not DADGAD optimized / geometry / internal architecture for tuning he plays in 'exclusively', he plays a standard guitar
I'm starting to appreciate and prefer the sound of the DADGAD multi-scale.
That'll be me!

Yes I do use DADGAD tuning almost exclusively and if I was ever in the victorious position of ordering a guitar from Greenfield HQ for myself I wouldn't hesitate to ask Michael to make sure the neck was "loaded for bear" in the DADGAD department...

I love the guitar I play (a Kostal MD in The Tree), it's the perfect instrument for me and in terms of tone and response it gives me exactly what I was looking for and so much more. My MD is very much optimised for DADGAD in terms of set-up, voicing and neck carve.

I hope that helps.

PS. Joel, it was a pleasure and a privilege to be part of this build process and I look forward to hearing the voice of this wonderful guitar as it develops in the years to come.
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  #47  
Old 02-25-2016, 02:19 PM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Mr Watts! It was a lot of fun, thanks for your amazing guidance (and patience!!!) - you've helped me find my perfect guitar.

Now, here's another pic just because I can't stop drooling over it. And, well, because it's Thursday...



Joel
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  #48  
Old 02-26-2016, 04:42 AM
Michael Watts Michael Watts is offline
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Originally Posted by jdelin86 View Post
Mr Watts! It was a lot of fun, thanks for your amazing guidance (and patience!!!) - you've helped me find my perfect guitar.

Now, here's another pic just because I can't stop drooling over it. And, well, because it's Thursday...



Joel
Oh my days...
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  #49  
Old 02-27-2016, 10:15 AM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Had a little spare time this afternoon so here's an example of the G2 tuned in open Gminor...

https://youtu.be/rtYZzUxCKYo



Joel
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  #50  
Old 02-27-2016, 10:36 AM
Marcus Wong Marcus Wong is offline
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Too beautiful..... your playing is phenomenal too! Congrats on such a stellar instrument
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  #51  
Old 02-27-2016, 05:41 PM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Thanks Marcus! Now that it's freshly restrung I just can't stop playing it
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  #52  
Old 02-27-2016, 06:00 PM
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Doug Young Doug Young is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westman View Post
now I'm confused, I watched these two videos of good clear standard guitars then it struck me the player was playing in DADGAD which I'm interested in trying. I followed the players links and was surprised to find the guitar he had custom made is not DADGAD optimized / geometry / internal architecture for tuning he plays in 'exclusively', he plays a standard guitar
I'm starting to appreciate and prefer the sound of the DADGAD multi-scale.
I like the deep sound of this MG guitar
Most players I know who play in alternate tunings just play "standard" guitars. I wouldn't even know what to do to optimize a guitar for a specific tuning. The main accommodation I make for DADGAD (and actually everything, including standard) is to adjust the string gauges to account for tension changes. Multi-scale could be useful, especially for dramatically lowered tunings (down to C, B, A....) but just for dropping the 6th string a step, it doesn't seem all that effective to me. I've tried (and own a few) longer scale guitars, that are sometimes claimed to be better for alternate tunings, but frankly even short scale guitars work just fine in DADGAD, or any tuning I've tried. What else would you optimize?

Joel: Congrats on the great guitar! And nice playing, too.

Last edited by Doug Young; 02-27-2016 at 06:10 PM.
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  #53  
Old 02-27-2016, 06:12 PM
bajawatt bajawatt is offline
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Black is the Colour is a favorite of mine. That was super!
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  #54  
Old 03-01-2016, 12:58 PM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Doug - thanks! Agreed a fan isn't completely necessary as DADGAD isn't the most extreme of tunings, and as guitars like Michael Watts' Kostal demonstrate, you can have incredible sounding guitars 'built for DADGAD' without a fan.

That being said, the geometry Mikey G uses for his fan is incredibly comfortable; I found it particularly telling when I handed it to my father-in-law who had never played a fan-fret guitar & he took to it immediately. Plus the whole '3D sound' thing is rather lovely!

bajawatt - thank you! It's a lovely arrangement by a fantastic UK guitarist named Stuart Ryan.


Joel
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  #55  
Old 04-30-2016, 10:13 AM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Just restrung the G2 & been learning this Michael Hedges arrangement the last few days. Gives the perfect excuse to use my new Neumanns too :-D




Joel
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  #56  
Old 04-30-2016, 10:51 AM
JoeCharter JoeCharter is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
Most players I know who play in alternate tunings just play "standard" guitars. I wouldn't even know what to do to optimize a guitar for a specific tuning. The main accommodation I make for DADGAD (and actually everything, including standard) is to adjust the string gauges to account for tension changes. Multi-scale could be useful, especially for dramatically lowered tunings (down to C, B, A....) but just for dropping the 6th string a step, it doesn't seem all that effective to me. I've tried (and own a few) longer scale guitars, that are sometimes claimed to be better for alternate tunings, but frankly even short scale guitars work just fine in DADGAD, or any tuning I've tried. What else would you optimize?

Joel: Congrats on the great guitar! And nice playing, too.
Thank you Doug for saying this in a much nicer way than I could come up with.

I had a long chat with Michael last year and he mentioned that fan frets allow the player to use lighter strings when tuning down so that the tone is more consistent from string to string -- which is probably the only reasonable explanation I've heard on this topic.

That being said, a little offset of about an inch would have very little impact on tone and tension while a large offset would be difficult to play. If crooked frets made such a large difference, there would be way more of them out there.


Quote:
Originally Posted by jdelin86 View Post
Doug - thanks! Agreed a fan isn't completely necessary as DADGAD isn't the most extreme of tunings, and as guitars like Michael Watts' Kostal demonstrate, you can have incredible sounding guitars 'built for DADGAD' without a fan.

That being said, the geometry Mikey G uses for his fan is incredibly comfortable; I found it particularly telling when I handed it to my father-in-law who had never played a fan-fret guitar & he took to it immediately. Plus the whole '3D sound' thing is rather lovely!

bajawatt - thank you! It's a lovely arrangement by a fantastic UK guitarist named Stuart Ryan.


Joel
What's a guitar built for DADGAD?

And no disrespect intended for Mike (whose guitars are incredible) but any guitar with slightly crooked frets will play just as easily as a standard guitar. And you'd have pretty much the same sound with straight frets, 3D effect included. The only way you could truly assess the impact of the fan frets is to play a straight G2 along with your guitar back to back.


Quote:
Originally Posted by jdelin86 View Post
Just restrung the G2 & been learning this Michael Hedges arrangement the last few days. Gives the perfect excuse to use my new Neumanns too :-D




Joel
Nice recording, Joel.
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  #57  
Old 04-30-2016, 12:46 PM
steveh steveh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdelin86 View Post
Just restrung the G2 & been learning this Michael Hedges arrangement the last few days. Gives the perfect excuse to use my new Neumanns too :-D




Joel
Man you are getting great results from that recording setup; great playing & a great guitar doesn't harm things either!

Cheers,
Steve
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  #58  
Old 05-01-2016, 03:22 AM
jdelin86 jdelin86 is offline
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Thanks Steve! Am enjoying experimenting with the Neumanns, stereo recording is fun :-)

Joel
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  #59  
Old 05-01-2016, 04:32 AM
picassov7 picassov7 is offline
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Congrats Joel! All I can say is what an 'Immense' instrument. The power, richness, and emotion that you are pulling out of that guitar is amazing! Thanks for the wonderful videos.
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  #60  
Old 05-01-2016, 06:17 PM
JamesO JamesO is offline
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Originally Posted by JoeCharter View Post
What's a guitar built for DADGAD?
Mau, my guess (guess being the key word) is that it's a guitar with a top built with less string tension in mind. A 25.4" scale guitar in standard tuning with 12-53 gauge strings has 160.6 lbs of string tension. The same guitar in DADGAD has 144.6. My guess is that 16 lbs. (10%) makes a difference in how the energy drives the top. In this conversation, though, I think, "made for DADGAD" is about the scale length, not the construction.
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