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

[skitoolong]

Originally Posted by Ted @ LA Guitar Sales

Marketing aside, I got to play the new guitars yesterday and it sounds like they might have something to brag about, regardless how Andy came up with it. I am very much looking forward to playing the new models alongside previous version in our store in the next few weeks.

All I needed to hear. Thanks!

[skitoolong]

Sure seems like they hit a home run with their marketing.

Just look at the activity on this site alone.

[bboymfs]

If this makes history and becomes the standard, I’ll get one when Martin, Collings or some boutique brand makes V-Class bracing on their guitars. I don’t want that plastic coating lol. I want my nitrocellulose finish and open gear tuners without the es2 pick up system. The nitro finish just sounds better in my opinion.

I have a Yamaha LL16 that sustains like no other. It beat my Martin D18 though they both sustain great. So does my cheap Rogue. Maybe Taylors are weak in sustaining?

I used to have a Taylor DN3. Got rid of it when my brother’s D16GT sustained longer than mine. Like way longer. :-( I do like their CV bracing guitars. Lol

Anyway, I can’t wait to try these new Taylors!

[TBman]

I really liked the part with the tiny scissors, lol.

[FOG01]

Originally Posted by merlin666

And it's important to note that this is not just V-bracing, no it's actually and really V-CLASS bracing!

Not unlike, "performance bracing" versus "advanced performance bracing." Before those it was CV bracing. All are named to generate sales.

[Picker2]

Originally Posted by skitoolong

Sure seems like they hit a home run with their marketing.

Just look at the activity on this site alone.

Marketing is not only about activity. If Andy would have announced he quit his job because Taylor had too many clueless marketeers who can’t tell the difference between a guitar and a kitchen blender, I bet there would have been much more activity on this site.

[Shades of Blue]

Originally Posted by Tommy_G

I am mostly an electric player

You guys haven't seen marketing hype BS until you read Mesa Boogies amp ads. You put your money down hoping to coax the promised glory out of the amp but after time you conclude you just got fleeced by the marketing machine.

Boy you got that right! The Mark V 25 was the most disappointing amp period. Then, you have to “understand” how their tone controls work just to know how the treble interacts with gain and how bass creates flub....one of the reasons I ventured over to acoustic lol.

[KenL]

**golf clap**

[pleasurepaul]

BTW, I also questioned Taylor's marketing but for a different reason: they take quite a big risk. The story implies that X-braced Taylors are now inferior. This could harm sales of the old design and resale values of existing guitars.

[Rmz76]

Originally Posted by pleasurepaul

BTW, I also questioned Taylor's marketing but for a different reason: they take quite a big risk. The story implies that X-braced Taylors are now inferior. This could harm sales of the old design and resale values of existing guitars.

Yes, for potential buyers considering any Taylor guitar not V-Braced Taylor has two messages.

1.) We've innovated with something that advances the acoustic guitar so much that it will likely make X-bracing obsolete (we may not agree, but that is their message to potential customers)

2.) Andy Power's told Premier Guitars their plan is to bring V-Bracing to other series. When he was asked directly if there would be a day when Taylor no longer built X-braced guitars you could see Andy become uncomfortable. I think he knew the potential brand issues to giving an honest answer, so he just answered something like "that's very possible".

There's a reason cell phone companies and auto makers don't tell the public what's coming years down the road. I don't see how the V-Bracing announcement doesn't hurt Taylor's X-braced guitar sells at least a little. On the other hand it would be unrealistic for them to bring V-Bracing to every series at once and while the hype machine is strong. V-Bracing has to prove itself in the market. So I'm sure it's all calculated risk.

[ataylor]

Originally Posted by pleasurepaul

BTW, I also questioned Taylor's marketing but for a different reason: they take quite a big risk. The story implies that X-braced Taylors are now inferior. This could harm sales of the old design and resale values of existing guitars.

They’ve gone more than a bit over the top in that regard. To the point where I’m questioning how they can say some of the things they’re saying and continue to sell a single guitar with anything other than their new bracing.

[Picker2]

After a zillion posts about Taylor's new V-Class bracing in two or three other threads, I open a new thread in order to go deeper into one of Taylor's claims:

Better Intonation
V-Class bracing makes the top more in tune with the vibrating strings. This eliminates much of the interference that causes some notes to waver and sound slightly out of tune. As a result, notes and chords played anywhere on the neck are more consistent and in tune with each other.

I have given above claim a few serious thoughts, and also listened several times to Andy Powers stating how V-bracing makes sure "there is no chaos, no fight between the notes that we play, no internal friction..." ...and I am still clueless. I can imagine that this story impresses some of you. After all, someone who talks in terms of interference, wavering of sound, internal friction etc. must be an expert, right? Well, I am a physicist with a pretty profound understanding of most fundamental principles in Nature. And guys, really, Andy leaves me completely numb! What he says makes no sense to me. Not at all. I am not saying he is wrong, because I would have to talk to him personally before reaching that conclusion, but I can guarantee that no other physicist would understand the story from the information provided by Taylor, let alone anyone who is not an expert. At that point one starts to wonder: what's the point of telling the story then? But let's not go into that.

Instead, I would like to tell you how I see the operating principle of a guitar, which is not hard to understand, which will make clear to you that it is not straightforward to claim that top bracing can improve intonation. Here we go.

The notes a guitar produces start from the string. The string produces an identical input signal to any guitar you put it on. This input signal contains a lot of different frequencies, which are all sent to the top. When the string sends a certain frequency to the top, it will resonate at that frequency and so produce an audible sound wave at that frequency, like a loudspeaker cone. However, the top will resonate more at certain frequencies, and less at others. Frequencies close to the so called resonant modes of the top will create much louder sound waves than other frequencies (which will get dissipated in other parts of the guitar).

But hold on... this is exactly what a multiband equaliser does! A multiband equaliser is a box with a lot of sliders, each for a different frequency interval. When you adjust the sliders, some frequencies get amplified more than others. So a guitar top can be interpreted as an equaliser with the sliders in certain fixed positions. These positions depend on the shape and size of the top, the material it's made of, its thickness, and of course the top bracing.

So what happens when you change the top bracing? Exactly, you effectively change the positions of the sliders on the imaginary equaliser. As a result, the tone of the guitar will change. How exactly the positions of the equaliser change for a given change in bracing geometry is not easy to say. But it can be easily measured, after the guitar has been built, and it is also not hard to predict with a computer simulation.

So what does this mean? It means that if V-bracing can improve intonation, it should also be possible to improve intonation with a multiband equaliser. And we all know this is completely impossible.

Finally, I have no clue what Andy means with the 'fight' and the 'chaos' between notes, which is inherent to traditional X-bracing. I do believe, however, that if you cannot explain something to a layman, you don't understand it well enough yourself. Quite honestly, I assume this is exactly the case.

[imwjl]

All a bunch of marketing nonsense to at best say or get to some guitars just having more stability. For them seemingly a way to have stability and still have tone and responsiveness.

By stability and responsiveness I am trying to describe how two really great of several guitars I've owned were and are (my Santa Cruz) never as temperamental or changed by the temperature or humidity as others were and they not made of stone or steel to be that way.

I don't think Taylor or any mass production firm could achieve what probably makes my Santa Cruz so great. Old wood and someone carefully putting it all together as one.

Maybe this new build helps them get that? Maybe their marketing efforts helps stop what I figured out. Taylor and Martin fan boys are right. Some are as good as anything. The catch is other firms sell things at similar prices where it's not some. It's most everything they make us superb.

[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

[FantasticMrFox]

I love That!

I found this amusing as well:
https://youtu.be/vRlBtabKRFM

I don't recommend the "Natural Birch"