It's been about a month so I thought I should post some impressions of the guitar so far.
- Low end: this guitar has great warmth with PB strings on. Cedar tends to warmer, and I told Drew that I wanted this guitar to err toward warmth if he had to make a mistake in choosing one. I think he nailed it. The low end is great for an SJ sized guitar--more than I was expecting. (though not as much as my slope shoulder dread that's also 5.25" inches deep... that's not a fair comparison)
- Midrange: this is where this guitar I think is strongest. The midrange sings and the middle two strings have the loudest sustain. It's pretty remarkable how great a midrange it is actually. I'm very pleased with this aspect--I wasn't expecting this much, though I did tell Drew that this was a reason why I loved my Langejans. I think he built to that a little bit.
- High end: this was definitely the weakest when I first got it. The tone felt too tight and the high E string didn't come out much compared to the other 5 strings. Now that it's had a month of play (and a bit of surface transducers on the guitar for 2 weeks while not being played), the string is finally coming to life. The high end is developing. It's a very round high end, as expected with cedar, with a slight touch of edge from the Honduran rosewood. (which is quite glassy--when I tap it, it's about as glassy as the Brazilian RW Maingard I have)
- Sustain/bloom: Drew was building to my idea of bloom on this, which was a delayed bloom. I wanted overtones that grew over time, but not immediately. We chose a top that had those qualities. As a system, I think it still has some of those qualities, but with finish on and closed up, the box doesn't have a crazy growing bloom like I was hoping. It's about 80% of what I was hoping here. I'm thinking that this could still improve over time.
- Responsiveness: For a cedar guitar, it responds well to a light touch, so it's fairly responsive. It is not super responsive in terms of overtones coming out like crazy immediately. That's actually what I asked Drew to build and he nailed it. In hindsight, I'm not sure I should've given this direction or not. I want to see how the tone develops here over time, but I think I might've made a mistake on this call.
Overall, I am quite pleased. I don't think it beats Olson #1287 as my top fingerstyle guitar ever, but I'm doing quite well with my Heinonen. I've bonded with it quite well to the point where I'm now serious about moving out my Maingard. (Which I still like BTW) As many like Mau Lao noted, I was aiming for a goal which was likely to be impossible and a fail. I think Drew got me 85-90% there on this build actually. So while it's not a replica, it's still a very nice guitar--already pretty close to great in its first month.
I also note that this guitar really has a strong resonance point with D. That explains why DADGAD sings like crazy. (The low string in DADGAD sounds much closer to Olson 1287 in standard, so I love that...) I realize now I should've mentioned to Drew that I would've liked to aim for a resonance closer to E. My fault on that. But in DADGAD, this thing is pretty awesome. Too bad I'm not a Celtic player or I would already be in heaven.
The guitar has worn both PB and 80/20 in lights from John Pearse. I can't wait to try a few other strings on this. I'm expecting a fun ride.
Finally, the thing that was a great surprise was that this Heinonen SJ loves a pick too. It's a great fingerstyle guitar and it's a pretty good flatpicker too. Drew knew I was a picker, and I don't think he intentionally changed anything since he was building toward Olson spec, but it somehow came out quite nicely as a strummer. I still like my Langejans R6 for strumming most, but the gap between the SJ and the R6 isn't as wide as my previous fingerstyle guitars. (the Maingard and a Goodall) I actually spend less time with the Langejans now too. Wasn't expecting that to be a casualty of this SJ...!
Drew was an absolute pleasure to work with and we ended up spending a lot of time talking about tone and construction during the build process. I can't recommend a build with him enough. I'm sorely tempted to order another SJ just to try out some other ideas, but I really have no need to spend more money.
Happy to talk offline about Drew and the build process if anyone has questions.
07-01-2017, 01:20 AM
