NGD: 2015 Taylor Custom GA: cedar and cocobolo with koa accents

[Willie_D]

That's one of the prettiest guitars I've ever seen.
Congrats on finding a keeper!

[VJP5]

Congratulations on your Custom GA! I've been eyeing that one for a while. I can easily agree that Taylor's Cedar GA's have enormous volume. The only guitar I truly regret selling is my Custom GA Cedar/EIR with the same CV Bracing and relief rout. The best bracing pattern Taylor has offered, IMHO.

Hope you enjoy it for years and don't make the mistake I made of thinking you can one up it. I ask the buyer of mine repeatedly if he would sell it back and the answer is always "No....I think I'll keep it".

Enjoy

[wisedennis]

Very pretty

Originally Posted by LakewoodM32Fan

As some of you know, I'm no Taylor apologist. Traded in a 2015 714ce a few years ago which never opened up. My first "high money guitar" was a 914ce v-class which was great when I didn't know what else was out there, but was traded in for my SCGC OM when in a head to head, the SCGC appealed to me way more, and thus started me down the path of small builder guitars. H&D and Collings soon followed, along with custom shop Martins and a MD. Played dozens of fine Taylors in the last 2 years, most v-class, some x-class, but none pulled at my musical heartstrings. I thought I was simply past my Taylor days and that my tastes now ran more towards the vintage-voiced and Martin-inspired builds.

A few weeks ago I bought a K14c BE because it was surprisingly resonant, projected well, and had a pleasing tone that was still Taylor but with a twist, due to the Koa b/s. I very much like it and am happy to have added it to the arsenal. It's held its own in my stable and is a solid addition, a nice change of pace from its more vintage voiced siblings, but it’s definitely got plenty of Taylor DNA in it’s sound.

But my newest addition is something else entirely.

First: a shout-out to Ted at L.A. Guitar Sales. He’s an awesome person to do business with (heck he’s just a great guy, period, and his wife Helene is also wonderful). If you’re in the market for a brand he carries, I highly encourage calling him. If you’re in the area, once the pandemic ends (or if you want to set up a by-appointment) you owe it to yourself to visit at some point. He’s located across the street from The Roxy on Sunset Boulevard. Yup. Can’t get more rock-n-roll iconic than that. Bring your leather pants and ripped rocker t-shirts.

I contacted him regarding a Taylor Custom Grand Auditorium he ordered back in 2015/6. Because guitars that MSRP for nearly 5 figures sit on shelves for a while due to a limited buyer base, then v-bracing debuted, and finally the pandemic shut us all down, this one has sat in his inventory. It's new, flawless, not even shopworn. Because it's a 5-year old guitar, I got it for a significant discount. No, it wasn’t a special price for me; until I bought it, the sale price was on his site, so anyone could have scored that deal. Fortunately, that someone turned out to be me.

I am about to surprise myself by writing this sentence, given the guitars I own. This Taylor is now my most versatile guitar.

Let me be clear. It's not necessarily the best at any one thing, or even “the best” overall. The TD-R goes deeper and gets boomier. The D-18 gets louder. My 'hog backed guitars have a bit more mid-sweetness. The smaller bodies respond a little better to light touch. The Collings and SCGC are a smidge more articulate.

But this Taylor is now my answer to the hypothetical question, "If you could only take one guitar to a show, which would it be?”

Well, as of now, I have an answer: it’s this Taylor. Due to the combination of tone, playability, ergonomic comfort (for my body size), upper fret access via the cutaway, and built in electronics. As I said, it’s not the best at any one thing, but it’s the most versatile one I own.

Tonally, it can reproduce low notes well, likely due to the Cocobolo. It projects well due to Taylor’s GA dimensions and depth, and the choices Ted made in spec’ing Adi bracing to add some volume to the cedar top. Cedar’s known for warmth, and the mids from this guitar reflect that. A bit of the Taylor DNA sneaks in to account for more highs than one would expect from cedar, but is tamed by the wood so that it doesn’t sound as bright as standard Taylors.

Speaking of the cedar top, this is my first one so I had to do some research on its tonal properties. I have read it has a lower volume ceiling than spruce. That doesn’t feel to be the case here. I can dig in very hard, and this baby just pushes out more dBs without sounding harsh, breaking up, or compressing. It is crisp and responds quickly to a sharp pick attack. Volume-wise it stands toe-to-toe with my torrefied Sitka and Adi topped OMs (update, as most of this text was written a week ago, it now is louder than all of them due to "waking up" from being stored in a case for several years).

A lot of this may be due to Ted’s wood choices, which he hand-picked the pieces while at Taylor. He told me “normally I spec out Sinker Redwood/Cocobolo for our custom builds, but at the time Taylor didn’t have any usable sinker sets. The standard redwood they did have was not visually attractive, so I selected this great piece of cedar instead. I wanted to turbocharge the cedar a little bit by using Adirondack for the bracing. In the end, it turned out this combo may be a better redwood than actual redwood!”

What may also be at play is the Taylor’s “old” C/V bracing with relief routing. The final refinement of Bob Taylor’s last brace design before Andy Powers introduced his Advanced Performance bracing, followed by his oft-debated V-bracing. I’m not going to chalk it all up to X vs V alone, as Ted did a great job spec’ing the tone woods and bracing.


Tone aside, let’s talk about that edgeburst: it’s color matched to the beautiful Cocobolo back and sides, so it looks like the Coco’s color is bleeding past the binding and into the cedar top. Tight, uniform grain with great silking on the cedar makes this the most beautiful top of the guitars I own, and I’ve been fortunate to own some great ones.

I will admit what made me inquire with Ted about this Taylor was its visual appeal and its wood-focused look. Full Koa binding (top, back, fretboard, armrest bevel, and headstock). Cocobolo rosette and headstock overlay. Edgeburst satin finish on the back of the neck and headstock, a nice touch to match the top’s gloss. And not one hint of abalone, which only adds to the wood-focused visual theme. Nothing shiny/blingy to distract, not even on the fingerboard. I kind of wish the Taylor pearl logo wasn’t on the headstock.


All of this yields something that is not a classic Taylor sound. Sure, there’s still elements of Taylor to it, it didn’t suddenly sound like a Martin or Gibson. But it has tamed that “sparkle/brightness” that is a Taylor signature. This Taylor sounds very earthy, woody, with surprisingly deep and articulate bass to complement a sweet midrange and present but not overbearing highs. And, this is with Elixirs on it.

This Custom GA is a great sounding guitar. I do not hesitate to play it alongside my SCGC, Collings or H&D, and I would proudly bring it to a player’s circle with boutique names on the other players’ headstocks. The limiting factor would be my skill, not the guitar’s tonal inferiority to the smaller builders’ model.

Once I’m able to get a decent recording setup (waiting for some GC rewards to activate so I can purchase a Focusrite Scarlett interface and a matching set of Røde NT5) I will take a page from Kinnaird’s playbook and post some blind sound samples of my various guitars. I’m going to bet people will have a hard time identifying this guitar as anything other than a great sounding instrument, as opposed to “oh, there’s the Taylor in the bunch!”. I’m not sure that there’s a “Taylor for people who don’t like Taylors”, but if there is, this would be on a short-list of candidates.

Just realized, I keep referring to it as “This Taylor”. It doesn’t have a model number, the label simply says “Taylor Custom GA” so I don’t know what to call it. Guess I’ll have to name her sooner rather than later. Oh, and that label...it only has one signature.

Maybe I'll just call her “Taylor”. Yeah, that’ll do for now. With apologies to Ms. Swift. Hopefully this one won’t break up with me and write a hit song about it.

Full image sizes here for those interested (the back has great figuring, but is very hard to photograph so it didn't come out well): https://imgur.com/a/9Ps5ntj

[phade314]

Wow! I’m not “burst” guy, but that it absolutely beautiful. Enjoy your new guitar!

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Originally Posted by VJP5

Congratulations on your Custom GA! I've been eyeing that one for a while. I can easily agree that Taylor's Cedar GA's have enormous volume. The only guitar I truly regret selling is my Custom GA Cedar/EIR with the same CV Bracing and relief rout. The best bracing pattern Taylor has offered, IMHO.

Hope you enjoy it for years and don't make the mistake I made of thinking you can one up it. I ask the buyer of mine repeatedly if he would sell it back and the answer is always "No....I think I'll keep it".

Enjoy

Thanks! For sure I won't make that mistake. I know Taylors tend to get a lot of grief in comparison to the boutiques (even from me, my former 914ce v-class I traded in was absolutely outclassed by my SCGC OM which was my first boutique guitar).

However this GA stands toe to toe with my OM, OM2H, etc. I can't wait to swap out non-Elixirs on it.

Originally Posted by phade314

Wow! I’m not “burst” guy, but that it absolutely beautiful. Enjoy your new guitar!

Same. There's only been 2 bursts on acoustics I've seen that I was drawn to. Collings' Style 2 (? the one with less dark and more light to the burst) and now this one.

[boneuphtoner]

Oh myyyy - so gorgeous!!!

I know this has to be an awesome player. Besides hog tops, Taylor’s cedar/rosewood guitars are among my favorite tone wood combinations they make - With the coco instead of rosewood, It will be even more special

Many congrats and enjoy!

[The Growler]

Congratulations! What a looker.

[SaltyIrishman]

Beautiful guitar and great writeup and story. I love how "unbling" it is for such a high end guitar. Happy new guitar day!

[edward993]

Congrats, OP ...not only beautiful, but unique! I know what you're talking about with the "Taylor Custom" moniker; these are spec'd guitars that don't follow the normal Taylor conventions, as it were.

FWIW, I have a 2008 "Custom DN" that is spec'd like no other, and is beautiful. But of course, it has that tone that grabbed me, and has been my go-to live guit for maybe a decade now. Enjoy not just the tone and aesthetics, but the uniqueness of its build ...I know I do mine!

Edward

[SpruceTop]

That Is One Beautiful Taylor Custom GA--Enjoy!

[AH Acoustic]

Originally Posted by LakewoodM32Fan

Yeah I had historically stayed away from cedar thinking it was a fingerstyle only type of topwood, but obviously Taylor (and the Adi bracing Ted spec'd) can make this top ring out with the best of my spruce tops!

Congrats on a beautiful guitar.

Can't wait to hear your recordings. Cedar / Adirondack bracing ... I've heard of this done, maybe it was an urban legend...

Don't keep us waiting too long!

-a.h.

[BenP_357]

Love seeing the arm rests on the Custom GA's!

Looks like a great guitar, bet it sounds even better!

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Originally Posted by AH Acoustic

Congrats on a beautiful guitar.

Can't wait to hear your recordings. Cedar / Adirondack bracing ... I've heard of this done, maybe it was an urban legend...

Don't keep us waiting too long!

-a.h.

Will do! As I mentioned in your NGD thread, I just took ownership of a new Zoom H8. I've never recorded my acoustics before (outside of playing into an iPad) so give me some time to learn the ropes.

I'll add the files for this guitar to this thread when they're ready. I'm not the world's greatest player, so I'll mostly do things that demonstrate a guitar's basic tonal profile, i.e. common chords and picking patterns and basic riffs. Personally speaking I find that helpful in determining how a guitar will sound in my hands. As much as I appreciate videos like Julian Lage playing his Collings JLs...I could never make a JL sound like it does in his hands.

Trust me, with my basic play style, you'll easily be able to envision how it will sound in your hands.

Originally Posted by BenP_357

Love seeing the arm rests on the Custom GA's!

Looks like a great guitar, bet it sounds even better!

You know, prior to this, I was ambivalent about arm bevels. On my smaller bodied guitars (OM and smaller) I don't know if I'd want one, they're perfectly comfortable to play. But on larger and deeper bodies (I'm not a big guy) they definitely add to the ergonomic comfort. My two Taylor GAs with the arm bevel are more comfortable to play than the one without.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

My sincere apologies, with work really hammering me I haven't had time to focus on recording.

Those who follow the RECORD sub-forum know I just bought a matched pair of sE8 and a Zoom H8. It has been both an exciting and frustrating time trying to get the best sound. Don't get me wrong, the equipment is awesome, it's just my first time recording on something that isn't an iPhone/iPad mic, and I only have one pair of hands. By the time I have figured out the optimal placement, reach over and hit record, then come back to playing position, I'm all out of sorts. Couple that with my mediocre playing skill, and it's been a recipe for disaster. I think I'm placing too much pressure on myself, I'll play perfectly rehearsing, but when that red light comes on, I've suddenly forgotten how to play.

I did capture a 40 second clip of basic chord strumming/picking, which I think actually showcases how the guitar sounds. My normal repertoire of folksy-style full chords and palm mutes wouldn't really showcase the guitar's tone and I'm still learning fingerstyle which I think this guitar would excel at, but I'm not ready to share those results with the world.

So here's the brief recording, don't focus on the playing--it's nothing special. Focus on the sound of the guitar. I still maintain it's the most un-Taylor Taylor that I have ever played.

The recording details:

Signal chain: sE8 mics about 14" from guitar, one pointed just below 12th fret (around the cutaway near the neck) and just behind the bridge, recorded directly to Zoom H8, no processing or effects. Bounced down to this track via Logic Pro, again no effects or compression. And I've done zero cleanup, so you may hear movement of body against guitar, breathing, etc. depending on volume and quality of your playback setup.

Changes to the Taylor: Micarta saddle replaced with MacNichol vintage bone saddle with wave compensation, very minor sanding to achieve near-perfect match in dimensions (used digital calipers) to Micarta saddle. One week old John Pearse PB lights (12s). Pick: .75mm brown vespel from Charmed Life Picks.



As I get better at playing and recording, I'll add more to this and my other NGDs.

[VJP5]

You did a great job of recording!

Red Light- itis gets many of us, myself included. I go from feeling good about my playing to trying to figure out what's wrong with my fingers in one quick recording session.

The tone on that guitar is awesome! Wishing you years of joy.