Did your favorite brand of acoustic guitars change over time?

[colins]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

It is funny: many of the replies have been from people whose tastes have changed, rather than whose favorite brand has changed.

I always wanted a Martin but when I had the money I fell in love with Taylor. I have eventually discovered that "change" and the Taylor brand are nearly synonymous. And yes, they have changed, dramatically.

But so have I...

Bob

I was like you; Martin was the Holy Grail before I could afford one. I bought a few when I finally had the money, but changed my focus to Goodall when I played/bought a used Goodall CJ that gave me the sustain I wanted. Then a chance tryout of a Baranik at TME led to a custom build with Mike Baranik for a guitar that gives me bags of sustain, a 3 dimensional sound, a more sensitive top and less overtones to manage. I still think Martins and Goodalls are fine guitars and I enjoyed playing them, but I changed when I found something that suited me better. The key for me to best meet my needs was to try guitars out whenever I could and expand my knowledge of what's available.

[Zissou Intern]

Over 25 years or so, I’ve owned guitars from: Blueridge, Bourgeois, Collings, Eastman, Gibson, Guild, H&D, Larrivee, Martin, SCGC, and Walker. I like guitars from all of these builders and and probably dozen others. So as long as it plays and sounds right, and it’s a dreadnaught or slope shoulder, it doesn’t matter to me who built it.

[FingahPickah]

In the seventies and eighties my favorite brand was Guild. I have two built in Westerly R.I.; D44M and JF65-12. Generally speaking, the brand checked all the boxes; tone, fit, finish, esthetics and available choices.

Like so many have expressed, today I don't like "the brand" less. I appreciate diversity more. I have carefully selected other brands based on the same set of "boxes". I now also own Martin, Breedlove, Taylor, Larrivee, Eastman and a custom built Edney.

[mawmow]

I can now say I had no idea about what I was doing
when I got my first solid wood some fifteen years ago !
It was a Taylor 510.

I got some other Taylors (GS-5, 712, 512) while turning to fingerstyle...
and I am currently going to sell those I still own to get higher grade acoustics.

I am not at ease with the Gibson 1,725 in. nut width...
I do need 1,75 in. nut width.

My Martin OOO-18 just pushed my Taylor 322 out.

My new Huss & Dalton is pushing my Taylor 412ce out.
But this H & D is quite near to my Martin OODB.

Now, I am lurking toward some Collings...

So, I am not the Taylor guy I used to be...

[bufflehead]

What has remained consistent for me is a preference for mahogany in my guitars. I have never owned a rosewood guitar, and I doubt I ever will.

[rllink]

When I picked up the guitar after a decades long hiatus I had to have a Taylor. I didn't know much about them though. At that time several people I knew were raving about the GS Mini. Hey, it is a Taylor, so I bought one. Some time later I was looking for a decent cheap dreadaught to play with a group of bluegrassers and country players I was hanging around with and picked up a Guild D-240. Since then I've played a lot of Taylors, Guilds, and Martins. Plus a number of others. I love the GS Mini and it will always have a place in my life, but I want to upgrade the dreadnaught and I have my eye on another Guild. They seem to talk to me.

[Rick Jones]

It's a weird one. I think it's down to exposure.

I've never had much money. As a result I've tried to avoid GAS as much as possible and try and lock onto wanting things that I know I may have a chance of owning one day.

For a good while when I was younger, I felt like playing the guitar was the only thing I was any good at, and in the days before youtube I thought I was better than I really was because I wasn't exposed to many other players (I live on a small Island, too). Therefor, the best guitar hanging in my local music shop was a Gibson J-185 and I had decided that was the one I'd get one day. It had been there for years, as they didn't tend to sell many high-end instruments.

It was pretty, it was expensive and it was a Gibson. So Gibson's became my favourite guitars, and after a few years of being a customer, the shop owner let me take it on credit. I'd gone from an all laminate Fender to a Gibson J-185 and it made me think that guitars just couldn't get any better. I stopped looking there and then, or so I thought.

About three years into owning it –– must have been around 2002 –– I got some gigs on the UK mainland, including some in London, and whilst I was there I went with another musician I had met to Denmark St. and went to look in some guitar shops just as a sort of tourist expedition.

In one shop we went to, a Lowden O with a fair amount of top wear was hanging near the door, and I felt compelled to ask to try it. It completely blew my mind, and a guy from the back of the shop came out, and told me that it sounded good. When I handed the guitar back (knowing I couldn't afford it), the guy behind the counter told me that the guy who had come out earlier was the shop owner, and he never did that -– and they'd had some serious players through the doors over the years. I put that down to a sales pitch and left, sad that I couldn't afford the guitar but telling myself "it's ok, I have a Gibson, anyway".

But that guitar haunted my mind, and then when youtube began to get popular I started discovering the likes of Richard Thompson and some of the crazy percussive guys like Jon Gomm... and they were playing Lowdens. They seemed like the player's guitars, and the Gibsons seemed to be singer/songwriter instruments to me.

I could never afford a Lowden, but in 2010, my wife bought me an ex-demo Avalon. It's still my main guitar and it's done thousands of gigs and pretty much been picked up daily (apart from a spell with an arm injury where it looked like my playing days were over). It's an L32, and the guitar I played all those years ago in Denmark St. was an O32... they're very similar as far as I remember.

Anyway, in 2019 I actually found a Lowden O (25, I think, it had mahogany back and sides and a cedar top) with a cutaway for sale locally, and managed to obtain it. I was expecting it to become my main guitar, but it just didn't inspire me to play it or listen to it the way my L32 did –– probably the cedar top (it's the only one I've ever had). I ended up selling it, and got the smaller bodied Avalon A32 off a friend who had bought it because he liked mine so much, but decided it wasn't for him.

So my dream guitar turned out to be one I already had anyway.

[Pura Vida]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

It is funny: many of the replies have been from people whose tastes have changed, rather than whose favorite brand has changed.

I always wanted a Martin but when I had the money I fell in love with Taylor. I have eventually discovered that "change" and the Taylor brand are nearly synonymous. And yes, they have changed, dramatically.

But so have I...

Bob

I think I interpreted this thread title the same as you. The OP means where the person has changed in their brand preference, rather than the brand itself changing over time.

It's funny b/c I was going to comment how people's tastes and preferences change more often than the guitar makers, and then read all of these comments confirming what I was going to say.

[nostatic]

The thread title is open to different interpretations, but the prose indicates that the OP is talking about individual preference change rather than the builder changing their guitars.

And towards that question - long-term, no. When I was starting as a wee lad, my first steel string was a Guild, but quickly worked my way into a Martin 00-21. Had that guitar for a long time, then no acoustic (was doing all bass gigs), then an OM-21, then no acoustic (thought my hands were shot), then a merry-go-round of guitars that I had brief flings with, but ended up back with Martin. It's just how I think an acoustic should sound/feel. Totally YMMV.

[aeisen93]

Just to clarify, in my original post, I meant do your personal preferences change over time? I didn't mean that the guitar maker themselves has changed over time.

[Glennwillow]

I have had many variations of acoustic guitars over the almost 60 years I have been playing.

My first good guitar was given to me as a gift by my dad, a 1967 Martin D-35. I still have it, still play it, still consider it an excellent guitar.

I have also acquired guitars from Collings, Santa Cruz, Taylor, Guild, Gibson, and a couple of customs by Jim Olson and Gerald Sheppard. I appreciate all these guitars. I don't think my tastes have changed very much, but I have appreciated all the variety. I also think these builders have been pretty consistent over the years.

- Glenn

[leew3]

I am very fickle. I own Martins, Taylors and a Larrivee and whatever I am playing sounds great to me for that day!

[CASD57]

My first venture into acoustic was around 2015 before that Electric..tube amps etc..,
My first acoustic was a Rosewood GS-Mini that guitar brought tears to my eyes because that was the tone I was looking for all my Electric days, tube amps...custom tube amps the closes I got was with a SF/BF'd 1973 Dual showman head that I put into a Twin Reverb cabinet..(Dual Showman is a Twin Reverb in a head case) Twin Jensen CN speakers...Anyway back to acoustic's
With the GS I found the tone-overtones etc.... So Now I was hooked
But I have a thing for Diamonds in the rough..So I had my share of Cort's-Ibanez-Luna-Takamine-Bedel-Epiphone-Breedlove-Alvarez-Recording King and more.
I even tried to love Named Headstocks...Gibson J15 (too woody/dry) I'm more of a modern music guy...Pop-Rock Some Country. Martin's never felt right to me and the prices of the Names$$$ at the entry Level all-solid models "Gibson-Generation..Martin- Road series feel so unrefined to me...

So long story short...I take home what fits my style and sounds great to me...all brands welcome..
And I'm still with Alvarez and back to Taylor(because now Taylor doesn't sound like Taylor/AD17e)

[ewalling]

The actual style of guitar has changed for me. I'm a fingerpicker who started out infatuated with the Stefan Grossman school of ragtime and blues but who then got into other types of music: Celtic, jazz standards, classic rock, Latin jazz, Chet Atkins, altered tunings.

This has led me away from the old 'wooden box' to instruments I can plug in and get interesting sounds from. I have a couple of Godin Multiacs (one steel, one nylon), a Kremona nylon-string crossover, a solid electric Godin LGXT with synth access, and a Schecter Coupe hollow body with filtertron pickups, and I find myself playing these guitars more than my last remaining flattop. I may get another flattop at some point, but this kind of guitar is not my main fascination right now.

[DCCougar]

For several years I was into Epiphone Masterbilts from their 2003-2009 production run (non-cutaways). Had 4 or 5 of 'em. Then I got a Tak 12-string, which motivated me to get a U.S.-made Guild 12-string. I've gone Guild ever since.