Anybody have a Martin SC-13E yet?

[JackB1]

I love the gig bag. It's very well designed and light and easy to carry from gig to gig. The only time I drag out my heavy hardshell cases are for long travel or when I know they need to be more protected from the heat or cold. Otherwise the gig bags are great.

Originally Posted by blakey

My understanding is that it's a solid mahogany body with a koa top veneer. Not laminate. I think they're really cool guitars but the lack of a hard case puts me off.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by JackB1

I'm curious what cheap Zoom pedal has canned IR's?

Yes I have no qualms with the offset shape. It's supposed to be better at fighting feedback and you forget about the shape when you're holding and playing it.

A1 Four. They don't call them IRs. It is part of the input pickup selection.

[JackB1]

Ah yes...the A1 Four. Nice cheap little unit. Had one. Actually those
included models did a surprising nice job of taming the quack. Should have
never sold mine

Originally Posted by jonfields45

A1 Four. They don't call them IRs. It is part of the input pickup selection.

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by JackB1

Not even $100 more. I would thing another $50 in cost towards the pickup would have made a big difference. But I definitely would pay a little more for a better pickup, no doubt.

It's not hard to remove the UST, replace the saddle, and install a K&K, JJB, or Ultra Tonic bridge plate pickup.

[darylcrisp]

the SC13 is an excellent guitar(based on the ones that have passed thru my hands). excellent in build(it is a laminated body with a mahogany core), very svelte in the hand, one of the most pleasing guitars i've had in hand due to the body shape. its very nice IMO in person, i never felt the shape was odd or intrusive-it is very accommadating to playing, enhances balance while seated, and hangs neutral in standing. the excellent balance due to the shape gives a feeling of lightness, but at 4 lbs, its a light guitar already.
the neck shape is a dream to play, the ease of access to the total fretboard is excellent. the action is very low and buzz free.

the pickup, i agree, could be and should be better. its ok as is, and thru my Bose S1 sounded very Martin with a balanced tone thru the whole string set-which i believe was a design principle Martin wanted this model to have from the getgo.

i think the price is very fair, especially for everything this guitar offers and excells at. the gigbag is very very good, not really a gigbag but a modern soft shell hardcase(what i believe most are calling these type of cases now).

i don't care for the blue in the rosette and around the purfling of the binding, but thats a personal problem. i do like the blue dot on the fretboard.

I hope they take and apply this type of build and make something in the 00 size, that would be super cool.

i also agree most of the videos i saw when this model came out rendered a too "thin" tone and some sounded terrible. this video i'm listing i found after the SC models came thru my hands and went out to the owners, and this sounds much like what those guitars sounded like to my ears.

keep in mind it comes with Xlight strings, so there is a tradeoff on depth/thickness of tone vs having a lighter string set that bends super easy and plays almost truly like an electric.
installing a standard light gauge set of strings definitely boosts depth of tone, but you do give up that ease and fun of throwing strings around probably like never before-lol

the short-this isn't going to kick your OM-28 or D-28 out of the house, and wasn't meant too-but i can pretty much guarantee if you like to have fun while playing you will find yourself picking the SC13 up more and more and every other guitar less and less. you will also find probably find yourself playing things you've never attempted or could on all your other guitars. note around 6:30 on the video, its total fun!
extremely well built, well thought out, and fun.......lots of fun. tuners worked super smooth and held excellent. a 10 for sure.
i would LOVE to own one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-nEeTxP7w


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGyGFhl8uK8


and here you go with some overdrive, starts around 8:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPrHEVoI5QM




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[JackB1]

Great points Daryl. I agree with most of what you said. To me the biggest draw of this guitar is it’s ease of playability and comfort to hold and play for a long time.

[JimT]

I think I will stick with my Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster, comfortable to play for hours and great sound.

[Cecil6243]

Originally Posted by JackB1

I love the gig bag. It's very well designed and light and easy to carry from gig to gig. The only time I drag out my heavy hardshell cases are for long travel or when I know they need to be more protected from the heat or cold. Otherwise the gig bags are great.

I have the gig bag too. It's a very well made and attractive gig bag.

[Cecil6243]

I've had a lot of issues with my SC-13e since it got it a couple of months ago, but apparently it was due to my ignorance about low humidity. Now that it's been rehydrated (no splitting or cracks thank God) and I am keeping it at optimum humidity, I am getting fret issues taking care of probably due to the low humidity, and the action lowered.

The only thing that disappointed me about the guitar is the tuner display starting coming loose, and I feel the action was quite high from the get go. I was getting major groves in the end of my fretting fingers. Calloused but significant depressions.

[JackB1]

I agree that it is comfortable to play but I am a percussive strummer and I prefer the feel of an acoustic. The Fender takes a light touch and always sounds a little thin to me. The acoustic sounds aren’t bad, but a well EQ’d acoustic with the proper effects will sound more full to me.

Originally Posted by JimT

I think I will stick with my Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster, comfortable to play for hours and great sound.

[JackB1]

Yes I don’t like the tuner at all and will probably end up pulling it out. It’s very jumpy and slow to react. Frustrating when you are trying to quickly get in tune in between songs at a gig. My clip on is my easier to use. For bedroom or home use it’s fine. The high action is easily fixed. Get it properly setup and you’ll be good to go.

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

I've had a lot of issues with my SC-13e since it got it a couple of months ago, but apparently it was due to my ignorance about low humidity. Now that it's been rehydrated (no splitting or cracks thank God) and I am keeping it at optimum humidity, I am getting fret issues taking care of probably due to the low humidity, and the action lowered.

The only thing that disappointed me about the guitar is the tuner display starting coming loose, and I feel the action was quite high from the get go. I was getting major groves in the end of my fretting fingers. Calloused but significant depressions.

[steelvibe]

No, But I did just play one at guitar center. Let me tell you, I was shocked at how good it is. If you can get past the nontraditional looks It is a great feeling and sounding guitar! Very resonant and gorgeous Martin tone.

[steelvibe]

Yep darylcrisp, very well stated and thank you for the videos! I completely agree with your assessment, The guitar pleased me in every way. I wasn’t expecting to love it but I did- The neck is phenomenal and I applaud Martin for finally moving into the future with a new neck joint. I mean $500 not spent on a neck reset could go to a new Martin. Why wouldn't they want that?

[Jeremy]

I'll admit when I first heard about this guitar and saw all the videos and marketing that I was pretty underwhelmed. Some seemingly cool innovations, but with laminate b/s, underwhelming pickup for a stage-centric instrument, soft case, and that silly X-braced back (reading between the lines in the marketing, to me it's a shot at Taylor for their V-Class is better than X-bracing schtick).

However, I was able to lay hands on an actual unit yesterday and today and was pleasantly surprised. It sounded (acoustically) better than expected and had the easiest playing neck I've encountered yet. Reading a review here, Martin marketing is quoted as saying this about the "laminate" b/s:

“Some have got confused about the back and sides material,” notes Martin’s international marketing consultant, Steve Harvey. “It’s essentially solid mahogany [really, khaya] with a thin – we call it ‘fine’ – koa veneer over the top to give it some bling.”

I still don't like the pickup (and the tuner is terribly slow and unresponsive), the soft case is underwhelming, but I don't have to look at the unnecessary back X-brace (and record label sticker) and I liked the rest enough to buy it. I've read multiple times here that replacing the stock custom lights for 12s makes for a marked improvement in acoustic sound, so I plan to do that. I also like that they created a new bracing scheme (Tone Tension) rather than shoehorning an existing bracing system into the new design.

Finding a hard case has proved to be a challenge. It didn't even fit in a Martin dread or Gator dread case because the lower bout is pretty big and the asymmetrical design presents some fit challenges. The shop I got it from managed to find a Geib-style case meant for a D12-28 that fit well enough, but for $299 that was a hard no - I'll keep looking.

I'm a bit concerned about long-term ownership as Martin uses a proprietary shimming (plate) system to adjust action and neck angle. If Martin moves the Sure Align neck design to other than just this one guitar, I'll trust (maybe) it's not a gimmick and they're committed to it for the long-haul.

[RalphH]

Originally Posted by fpuhan

This one appears to be in the latter category, but Martin's marketing slug says, "It was designed from the ground up to be plugged in." Hmmm.

Yeah, marketing departments say all sorts of things. If it really were designed from the ground up to be plugged in it'd have a solid or semi-solid body, or some other non-great-big-feedback-machine soundbox. Your ES-335 was designed from the ground up to be plugged in. A Fender acoustasonic is designed from the ground up to be plugged in.

This thing comes with a standard off-the-shelf electronics package.

And to my mind, anything with a proper-sized soundbox was designed from the ground up to be a jack of all trades at most. Not that that's a bad thing; I'd certainly not buy an acoustic that was mainly focused at plugged-in play, but then I don't play out, except with friends and we don't need to be loud.