V-bracing and Taylor's Marketing Machine... so NOT impressed.

[frances50]

Great Saturday morning laugh. Loved it.

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Having worked for a manufacturing company as a design engineer for about 4 decades, I have tried to temper my reactions about this new V bracing. I have worked closely with advertising people; I understand why sales are important to any manufacturing company.



But after watching several of the videos referenced here, I am having trouble with this whole V-bracing pitch, as well. The implication is that a hundred years of X bracing has been wrong and has created guitars with poor intonation and lousy sustain. The more I listen to Andy Powers talk on these videos, the more I am convinced that Taylor has made a huge mistake allowing him to be the front man for this sales pitch. He is using no qualifiers in his praise for his own bracing system, he is not tempering his enthusiasm in the least.



To me, this is all coming across is highly disingenuous. I am beginning to understand all the very negative reactions to this latest Taylor sales pitch.



As ataylor notes above, the suggestion seems to be that all the X-braced guitars are built wrong. That's, of course, ridiculous. X bracing is just as symmetrical as Taylor's new V bracing.



And did I miss Andy Powers assuring us that V bracing will stand the test of time and not just fold up and eventually collapse?



Maybe he is right. I hope I can come back in 100 years and find out that all this hype was actually accurate. In the meantime, I like my old Taylor guitars just fine.



- Glenn

You, more eloquently, summarized what we’ve all been discussing. We are in complete agreement.

[Glennwillow]

Hi Eltjo,

I am having the same trouble understanding their claims about intonation. This is the repeated claim that starts to make me really react negatively, and on a very visceral level.

When a company calls into question the integrity of everything they have done for the last several decades, they had better be very careful about how they sell it.

As I commented just minutes ago in a post on your first thread, Eltjo, I think Taylor has made a very big mistake in letting Andy Powers be the front man for this sales pitch. His enthusiasm for his own bracing system is unbounded and over the top and so comes across as disingenuous.

- Glenn

[mrgraveline]

I am not a physicist...

Let me just ask you this... Which is commonly regarded as having more pure tone and less “chaos” as Andy puts it... A long stringed grand piano or an upright with shorter strings.

[Rmz76]

Noticed this morning Taylor has successfully created enough buzz to get major media outlets (not just music industry focused media) to announce that Taylor has reinvented the acoustic guitar and all this with only NAMM attendees actually putting hands on these guitars.

Pay attention to the snowball effect and see the power of marketing and advertising at play. Most people form their assessment of quality vs non-quality and innovation vs run of the mill from what they are told by people and outlets they trust more than by their personal experience. I'n sure Kurt, Bob and Andy are pretty happy right now.

[Nailpicker]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

And did I miss Andy Powers assuring us that V bracing will stand the test of time and not just fold up and eventually collapse?

Maybe he is right. I hope I can come back in 100 years and find out that all this hype was actually accurate. In the meantime, I like my old Taylor guitars just fine.

- Glenn

I agree with all your points Glenn, but the above snip out is really my focus.

My thinking is that I have 4 Taylors. Why? Because I like everything about them. I'd really have to think long and hard and put it through long tests to consider the purchase of a V braced Taylor. Even if I liked the sound, they don't have the long term durability record.

One poster thought it would be great if V bracing improved the sound of the 600 series. I disagree. I purchased my 616ce for precisely the reason that it offered a sound I liked...and still do. If the V bracing changes the tone of a 616, it won't be a 616 any longer--bright, articulate, precise.

[anodyne]

Andy seems to have guitar building in his blood. Reading about him a bit, he's been building/blowing up guitars for years. I would expect/hope he's been using V-bracing on his own rigs (for how long)? It's going to take somebody like him to shake things up a bit. If it's not disruption for the sake of it, good deal.

Yeah, the marketing is too dreamy/in your face for me. Same goes for many other companies/products that I have appreciation for (e.g. Apple and related companies in their ecosystem). I don't own/play Taylors but respect their contributions.

[robrick]

I understand where the OP is coming from.

But we, as consumers, are partly to blame for falling for these marketing ploys. Or at least I am!!

My first Taylor was a 310ce with Fishman electronics I bought in 2002. LOVE that guitar. Over the years I bought all the innovations, ES1, ES2, THIS tone wood, THAT tone wood. No complaints, no regrets.

I did it with another company with electric basses. They put out a unique bass, only 100 made!! I bought 2. It was such a unique instrument! Then they put one out with a thinner neck. THEN one with a smaller body. THEN basses with unique finishes. THEN one with 32" scale. THEN one with a thinner body. After that, I stopped. No regrets or hard feelings. By the time the more current basses came out, they cost HALF what the first run cost. They are a BUSINESS. Now I am down to two of these basses and that is it. No more.

Taylor guitars are great, and they have a right to keep changing and evolving their instruments. But I have what I need from them in guitars that work fine. This new bracing will not make my gigs any better or easier. So I will pass, and read what others think. They are limited now, but all their guitars will have this eventually. Then the ES3 sound system will appear, more precise, nuanced and truer than anything before!!

BTW, my current gigging guitar is the 310ce from 2002 and my 214ce DLX guitars are back ups.

[RP]

After a lot of trial and error buying and selling guitars, I've identified Taylors as my go-to guitars. I get ideas from you guys as well as Wood & Steel and then make a decision to purchase or not. The fact that I won't own a guitar with a cutaway and try to avoid factory electronics should indicate that I'm generally not susceptible to blind acceptance of marketing ploys...

[Ed-in-Ohio]

Calling thousands (tens of thousands?, hundreds of thousands?, more?) of your guitars now sitting in the showrooms and on-line inventories of your faithful dealers "obsolete" really does seem like a questionable strategy.

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by Rmz76

Noticed this morning Taylor has successfully created enough buzz to get major media outlets (not just music industry focused media) to announce that Taylor has reinvented the acoustic guitar and all this with only NAMM attendees actually putting hands on these guitars.

Pay attention to the snowball effect and see the power of marketing and advertising at play. Most people form their assessment of quality vs non-quality and innovation vs run of the mill from what they are told by people and outlets they trust more than by their personal experience. I'n sure Kurt, Bob and Andy are pretty happy right now.

Please note that I did not intend to start yet another thread about Taylor's marketing efforts. This thread is supposed to discuss intonation improvement by changing bracing patterns. No offence!

[dodge]

I'd be interested in the opinion of some of the luthiers on the forum. Hopefully they'll chime in at some point.

[Von Beerhofen]

As far as my knowledge goes X braces divide the top into 4 more or less seperate operating vibration areas, each area with it's own resonance frequency. The braces and tonebars radiate the sound outward from the bridge and influence the frequency of each area and thus the entire frequency spectrum of the top. This produces complex harmonics in the entire top which may be out of tune with the played notes and can cause them to be subdued or amplified.

I've experienced such harmonics which to my ear made the string sound off but changing to a different brand cured most of this issue. It was a pretty annoying experience though at first and was most audible on the low E. A high pitched ring that wasn't in harmony with the note played.

From the picture I saw of Taylor's V bracing it's clear there's only two main vibrating areas in the top and a small area in between, which would be too stiff to produce a significant amount of sound, except perhaps for ultra high frequencies. To me this means that there could be a better control over unwanted harmonics, but only if the guitar in question is mirrored from the centre to the edge and the braces are not slightly off centre or different shape/thickness to counteract the difference in string torque for the high and low strings.

Still I wonder how this would function with Taylor's cutaway design or how luthiers could influence the sound by contouring these braces, which to me seemed pretty thick in the first place and had no additional shaping whatsoever. Mind you I realise that what I descibe isn't actual intonation but more about annoying overtones, still for me both phenomena are intertwined.

With only minimal sound enginering knowledge and no knowledge about luthery or the complex physics involved I'll just sit this one out before judging wether it's beneficial or not, time will tell.

Ludwig

[llew]

I'll be curious to hear how that works as well?

[dannyg1]

Originally Posted by dodge

I'd be interested in the opinion of some of the luthiers on the forum. Hopefully they'll chime in at some point.

I’m fairly sure that their complete, continuing silence on this topic says a lot.