[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Erethon

Hello ladies and gents! Another newbie with another question here. I was hoping I could be informed as to what the differences are between dreadnoughts and grand auditoriums. More specifically, how do they typically differ tone wise, playability, etc.? Is one usually meant for one type of playing and the other another? Thank you!

Hi Ere...
You will discover as you play more instruments built by different builders and companies that there are general statements made about certain sizes of instruments, and many guitars which don't fit those stereotypes. Guitars of the same size can be as unique and different as people of the same size are.

Dreadnaughts do tend to produce more bass and more volume, and some of them make wonderful fingerstyle instruments and don't need .013 (medium) strings to achieve that goal at all.

Many Grand Concert, SJ (small jumbo), mini-Jumbo guitars have great bass which nearly matches that of a Dreadnaught and hold up well to aggressive strumming.

There are many other factors which affect tone. Wood combinations, age of the guitar, who built it, the pitch you tune to, and style you play, and amount of control you impose on your playing, alternate tunings and weight of strings all affect the tone.

I own an Olson Dreadnaught Rosewood/Cedar that is 14 years old, and it is an amazing guitar with great balance, awesome bass and it sounds optimum with Custom Light strings (.011-.052) with an .013 substituted as the 1st string. A semi-local friend owns a 20+ year old Olson SJ cutaway Rosewood/Cedar that when strung with .013 (medium) and tuned down a half step sounds and plays nearly identically to my Olson Dreadnaught. In fact when he's down a 1/2 step his matches mine for power, volume and tone.

When he tunes his to concert pitch, mine has more bass and his more treble. When I tune mine down half step to match his, mine gains more bass. Mine needs a heavier bottom string for extreme dropped tunings (CGCGCD), but his with .013 will handle it without beefing up the bottom string. By the way - solo he plays his 1/2 step low.

When I string my Dreadnaught with a full set of .013s, it just gets really muddy in the bass. And when he strings his SJ with a set of .012, he cannot tune down half step and still play agressively (rattle city).

And my OM with light gauge strings has the biggest tone and deepest sounding bass in extreme dropped tunings. Less overall volume than my Dreadnaught, but better tone on the low dropped tunings.

These are just examples of how tone shifts with just string weight and tuning.