Edwinson-2021 EP-SC Performance Guitar for sale!

[theEdwinson]

Here is a new Edwinson Performance SC guitar that I'm very proud of, available for adoption to a good home. I built this guitar over the summer, to bring to Tom Bowersox's B.I.G. show in New Braunfels TX in the first week of September. It was a very busy summer, and I just barely got strings on it before we loaded up the car and headed west for the show.

The Performance model is the largest guitar I make, equivalent to a GA or SJ size, and it has a lot of power and range. This is my first all-original design, now in its 20th year and fourth design update, and I built it to be very versatile and fluent-sounding. This particular one has most of the high end options I offer, and is quite a luxurious instrument. It also sounds and performs with world-class character, and it's going to keep getting better and better- especially when some lucky person decides to own it and play it.

Here are some photos to introduce you to this guitar. Other info to follow below...



The primary woods are: Malaysian Blackwood (Diospyros ebonasea), a true Ebony from SE Asia, a fairly close relative of the better known Macassar Ebony; the soundboard is Mastergrade Adirondack Red Spruce (Picea rubens). The fingerboard, bridge, front headstock, bevels, cove cutaway, and other decorative elements are highly figured Ziricote. Flamed Maple also features in the trim of this guitar, including the segmented back strip inlay, purflings on the body and neck, inlaid dual side sound ports, end graft, and rosette. The neck is a laminate construction of Honduran Mahogany, with flamed Maple center lam.

More specifications below, but if you've made it this far, you probably want to know the price. OK, then. This guitar, with all premium tonewoods, and high-end features, specs out to $10,270 USD, with a Guardian CG-044-OS case. I am asking $7900 for it. That saves you $2370 off list price. Brand new guitar, full warranty, and offered on approval, so you can try it out before you commit to buying it.

I will include all the pertinent specifications in the next post. Thanks for looking, and stay tuned if you're curious...

[LanePeterson]

Wow, that is an incredible guitar!

[jklotz]

Wow Steve, that thing is beautiful! I'm enjoying my Eclipse Noir a lot! Not quite as fancy as that one, but if that one sounds anything like mine, that's going to make somebody really happy.

[theEdwinson]

Originally Posted by jklotz

Wow Steve, that thing is beautiful! I'm enjoying my Eclipse Noir a lot! Not quite as fancy as that one, but if that one sounds anything like mine, that's going to make somebody really happy.

Hi, James,
It's so gratifying to hear that you're enjoying your new guitar. I didn't have it here long enough after the first strings were on it to hear the whole magical "opening up" phenomenon that new guitars go through. I heard a lot of great sonic potential from the start, but it didn't really come into bloom until you had the Eclipse Noir in your hands. I really appreciate your enthusiastic text messages while this was happening. Thanks, Brother!

A similar thing happened with this Performance SC guitar. When Joel and I arrived at Tom and Kathy's beautiful home in New Braunfels for the B.I.G. show, it was still a pretty "green" guitar, and sounded a little stiff and dry at first. It was only a few days old and hadn't quite woken up into its new incarnation yet. But over the weekend, as more and more people played it, it really came alive! A good number of people there ran it through its paces, and when I took it back to the Air BnB in the evenings, I was thrilled with the way it was opening up. The trebles were becoming crystalline and colorful, and the mids were clear and articulate. The bass end, while not overpowering, was really coming across with that fat, satisfying low rumble that you can feel in your ribcage...

And now that this guitar is a couple months old, it is really coming into its identity. I'm glad I got to hang onto it long enough to enjoy this opening up phase. It's also why I love making guitars on my dime, for shows or for just doing self-generated projects. Commissioned guitars are sent out to their new owners just a few days after they are fully dialed in, and I don't get to hear that acoustic alchemy that happens as the guitars discover their voices. Now I have three new show guitars that I'm getting to enjoy for awhile...
This is why my job will never get old.

[Aspiring]

Steve makes some unbelievable instruments. I have the sister to this in a multi scale and love it.

Looks tone and playability are all there.

I know someone will love this one if they give it a go. I took a chance on mine with the play at home trial and so glad I did

I was so busy looking to find something different from what I already had at B.I.G. that I never did give this one a try. I'm really curious how the dual sound ports and other differences would have compared to mine.

[theEdwinson]

I just spent an hour and a half composing a comprehensive description of the features and specifications of this guitar, but apparently my session timed out (not sure how or why that happens) and all the text disappeared into the ethers when I tried to post it.
I'll try again later.
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone.

[theEdwinson]

Here are the pertinent specifications for the Malay Performance SC guitar: Serial # 2108-143

Scale length: 25.5”; Thirteen frets-to-body, twenty frets total (Evo Gold medium wire); Nut width: 1 13/16”; String spread @ nut: 1 19/32”; String spread @ bridge saddle: 2 1/4”; Fingerboard radius: 16”;
The neck carve is a medium/slim C-carve, with a 3/32” taper from first to 11th fret.
The Performance series is the largest guitar model I make, equivalent to an SJ or GA size. The body dimensions are:
Width @ lower bout: 16 3/16”; Width @ waist: 9 1/2”; Width @ upper bout: 11 3/4”.
Body depth @ lower bout: 4 1/4”; Depth @ waist (the deepest part of the box) 4 3/8”; Depth @ neck/body join: 4 1/8”.
The neck has an LMI TRSD two-way adjustable truss rod, accessible through the sound hole.

The Malay Performance guitar embodies most of the high-end features I offer, most of which are performance-enhancing and and ergonomic features. I also love to include aesthetic embellishments that express the signature look I’ve cultivated over 21 years of building acoustic guitars.
Here are some of the special features on this guitar:

-An Omega open headstock, with Gotoh 510 Mini tuners, Cosmo Black with MadRose buttons, 18:1 ratio. The Omega headstock is designed for light weight and straight string pull over the nut, for improved tuning accuracy and stability. The Omega is quite sturdy too, due to the laminated construction, incorporating front and rear head plates, and the wood’s grain orientation, which is vertical through the heel and headstock, NOT slab-sawn.

-Ryan style arm and rib bevels, slimmed down somewhat, so as not to encroach on the tone-producing areas of the top and back plates. Once you’ve tried a guitar with arm and rib bevels, especially on larger guitars, you’ll never want to go back to un-beveled guitars.

-Dual side sound ports, inlaid with flamed Maple and rust and black veneer lines. I’ve been building all my guitars with dual ports for awhile now, because they really do enhance the experience for the player, and the audience. I’ve found through many examples that the upper bout port emphasizes the bass response, while the smaller port on the lower bout hip brings more three-dimensional sounding midrange and trebles. You’d think it would be the other way around, but in one guitar after another, this effect proves out. Dual side ports also give the guitar a more spherical sound field, rather than straight-forward projection. This offers a lot of creative opportunities for recording and performing with microphones. I think dual ports also greatly improve the sonic balance of the guitar, with very even response from bass to midrange to treble.

-A “Cove” style cutaway (aka “Scoop”), which provides easy access all the way up the fingerboard, while preserving more air volume inside the box than a Florentine or Venetian style cutaway. This cove cutaway is capped with figured Ziricote. If you play up that high, you’ll find the Cove very comfortable!

-A K&K Pure Mini passive pickup is installed in the guitar, so it’s studio- and stage-ready. I like the passive version of this three-transducer pickup system because it’s the essence of simplicity. There’s no a tangle of wires inside the box, or a fussy preamp, or a battery that will surely go dead right in the middle of an important gig. All the sound shaping is done outboard. And this pickup sounds very clean, transparent, and natural, even with no EQ or other signal modification. Plug ’n play simplicity. There’s a 1/4” jack on the bottom of the guitar, centered in the end graft.

-Double-side construction, which makes the sides quite rigid and stiff, like a drum shell, so the sides support the unimpeded sonic excursion of the top and the back, without dissipating the string energy through thin, weak sides. Also very helpful in making the guitar much less prone to cracking. The inner sides on this one are quarter sawn African Bengi. The total thickness of the sides is 1/8”, so very little extra weight is added to the guitar.

-The neck is a laminated construction, with Honduran Mahogany as the main wood, and flamed Maple center lam bordered by black veneer lines. The wood has vertical grain orientation through the heel, NOT slab sawn, which gives this neck great strength and stability. Laminated necks are stiffer and more impervious to warps and distortion than single peice necks, which sometimes have undetectable stresses in them.
The neck joint is a bolt-on mortise and tenon.

Aesthetic embellishments include: Bound and purfled fingerboard and headstock; Ziricote Headstock plates, front and rear; Copper and black MOP inlays throughout, including fingerboard fret markers, and a Lotus inlay at the 12th fret; All Style One binding and trim- including shop-made Ziricote bindings with three-layer rust/Maple/rust purflings; all mitered, not butted; fully bound and purfled arm and rib bevels, and cove cutaway; Segmented back center inlay; framed end graft; Bound dual sound ports, inlayed with flamed Maple and rust/black veneer lines; An Element style rosette, with inner ring of radial Ziricote, asymmetric Maple, Copper and black MOP elements, and inner and outer rings of purfled high-flame Maple. The sound hole is purfled with a rust veneer line and bound with a Ziricote ring, to protect the fragile spruce end grain from assault by picks and fingernails.

The fingerboard and bridge are highly figured Ziricote as well. The nut, bridge pins, and saddle are vintage unbleached bone. I “relic’d” the bridge pins to make them look like fossilized ivory.

I apologize for this exhaustive run-down; but if you have any other questions about this guitar, I’m at your service. Thanks for looking!

[theEdwinson]

How about some detail photos?

[theEdwinson]

Full disclosure- These photos were taken right after I strung the guitar up the first time. The pickup wasn't installed yet, and also, I changed the tuners from Gotoh Mini Gold tuners with black buttons to Cosmo Black Mini's with Madagascar Rosewood buttons. Everything else in the pics is bone-diddy-reet.

[theEdwinson]

I have never embedded a YouTube video in a thread before; I hope I get this right. Dustin Furlow demoed all three of my guitars at the B.I.G. Show. Skip ahead to 8:55 to see him play the Malay Performance guitar.
This was recorded on Dustin's camera, with the camera's built-in mic, from about ten feet away, but you can hear the voice of this guitar beginning to emerge under Dustin's extremely talented hands.

It was so great having Dustin, and Karlijn Langendijk there at the show, all weekend, and hear the fantastic music they play in such an in-depth immersion.

[LanePeterson]

I keep coming back to this. I'm in the market for a custom build acoustic, actually; and you're work is definitely intriguing.

[theEdwinson]

Originally Posted by LanePeterson

I keep coming back to this. I'm in the market for a custom build acoustic, actually; and you're work is definitely intriguing.

I'd love to work with you, Lane. Or, I could send this one to you for a tryout, if the specs match what you're looking for.
My email address is [email protected]; My phone number is (206) 271 8743. If you or anyone else reading this want to call me, please leave a message. I screen all calls due to relentless spamming.
Or, send a PM through this Forum. Thanks!

[SuperB23]

Beautiful instrument!!!

[RussellHawaii]

Aloha Stephen! Gorgeous guitar, wow! Your artistry is unbelievable! I’ve been considering a second Edwinson!
Can I ask about its weight? I assume Malaysian Blackwood is quite heavy, eh?

[TomB'sox]

I can attest from an in person experience that this is a stunning guitar of the highest build level from a man whose integrity and character can not be denied.