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#63
10-07-2020, 09:09 AM
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All that's standing between me and this guitar is customs clearance -- they have the form, now give me my guitar FedEx!!! I'm really excited and look forward to reporting back shortly.
Mike is a pleasure to work with and made this a really great process. I'm grateful for his creativity and willingness to push some boundaries (Venetian cutaway, black neck, different inlay scheme) and I can't wait to see it all in person! 
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#64
10-11-2020, 11:43 AM
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And it’s here!!!
Friday morning, FedEx brought the box to my house. I was dealing with a hectic day at work, so I didn’t have the bandwidth to spend the time it deserved. Still, it’s not like I wasn’t going to unpack it, so I did, and it arrived unscathed. I tuned it up and played it for about ten minutes and was thoroughly impressed, expectations exceeded. But I had meetings to prepare for, so I dutifully set it up on a stand just to look at it. But eventually the meetings ended and I found myself with a beautiful fall evening, so I posted up with a beer outside and started discovering what this guitar had to offer. The first thing that struck me was how little thought and effort I needed to put in to making it sound good. Every guitar has things to which it responds best. For any given player, there will be some guitars that cover more ground than others. I can usually figure out how to make any guitar sound good, but some make me adjust my approach more than others. Sometimes that’s a great thing and pushes me in new directions, but sometimes I just want to do what comes naturally. My sweet spot is vintage American guitars from the 20s and 30s and things that are made to emulate them. While I get on very well with some handbuilts (e.g. the generally fingerstyle focused modern luthier built guitars), others require me to put some extra effort. For example, I’ve not had much success with Somogyis and many of those in his coaching tree - that aim for sustain and resonance comes at the cost of attack and punch, that’s not a trade that works well for the majority of my styles. For a lot of players, that’s their sound and it’s amazing, but for me, I respect and appreciate it, but give me guitars in the line of Traugott or Claxton. At the end of the day, Martin had a lot of really good ideas and I tend to prefer guitars that at least start with the premise that the wheel doesn’t need reinvention. The interesting thing about this guitar is that there’s a lot of innovation. The back and sides are laminated (the sides more inactive than the back, which resonates a lot), there’s a sound port and a tornovoz (both porting mechanisms), and the bracing is unconventional. From a construction standpoint, this is less on brand for me (although the previous commission was for a Wilborn Arum, which was completely newfangled construction - and a thrilling guitar!), but Mike had good logic behind everything and seemed to be pulling details from recent builds to hit the target at which we were aiming. So, here’s a guitar that’s closer to reinventing the wheel than I typically like, but what strikes me about it is how much it responds in a familiar way, but a higher performance version. It plays great (when how it plays doesn’t cross my mind, it’s doing exactly what it should), the neck has just a touch of heft but is speedy, and the fit and finish is fantastic (best French polish I’ve ever seen!). But how does it sound? Well, great. It’s quite loud and warm with a robust and really quick bass. There’s a pillowy quality to the lows - some of it is what I often hear in Adirondack tops (a sub bass, almost) - but it’s pretty reminiscent of prewar Martin OM-18s and D-18s. It’s very rare to find a handbuilt (that’s not explicitly targeting the vintage sound) with that distinctive snappy low end and an ability to handle real picking. I should note that I mostly play with a pick (and really thick ones at that - this one is 5mm). But there’s generally a thickness to the sound - the trebles are really thick, not the least bit strident and have a lovely resonant halo that provides space without creating any sonic congestion. Sometimes things get harmonically busy, but there’s plenty of space here. It’s got great sustain too. All around it’s a really satisfying guitar that keeps impressing me each time I pick it up. I’ll have a lot more to add, but wanted to share some initial impressions, which made me want to play..... More soon!
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#65
10-13-2020, 08:48 AM
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It's always a double-whammy of nerves whenever I ship out a guitar -- first hoping that it gets there in one piece and second that the client likes it. I can be completely happy with a build and how a guitar turned out but that happiness isn't official until it gets the a-ok from the owner. So, it's so so great to hear this kind of review and call this one a success! Thanks again Bill for the great collaboration in making this one a reality!
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#67
11-13-2020, 10:38 AM
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Very nice job Mike! And congrats Everett!
Phil
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Paragon RW/Macassar Ebony Baritone Rainsong S OM1100-N2 Woolson LS RW/30s African mahogany LG 12 Baranik LS RW/"tree" mahogany OO Baranik Blue Spruce/"tree" mahogany OM Boswell RW/koa OO Baranik Retreux Parlour Adi/Pumaquiro Baranik Blue Spruce/Coco Meridian "Geo" Baranik Blue Spruce/Kingwood OO Woolson T13 RW/Walnut SIG
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#68
11-14-2020, 11:50 AM
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