Boucher Guitars how do they stack up??
 

I noticed some great dealers are dealing Boucher guitars (Eddies, Sound Pure, Shoreline). I have a great deal of experience with high end acoustic guitars but I've never had the pleasure of playing or handling a Boucher guitar. I'm curious how do they compare with a lot of the American Boutique brands? Which US brand are they the most like in regards to tone and weight of the builds?

I owned two and I'd recommend higher end models (btw, that is all that they make right now) over lover end ones (in the beginning they had lower end models which were good but not great). In my opinion they can compare to Collings, Santa Cruz, small shop American builders. For what is worth all Boucher guitars have Adirondack spruce tops. Sound wise I'd put them somewhere between Collings and Martin but your opinion might vary. I love mine 000-12 fret model, great sound in small box, I also had 000-14fret wild goose model but I ended up trading it for Martin OM28 . Good luck in your search and I hope you will find way to try one.

I'm from Montreal so I've seen and played a lot of Boucher guitars over the years.

One thing I have to admit is that they use great tops. Unlike several American builders, they don't charge you a steep extra for using ugly red spruce tops and I respect them for that.

On the flip side, if I'm going to spend serious money for a Martin-style guitar, I'd rather have the real deal and buy a Martin. I'm also not fond of the tuners that they use and the back of the headstock doesn't look like it belongs to the same guitar.

Of course they sound great -- but in this price range they all do.

I've only played two or three Boucher guitars, which I think were some of the high end ones darko recommended. Those I encountered at some serious acoustic guitar events, like the Fretboard Summit I attended a couple of years ago. They were being passed around at casual parties after the events of the day, in hotel rooms and whatnot.

So only a brief and superficial introduction, a casual acquaintance at best, not a prolonged courtship or serious examination of mutual compatibility. Never played one for more than a few minutes, never gigged with one.

However, the little I played them, I was impressed. I thought they were nice instruments.

As for the backs of their headstocks - I don't even recall looking at them on those occasions, frankly, but looking at photos of them online tonight they strike me as rather Larrivée-esque. Which is an infectious condition that affects many Canadian-made guitars, similar to the way we're fighting spruce bark beetle infestations in the boreal forests of Southcentral Alaska.

This guitar headstock design happens a lot in Canada.


You know, one guy goes to work for Jean Larrivée building guitars, works for Jean for two or three years, then moves back to his Canadian hometown and starts up his own guitar operation. Evidently the spores of this headstock design travel with the sawdust nestling in the cuffs of his work-worn blue jeans, because the next thing you know that headstock design has despoiled yet ANOTHER previously unaffected Canadian city....

If you doubt me on this, look at the back of a Morgan guitar headstock sometime.

Hey, Joe, just giving you a hard time. ;) Whatever your reservations about the visual aesthetics of that headstock design, though, it wasn't startling enough to make me drop my beer when Boucher guitars got passed to me in those late night guitar circles. I never even noticed...


Wade Hampton Miller

Hey no way in my neck of the wood I can compare my Boucher to other to notch builders
There are none, i’d have to drive to Montreal and even then, not so much
But mine is a killer guitar to my ears, full of overtones and projection
Perfect for fingerstyle solos, maybe not so much in a band, you decide
On mine, I find there is a slight glitch somewhere in the high mids hard to pin point
Mine is from an early era and I think it is missing a litlle bit on the fit and finish side
But certainly not in tone and projection
Fantastic bear claw Adi top, beautifull walnut and cherry, very nice hog/ebony neck
As for the Larrivée metaphore i’d say
Boucher = Normand Boucher
Normand Boucher = founder of the 1st canadian guitar factory early 70’s, Norman guitars
Maybe Jean saw some inspirations and possibilities before starting is own
Normand Boucher = father of Richard and Claude, original founder of Boucher guitars
Normand Boucher = uncle of Robin Boucher now running Boucher guitars
What? Someting with the back of my headstock?
https://goo.gl/photos/x9rLka9WFBzZJvTQ8

Off topic but part of history
https://goo.gl/photos/sgV7VcptjjE4ckq66

Dan

I played several at the Boucher booth at IBMA. I was very impressed. The Rosewood 000-12 Studio Goose stacked up against any new guitar I played that day.

As a proud Canadian I take exception to this photo. That Canada Goose is clearly photo shopped in.

No, I swear - the bull moose happened to be standing by the nest when that egg hatched, the fuzzy gosling popped his little head out of the shell, saw Bullwinkle standing there, and imprinted on him. Thinks he's his mom.

Follows him everywhere now.

Same thing happened with the mountie: the moose was casually strolling down the corridor at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Maternity Hospital, minding his own business, when the little mountie guy Dudley was born. Bullwinkle is who he saw first.

Same biological impulse.


Naturally, Dudley's mom Caribou Barbie wasn't entirely pleased, but she consoled herself once she realized that at least she wouldn't have to worry about paying for the kid's braces:


Bullwinkle is none too pleased with this turn of events, especially since Dudley insists on riding on his back "...so I can keep a lookout for ne'er-do-wells and evildoers!"

I guess we all have our crosses to bear.....


Wade Hampton Miller


Full disclosure: All of the above is true. I know that under Canadian law any shading of the truth is punishable by being locked in a windowless room and forced to listen to CBC radio broadcasts on a radio that can't be turned off!!

It's kind of like Guantanamo Bay, but without the ocean breezes...

Hope this helps!


whm

I went to the Boucher site
http://www.guitareboucher.com/en/
They're using "goose", where's the moose !

Back on topic
They are great guitars worth trying imho

Dan

The moose model got discontinued. It's available by special order only now.

I liked the ones I tried. I dealt with the back of headstock issue by simply not looking at it....


whm

Dang
 

Myself I would want to make sure that so called Canadian goose has been properly vetted( doesn't look right for some reason ) first however that Mountie is going to be getting what for for riding in his full dress.................hey

Oh forgot to mention not really a big fan of Boucher guitars where others I know just love them go figure right

Played a nice Boucher Adi/Walnut OM at Wildwood Music a few years ago.

Nice guitar. Wasn't what I was looking for that day, but if I was ...


opencee

.

A fabulous series of posts, Wade. "Maintain the right" is terrific!

OH yeah - I wish that I could afford a Boucher

Hey,

Having recieved my custom Boucher OM just this past July, I thought I'd give my two cents... They are great guitars.. I had the chance to play quite a few Boucher's (around 15) before my order and they were all made in the last 5 years or so. They were consistently impressive.

Tonally, I feel that they sit somewhere between the traditional and modern camps. From what I know their construction is modelled after vintage Martin's and its certainly reflected in the sound but Boucher's have an overtone content that is highly reinicent of more modern Guitars that I've played. Certainly not as much as most Goodalls I've played but a nice balance I feel. I very much like it.

Aesthetically, fit and finish is fantastic and is at least on par if not better than small shop American builders like SCGCs, Collings, Bourgeois, H&Ds, etc. that I've seen. I don't mind the headstock design but I know they offer a square headstock as an option (not sure if this is an upcharge or not... I think it's on the website). If you would like photos of my exact guitar, I have a link to my build thread in my signature that you're welcome to check out ~ Hahaha!

All in all, fantastic guitars but highly underrated IMHO.

Let me know if you have any specific questions!

P.S. I love your demo videos and get excited everytime you post a new video... Appreciate em a lot! Keep em coming! Haha