My acoustic journey with Tim McKnight

[Doubleneck]

I consider myself a singer first with guitar as accompaniment. But I am not a bad Neil Young, James Taylor type player. Tim’s shop is about a hour a half away. Visited many times mostly at the McJams. My first McKnight was a online find. It was this Slim Slope Dred. It’s been my main guitar for 15? years. Just a amazing guitar with his 1959 Sitka top and Madagascar Rosewood back and sides. Was at the McJam yesterday and brought home this OOOO with a cutaway with a cedar top and East Asia Rosewood back and sides. I brought it home and thought it would top my slope but it didn’t its just different? These guitars couldn’t be more different really?

The Slope. The OOOO

1. 14 frets to body. - 12 frets
2. 25.5 scale length. - 24.9
3. Sitka - Cedar
4 Standard headstock. - Slotted
5. Rosewood finger Brd. - Ebony
6. No cutaway. - Florentine
7. 1 11/16 nut. - 1 3/4
8. Crazy thin. - Deep body. (Guitars are reversed on last pic)

First impressions are the OOOO has a little more bling no question. Fingering on both are superb and I’m really picky about low action. I’m doing more hybrid picking and the OOOO gives this a very nice feel and sound. A full rocker like Cinnamon Girl it seems like I should grab the Dred. Other more delicate songs the OOOO seems to handle with a very cool difference. But I’m still exploring for sure only a day in. Lol These two show me it’s not that one guitar has to be the best, they just can have different qualities? Tim’s guitars are something special, superbly crafted, great attention to detail. Glad I made that drive over so many years ago. Been a rewarding journey!

[Guitars44me]

Glad you are rockin the McKnights!

Nice playground too…

Lovely folks, making super guitars

Make a joyful noise, indeed

Paul

[Doubleneck]

Interesting you can feel the difference in the string tension of the shorter scale length. Just enjoying what they seems to do to my playing and the sound? Its also nice that the cedar, just as I have read, needs no breaking in. It just booms. At my age I don’t have as much time to wait! Lol

[Rodger]

Hey Steve! It was great seeing you at the McJam! I got to play your new one and it is truly a winner. Congrats on scoring a wonderful guitar. It was the best one in the "Loft" this year.

Don't forget to bring it to McJam 16 next year!

[cigarfan]

Nice pair. Sure like the tone on both but slim would be my choice. Just can't play the big guitars like the 0000 for long before my arm gives out. But sure like the bass rumble in my chest. Whoa!

[Doubleneck]

Originally Posted by cigarfan

Nice pair. Sure like the tone on both but slim would be my choice. Just can't play the big guitars like the 0000 for long before my arm gives out. But sure like the bass rumble in my chest. Whoa!

Using the OOOO as incentive to loose some weight! Lol.

[Doubleneck]

Originally Posted by Doubleneck

Using the OOOO as incentive to loose some weight! Lol.

Actuallly I was surprise its considered a Jumbo. I think the 12 fret neck and slim waist make it seem very comfortable?

[Doubleneck]

I love guitar honeymoons! I can’t put down this new OOOO, after a couple days my picking style and the guitar have seemed to come together. It is more articulate than my Dred? Handles both soft and hard playing so well. And its the only acoustic guitar I have come across that can start to drown out out my voice. Bass has no end to it and sustains forever.

[cigarfan]

Originally Posted by Doubleneck

I love guitar honeymoons! I can’t put down this new OOOO, after a couple days my picking style and the guitar have seemed to come together. It is more articulate than my Dred? Handles both soft and hard playing so well. And its the only acoustic guitar I have come across that can start to drown out out my voice. Bass has no end to it and sustains forever.

Seems I am having a honeymoon every year after McJam. Love it!

[iim7V7IM7]

Wrong post (sorry)

[Eire]

One of the qualities that led me to have Tim build a guitar for me in the first place over sixteen (!) years ago, and why I've added more McKnights since, is because he can generate a distinctly different tone to various builds, whether that's based upon a particular customer's playing style or wishes or simply an aural ambition Tim is seeking to achieve. That's not true of every luthier, from my experience. Certainly, the size and model difference between your two guitars, irregardless of the builder, is going to make a difference. I'd suggest, too, that Tim's builds, both in technique and structure, have changed significantly over the years (Tim, you're not getting older, you're getting better... well, at least your guitars, if not your golf game ).

Good on you, Steve, for not simply seeing but feeling and hearing those differences, and congrats on adding the cutaway!

[Doubleneck]

Originally Posted by Eire

One of the qualities that led me to have Tim build a guitar for me in the first place over sixteen (!) years ago, and why I've added more McKnights since, is because he can generate a distinctly different tone to various builds, whether that's based upon a particular customer's playing style or wishes or simply an aural ambition Tim is seeking to achieve. That's not true of every luthier, from my experience. Certainly, the size and model difference between your two guitars, irregardless of the builder, is going to make a difference. I'd suggest, too, that Tim's builds, both in technique and structure, have changed significantly over the years (Tim, you're not getting older, you're getting better... well, at least your guitars, if not your golf game ).

Good on you, Steve, for not simply seeing but feeling and hearing those differences, and congrats on adding the cutaway!

Tim’s skill to me was demonstrated in another unique way. A friend at the McJam played my dred and loved it. He commissioned Tim to build an exact copy. Tim actually come over and measured mine and looked at all the inner details. I was concerned that whatever Tim did it would not sound the same? At the following McJam I got to play the copy and much to my surprise it sounded identical, I mean spot on. That is skill.

[Tim McKnight]

Glad the honeymoon is still in full swing Steve. Seems like every time I visited the loft and whoever had your guitar in their hands had this huge grin going on. I loved to see their facial reactions as they experienced "Thumper" for the first time .

[Doubleneck]

Interesting its been two weeks now with my new Jumbo cedar McKnight and I find it hard to go back to my other guitars. It has such a greater dynamic range and pleasing overtones. I can seem to do more with it by changing my picking style to bring out its qualities. I go back to my other guitar and it fells a bit like going from stereo to mono? Hard to describe feel and sound dynamics.

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by Eire

One of the qualities that led me to have Tim build a guitar for me in the first place over sixteen (!) years ago, and why I've added more McKnights since, is because he can generate a distinctly different tone to various builds, whether that's based upon a particular customer's playing style or wishes or simply an aural ambition Tim is seeking to achieve. That's not true of every luthier, from my experience. Certainly, the size and model difference between your two guitars, irregardless of the builder, is going to make a difference. I'd suggest, too, that Tim's builds, both in technique and structure, have changed significantly over the years (Tim, you're not getting older, you're getting better... well, at least your guitars, if not your golf game ).

Good on you, Steve, for not simply seeing but feeling and hearing those differences, and congrats on adding the cutaway!

Hi Kurt,
Thank you for pointing out and noticing my aural ambitions. I credit my time spent with Ervin as an experience that opened my ears and honed my skills to be able to bring out the very best from each set of wood I build with. Others say that brand X sounds like brand X and brand Y sounds like brand Y and so on but that makes me cringe. Each set of wood is unique and therefore should certainly sound unique and the day that my guitars start sounding like brand McKnight is the day that I hang up my chisels.

Thanks again for the kind words of encouragement in regards to my building prowess. Now about that golf game ... well, that is another story that kind words may not apply to ... at least in my case