As you may have gathered from the above, this thread is lagging behind reality. And indeed NGD. So, Tom jumped on a train...
And ... after a tortuous wait ... he and Beverly arrived!
Beautifully presented in her tuxedo case, I apprehensively untwisted the latches...
My gratification was delayed somewhat in that Tom had thoughtfully covered the top with a black polishing cloth and a handwritten card. So, resisting the urge to grab the guitar straight away, I - as custom dictates - politely read the card! An additional tease from Tom? Or a lovely touch and something else to treasure? Both, perhaps!
So, on to the guitar...
They say a picture speaks a 1000 words. So here she she is in all her glory (continuing the tease theme - panning down from the top!) ...
After I'd admired the fit and finish, and stunning materials, Tom sat very patiently as I played for maybe a couple of hours in full fat baritone mode, before we swapped out the strings for mediums and I played it in D guitar (and alternate tunings down from there) mode.
Trust me, she plays and sounds every bit as good as she looks.
It's sometimes said that bass is cheap - and it's the trebles where you really have to do the work. Perhaps all the more so on a baritone. I'm delighted to say that Beverly has rich, thick, phat trebles (which made me think of Michael Greenfields work), and all the delicious bass you could want. It's a heavy guitar (no doubt the wood choice, those bevels and the triple sides), but she has a lovely balance to her in the lap (no sniggering at the back), and is beautifully balanced tonally too.
To my mind, the ovangkol works really well here (I told Tom is was a "genius tonewood choice" - though I'm not sure which of us gets the credit!
). Tom described it's tap tone as somewhere between koa and rosewood. I think the rosewood element suits the long, slow, haunting aspect of the baritone (at least, that's the way I like to play it - with just two or three carefully spaced notes at a time, often using lots of harmonics) and brings out bass and treble, overtones, harmonics & reverbiness. The koa side brings some clarity, mid-range loveliness and balances it all out. But maybe I'm imagining all this and it'd sound just as good in mahogany, pine, balsa or paper mache ...! Whatever, it looks absolutely gorgeous. The chatoyance needs to be seen in the flesh to be fully appreciated! (I'll try to make a video at some point in case I can capture it a bit on film)
More to come (including more pics, videos, recounting some hanging with Tom Sands and Mike Dawes and others, and more on it as D guitar - where it's D-lightful), but in the meantime -
the TL;DR? I'm absolutely thrilled with it! I'm really looking forward to recording three or four tunes for my forthcoming album on it in the next few months; and maybe a cover or two as separate projects, and of course to a lifelong journey together!