Grateful Dead Music Forum

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I have an Alvarez RD20. It is a pretty basic guitar, but for the money you can't beat it. Alvarez makes a lot of really decent guitars for decent prices. The Yairi guitars they make are really nice but too rich for my blood. 500 bucks will go pretty far with an ALvarez.

I have two acoustics now; one is an Alvarez-Yairi WY1-K, which is the Bob Weir model, in koa. Aside from being a gorgeous guitar, it is without a doubt the best acoustic for playing out live I've ever encountered. Weir designed it with the entire body laminated, which makes the guitar pretty much impervious to feedback. You can crank a monitor at your feet and play with impunity, which was not the case with the various Takamine and Guilds I've tried it with. It's smaller bodied guitar, terrific neck, very fast for playing lead, and has an action like butter. Just an all around beautiful instrument that is a joy to play. Can't recommend it enough. Fabulous guitar.

It's tone with the onboard electronics reminds me of Garcia's Takamine on Reckoning. I only have the onboard piezo, but you can mount a condensor mic inside the guitar, and plug that into the auxiliary input on the onboard preamp and mix the two together. It sounds pretty good with just the piezo, though. You can see and hear it here during the one and only acoustic set we've ever done:
http://playingdead.net/060708birdsong.html

I thought that would be all the acoustic guitar I'd ever want, but my girlfriend surprised me with a Martin D41-S on my birthday last summer -- I actually proposed marriage to her that night. (I was planning on doing that *before* she gave me the Martin. I had the ring on me. LOL) The D41-S is a typical D Martin dreadnought, big bodied, spruce top, rosewood back and sides. The "Special" refers to slightly different bracing, a V neck, butterbean tuners and snowflake inlays on the fretboard.

It took a while for me to get used to the V neck, it's wide, especially compared to the Alvarez-Yairi. I really like it now. Martin guitars are as light as a feather, and their tone is just exquisite. It has that "piano-like" tone that Martin is famous for, very loud, with nice solid bass, warm mids and ringing highs. It's just a joy to play in a room with good acoustics. I would never take it out and try to play it live, they are so resonant that they are pretty much unmanageable onstage, as Garcia found when he tried to use his D-18 for the Warfield/Saenger/Radio City run in 1980. I always regretted letting my D-28 go to get the Alvarez-Yairi. Lefty Martins are hard to come by. Lefty anything is hard to come by.

I was a Taylor guy until I found Breedlove. I have a couple of Custom Shop guitars by them that blow away any taylor or martin I have played. And I do love taylors and martins. A little funny story about the Breedloves is that I played a custom shop piece at Summer Namm last year. I was gassing so bad for it but had no way to justify a guitar of that caliber to my wife. To me, I could justify it in a heartbeat. So the only way I was able to get it was to become a Breedlove Dealer. I tried to become a Taylor dealer as well but the buy in was way too high for me.

Other ones that top my list are

Tacoma
Larrivee

I do like the Takamines and Alvarez but not the lower end models.
I also like the sound of the higher end Ovations but mostly when they are plugged in. I have a couple but never really got used to the slippery bowl shaped back.

Here is another thing I really liked about the high end breedloves, the controls are in the sound hole. No making extra holes for the electronics on the side of the guitar. THere is usually a tone and volume control. On this picture it is a volume and mix control because it has a piezo pick up and a condenser mic as well that you can blend differently. ( i didnt care the mic too much as I had difficulty controlling the feedback)

Jackr, there's a guy over in Sarasota FL that does only lefties -- Jerry's Lefty Guitars. I was at his place in December. Super nice guy. He was telling me about the expensive Taylor buy-in ... and that he couldn't take on Martin because they wanted him to take the entire line, and his clientele is geared toward the upmarket stuff.

Holy crap, he had a lot of high-end acoustics. I got to play a couple of guitars from Larivee (they are very nice for the money), and some stupid-expensive guitars from Bourgeious, Collings, Santa Cruz, Huss and Dalton, and Goodall.

These are instruments that I thought I'd never get my hands on as a lefty. That was a hell of a day. I left my credit card elsewhere, or I would have come home with about five guitars and a hell of a bill.

The Santa Cruz Otis Day signature was interesting, no frets above the 14th fret!



The Santa Cruz DP-W OM model was probably my favorite, followed closely by some of the Collings dreadnought. And a curly maple Goodall that was way cool,too.



I went in thinking electric -- he had a really nice Heritage goldtop LP-type guitar that just sang -- then started playing all those acoustics, my brain locked up and I didn't buy anything. Yet.

Well, I think it depends on what price range you are talking about. I agree with the unbridled Breedlove lust factor; those are some suh-weet guitars. So are the Larrivees as well. Myself, I have never found Martins or Taylors to be all that awesome considering what they sell for. If you're going to drop that kind of cash, I'd definitely buy a Breedlove, Larrivee, or even a top end Tacoma over those.

Now, in a more mid-line like you can actually afford it kind of range, I like the Atlas line of Breedloves, the Cobalt line from Carvin, and upper end Alvarez's. However, my sleeper pick would be to tell you to go find yourself a Simon & Patrick or a higher end Seagull. These are both made by the Godin guitar company in La Patrie, Quebec - basically an entire village that is centered around the guitar factory. They don't waste any money on super awesome inlays, or anything like that - the guitars, even the high enders, tend to be very cosmetically basic. However, where they do NOT skimp is build quality and playability.

I have a Simon & Patrick I bought roughly 12 - 13 years ago now - all solid wood construction, spruce top, mahogany back and sides, Schaller tuners ( that even say Made in West Germany on them! ), a Tusq nut, and the sweetest neck ever. The wood has aged wonderfully, and even though it is a smaller bodied guitar, I would put the sound that comes out of this baby up against any Martin any day of the week. I paid $600.00 for it new, and looking at their website, they are'nt really any more expensive now.

If you have the coin for them I think Gibsons are the most musical sounding acoustics out there IMO.

I got pretty lucky when I bought my SJ-200. It has a little dink in the laminate which had the price dropped from over 3k to under 2k. I jumped on it to the dismay of all the guys who worked at the shop as they had to wait a week of it being on the floor before they were allowed to purchase it themselves. I have a really nice Larrivee and an Alvarez as well and they have pretty much received no love since the SJ came into my life.

I rank that guitar right up there with my wife, my son, my dog and my cat.

Larivee....



Brad

Alvarez Yiari!

I love Martins. I love the deep bass- I play dreds. I've got an HD-28v that is about 10 years old and the sitka has sweetened up to0 a nice darker tone look and rich open sound. It can get boomy when played through pickup (K&K Western) but I run it through a Baggs DI and Trace Elliot amp and have a lot of notch and eq control to roll that back. I also have and play a Huss and Dalton dred with Andirondack and Mahogany and it is really nice. So nice its not leaving the house. A very small shop here in VA making knock out guitars-hand crafted, customer/player centered, one at a time guitars. Check 'em out. I was able to get both of these used from owners who took good care of their axes and got good deals on both. Look around. These guitars I hope to pass down as heirlooms, but first play the hell out of them. I will say that I tried a Breedlove Atlas series, unplugged recently at GC and was really surprised with the rich sound. Well made too (these are korean made), under 1K with Baggs pickup system. Looked like a good guitar for playing out, plugged in.

For acoustic I love my Martin DC16RCE. It has a solid back and sides and the pickup system blends a microphone with an under saddle piezo. Plugged in it sounds simply great, still clear and punctuated but warm and acoustic-y.

For playing without being plugged in for me its between my Martin D-1 and my Guild D-50. That Martin only cost me about $500 on eBay and its one of the fuller sounding acoustics I've ever played, yet still light in weight.

Think Peace!
Best Regards,
Andrew
http://andrewsongs.com

Another lefty here- I've played a Taylor 610L (solid Flame Maple back-and-sides) for the last 15 years that I got an amazing deal on. It's got great highs, tight bass and rather scooped mids, and really incredible playability. Great for bluegrass, driving acoustic rock, anything needing lots of definition.

The (ultra rare) nice lefties I've had a chance to play include a handful of different Taylors, Guilds and the occasional Martin. The other day I went in a store I hadn't visited before (Pioneer Music at 60th & SE Stark) to get a shipping box for a Travis Bean, and wound up playing a couple of lefty Martins: an HD-28 (cool but very similar to my 610)...

and an OO-15! AWESOME blues box- dripping with swampy soul ...basically everything my Taylor isn't! And at about half of list... very tempting.

playingdead wrote: He was telling me about the expensive Taylor buy-in ... and that he couldn't take on Martin because they wanted him to take the entire line, and his clientele is geared toward the upmarket stuff.

Taylor wanted me to buy 21 guitars to start. Martin was something like $50K per year. And Gibson was ridicules. They had a separate buy in for the epis, gibsons, montana and it was all silly. To get started you needed to commit to $80k per year of epiphones and they auto shipped guitars to you every month. It is no wonder only the big dealers can handle them now.

Breedlove wanted a $20K per year commitment. I have been a deal for them since December and I am more than halfway there already. They are a pretty easy sell. And I have a guy that is just about to go for a custom built 9 string. (that is going to be an interesting project.)

Alvarez Yairi here too

I have a nice Daion that I've had 30 some years - tough to beat. I know there's someone else on here that has a Daion. My buddy is looking for an acoustic, I have the recent Carvin catalog and they are selling the Cobalt non-electric, non cutaway dread for $319 on sale. Anybody ever play one?