Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Guitars for Bluegrass

#23

I meant no slight with my comment about D35s. It has been my experience with many 35s I have played and a dozens more friends have owned that they have a characteristic big, fat tone bordering on boomy. Many folks find that tone very attractive especially for rhythm playing live. Certainly there are lots of differences between guitars of the same model and I am more than sure that many were very balanced in tone. I believe if you scour the net for other opinions on the tone of a D35, you will find some common praise for the rich, dark bass.

Iā€™m not sure I agree that the 70ā€™s Martins were mis-engineered. I think over-engineered would be a more accurate term. Many of the Martins of that time were purposely over engineered so that the lifetime warranty would hold true. As a result, bracing was often heavier, bridge plates were thicker along with other less obvious building practices. I believe Martin meant to do this purposely to avoid future warranty returns. The result was that many Martins of that time were much more heavily built when compared to previous and current Martins. Martin meant to do this so it was not so much a mistake (mis-engineered) as it was a choice to prevent future structural failure (over engineered).

Edit:

I wanted to add that big bass on an acoustic guitar can be a very welcome sound. The D35 sound reminds me of pressing the ā€œloudnessā€ button on older stereo systems. The bass becomes fuller and more 3 dimensional than you might hear from another dread. But like the loudness button of old, it can sound a little too full or boomy in certain circumstances. YMMV

#24

haha, I took no offense, I was mostly commenting that I really donā€™t know all that much about instruments. I usually have more knowledgeable friends check something out with me before I make a purchase.

I think your right on the mark with your explanation.

I used the term I used because I think they missed the mark when they made that decisionā€¦as I said ā€œmy opinionā€.

#25

I was at a shop today and got to compare an HD-35 with many others (including HD-28V, HD-28, HD-16 rosewood, D-16A, Collings D1A and D2R). In short, the HD-35 was great. It had a real pleasing sound for playing solo. It wouldnā€™t cut as much as some of the mahogany dreads, but it had a beautiful tone. The HD-35 and the HD-28V ('35 style sunburst) were my favorites for plain old overall sound. If forced to pick one, the 'burst HD-28V would have been my first choice today (of those particular instruments I played). The best buy in a dread for group bluegrass seemed to be the D-16 A (about $2k). It sounded a great amount like my D-18GE for about $1000 less (if comparing new to new). The other guitar that I really liked was a Collings OM-2H (not a 'grass machine, but a sweet sounding and playing guitar).

Anyway, I hadnā€™t played a 35 in a long time, and that one was a definite winner.

#26

Here I am again. I have a Gibson J45 rosewood, two D28ā€™s, a Yari DY74, and a D35. The D35 is my main guitar. I pick it up more often and play it out most times. It is important to note that I am not necessarily a bluegrass player. My 35 has to be one of the best acoustics I have ever played and I have had my hands on quite a few.

#27

Hi all, wondering why I never hear anyone commenting on the Gallagher Dreads??? I played a Doc Watson and I thought it was awesome at the very least. I like the Martins as well but just a curiosity question. Jerry :mrgreen:

#28

Gallaghers are nice instruments. I have played a grand total of one. It was a rosewood dread. It was loud and had a nice tone. I only played it for a few minutes as I was buying something a bit different (a 0000-15 for my mother in law). I suspect why you donā€™t hear about 'em much is that there are not thousands of them out there running around. Itā€™s kind of sad to think of all the super cool instruments we donā€™t even know about. There was a builder by the name of Hascal Haile in KY (where I grew up) and I heard lots of good things about them, but I never got to play one. Gruhn has one, and I have been tempted to get it shipped here just out of curiosity. The wife has kindly informed me that I am at full capacity on guitars.

#29

ā€” Begin quote from ____

The wife has kindly informed me that I am at full capacity

ā€” End quote

My wife says the same thing about the gun cabinetā€¦ but Iā€™ve noticed something being full doesnā€™t have an impact on the closet where she keeps her purses. (Oh, if she needs to know that last part, Iā€™ll tell her myself. :wink: )

#30

I am kind of late on this post but my experience has been that if you are already thinking that you want a new guitar, you already know what you want. If you buy a new guitar that is different from what you already want, no matter what other people suggest or you may even pick one of the suggested one up and play it and think, that is a pretty nice one, if you dont buy what YOU want, you will alway think that you should have bought the ā€œwhateverā€ that you always wanted.
I wanted a Martin and then played a few others and settled for a different one. I played it for 4 or so years and it plays great and sounds great but I wanted a Martin DC16 gte and didnt buy it and wished I had went ahead and bought the Martin. So, now, last year I went back and bought the martin that I wanted after all that time. It isnt a bad thing as I have 3 guitars now, one I play and two I look at and move around when cleaning the house. I dont want to sell them, they are nothing special, but one of them is a 1956 Silvertone with the big tail piece and F holes, that plays like crap.

You know what you want already so buy it and be happy. You will regret it if you dont.

#31

John, I think thatā€™s great advice. I have had friends take up guitar and ask for advice on what to get. Some of them had plenty of money, and they found a guitar they really liked, but because it wasnā€™t a ā€œbeginnerā€ guitar, they didnā€™t get it. I encouraged them to get the one they wanted from the start. If guitar wasnā€™t their thing, they could always sell it. Beginners are the ones who really need the ease of play and motivation that comes with a nice instrument. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with a beginner guitar, but it seems that people seldom regret the money they put into a nice instrument.
Iā€™m glad you like your DC-16. Those are great guitars.

#32

Not sure if anyone mentioned Blueridge Guitars for the price there pretty good instruments. Great starter guitars look and feel of a Martin with solid top, back, and sides. I play a friends Blueridge every now and then it has great tone. It does have a dovetail neck joint Iā€™m sure it will need a neck reset in 60 years or so LOLā€¦ I have a 40 year old Martin D18 neck angle still good :open_mouth:

#33

I agree. I have played a Blueridge dreadnaught and I was really impressed. Itā€™s a great sounding guitar at a great price. I wonder if anyone has an A/B Ā© comparison between an Eastman, a Blueridge and a D-16 on youtube.
Congrats on your D-18 neck angle, and knock on wood. I would think if itā€™s stable this long, it probably will be good for another 40. I have 1970 N-20, and the last time I checked, itā€™s neck was great as well. Unfortunately, I havenā€™t seen the poor thing since I last opened the case back about the time it warmed up (I only know that as I was humidifying then). I need to replace those strings and start playing it a bit.

#34

ā€” Begin quote from "mreisz"

I agree. I have played a Blueridge dreadnaught and I was really impressed. Itā€™s a great sounding guitar at a great price. I wonder if anyone has an A/B Ā© comparison between an Eastman, a Blueridge and a D-16 on youtube.

ā€” End quote

Since you asked, Iā€™ll post a sound comparison I did about a year ago with the following instruments (not necessarily in the order on the examples:

Martin M-38 (0000 size)
Martin 000-15 (000 size)
Silver Creek T-160 (000 size)
Recording King RD-316 (dreadnought)
Blueridge BR-180 (dreadnought)

Three of these guitars are bluegrass sized. I did this blind comparison so that folks could make a choice based solely on tone. The price point on these guitar is all over the place, yet they are are all solid woods. Only the Martin 000-15 is without a dovetail neck joint. To make this an Apples vs Apples test, I recorded each guitar back to back using exactly the same recording setup (MXL 4000 microphone into Alesis Multimix 8 with all controls set flat). The microphone was set at a distance of about 20 inches pointed at the 14th fret of each guitar. Each guitar had one week old Elixir Nanoweb 80/20 light gauge strings.

In all the examples, guitar A remains guitar A, guitar B remains guitar B and so on. Which do you like and why?

Fingerpicking comparison: The same fingerpicking piece played as evenly as possible http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/23/1972320/guitar%20test%20finger.mp3

Flatpicking comparison: Angeline the Baker played with a hard delrin flatpick http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/23/1972320/guitar%20test%20flat.mp3

Strumming comparison: Each guitar strummed very hard and then very soft for dynamic comparisons http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/23/1972320/guitar%20test%20strum.mp3

You job is to decide which tone you like best, not which guitar is which on the example. I will reveal the guitars in a few days.

:smiley:

#35

Awesome Doc. I was thinking of doing the same thing with some guitars when I saw Daveā€™s banjo poll. Iā€™ll go through them and see what my ears like.

#36

Pretty neat comparison. Thanks for sharing it with us, doc. I listened to each of them a couple of times, and while I could hear the differences, I had a tough time picking which one I liked best. In general, I think I liked A & B more than D & E, so Iā€™ll rank them as, B,A,C,E,D (but, Iā€™d probably change my mind if I went and listened again).

#37

I know that the drill was to find what I like, but in my mind I had pictures of what sound was likely coming from what guitar.

Guitar A was a simple tone, light volume and a weaker bottom end, but it had a very nice quality and I think it would cut well in a mix of other instruments even though it did seem to have limited volume. I think that guitar would be nice (easy) to record with or play informally while sitting around on the sofa. On the flip side, guitar D has a more complex tone, but it was loud and balanced. I think it would be tough to record well, but rewarding if you put in the effort. It would be a great jam session guitar. If I had to pick one guitar, I think it might be Larryā€™s least favoriteā€¦ D (I guess Larry and I could share our guitars as we wouldnā€™t be fighting over the same one). I think some medium PBs on that guitar would make it a beast. If I was going to be picking a guitar to play and sing solo, I think I would prefer guitar A.

So my favorite kind of depends on what I would be using it for. I like all of the guitars for various reasons.

Like I said, I couldnā€™t help but picture what I thought the guitars were. Some images were of general body shapes, but A and D in particular sounded like specific guitars on the list. I look forward to the reveal to see how far off I was.

I appreciate you putting that together whenever you did it. Stringing 5 guitars is a pretty good commitment for a blind taste test (a commitment in both money and time).

#38

By the way, I played a Recording King last year and was amazed at the value. I forgot about that one in my original post wondering if someone had done some comparison recordings, but I am real glad you included it. I was comparing it with much pricier guitars. It was in the same ballpark in volume and tone, but not anywhere near the price. Ignoring price, it was not my absolute favorite of the lot, but it was a guitar that Iā€™d be happy to play every day. The one I played was setup real well too. I might be remembering wrong, but I think it had an Adirondack top (which I found out after I was done playing and already impressed).

#39

DO NOT READ THE NEXT POST if you would like to guess at the audio examples above!!!

The answers to the audio post above are in this next post!

#40

So, for the few of you who are interested in which guitar was which, here are the answers.

The guitars were as follows, Silver Creek ($169), Recording King RD-316 ($595), Martin 000-15 ($550), Blueridge BR-180 ($700), Martin M-38 ($2100). The prices listed are the dollars I paid for each instrument new. The Recording King and the Silver Creek came without any case while the other three came with hardshell cases.

Here is my take on this comparison and these instruments. There was a time, not very long ago (maybe 10 years) when I would have laughed at you for suggesting that a decent acoustic guitar was made in China. I knew that China was ramping up itā€™s quality in many manufacturing areas, especially electronics, but I really did not believe that you could purchase a good sounding, quality guitar from there. Then about 5 years ago, some friends told me about Blueridge and how their guitars were exceptionally loud and toneful. At the time, I was looking for a bluegrass cannon on a budget. So I bit the bullet and purchased a Blueridge BR-180 online (sight unseen). The first one I received was a tone monster, but had a poor neck set so I sent it back. The second one was perfect. That is the guitar you heard as ā€œDā€. I did my research and found out that one of the reasons these guitars were so nice was that a fellow by the name of Greg Rich (formerly of Gibson guitars) was designing these instruments specifically to be very similar in tone to early Martins. At one point, Greg then left Blueridge and opened his own factory with a partner to make Recording King guitars (and banjos, and mandolinsā€¦etc). He spoke online at a few forums I have frequented and he spoke very highly of these new instruments and their designs.

All of a sudden, there were lots of great sounding, good quality instruments coming out of China (Eastman, Epiphone Masterbuild series, Guild GAD series, Morgan Monroeā€¦etc). To my ears, I have really liked Gregā€™s designs. And in many ways, they are great sounding instruments, and not just for the price.

Please understand, I am not cutting on Martins, not even a little bit. I am in no hurry to sell my wonderful Martin M-38. What the recording does not show is how nice it feels in your hands and how beautifully it is built. And before I purchased the Blueridge and Recording King, it was by far the nicest sounding acoustic in my stable.

But I am stunned by the amount of guitar and tone you can buy for very little money. As Mike pointed out, the Silver Creek has a very nice, balanced tone (I believe these were built in the Recording King factory). If I were to tailor the strings to each instrument, I would probably put medium/light gauge 80/20s on the Silver Creek to get a little more low end. And in fact, it should be pointed out that each of these guitars would probably do much better with a set of strings specifically for that instrument; but for this test I needed to choose one set for all of the instruments so that you could really compare the sound of the build/woods and not the strings.

From looking over the shoulder of each instrument, this is my take:

The Silver Creek has a very balanced tone that is slightly thin, but not harsh. It is a good quality build with good fit and finish. The sitka has a good amount of silking on a nicely cut quarter sawn top. The solid mahogany back and sides are very nicely matched with lots of figure in the back mahogany. The neck is dovetail fitted with a one piece mahogany neck (no wings!). For $169, this was an absolute steal. Even if I had the skills to build this nice an instrument, I could not purchase the wood and parts for this price.

The Recording King is a very fine instrument. It has a wide grain solid adirondack top with solid African mahogany back/sides and ebony bridge/fingerboard. The tone is very balanced for a dreadnought (the low end is not too big) but has a nice growl on the bottom with ringing trebles. This guitar is quite loud and itā€™s tone complements other instruments (doesnā€™t get in the way, but holds itā€™s own). As you can hear in the recording, the midrange is very pleasing and the tone is aggressive (seems to reach out and grab you). With the addition of a nitro finish, dovetail neck joint, one piece mahogany neck and Grover tuners, this guitar is one I had been looking for many years.

The Martin 000-15 is a very nice instrument to play. It is one of those instruments that you pickup and 3 hours goes by in the wink of an eye. It has a dark, woody tone that is quite different from other acoustic guitars. It begs to play the blues and folk music. I have played this one enough to make the satin finish shiny where my arm rubs against the top.

The Blueridge BR-180 is Godā€™s guitar, someday I will have to give it back. It is very loud with an extremely deep bass. The amazing thing is that it is not muddy at all. Somehow, this guitar is not overly heavy on the lower midrange which I believe keeps it from sounding dull/boomy. All the notes on this instrument ring out very nicely. It has a very silken sitka top with rosewood back/sides and ebony fingerboard/bridge. It has so much shell on it that it looks like an abalone clown threw up all over it. But the voice is amazing, so I tend to over look itā€™s ā€œprettinessā€.

The Martin M38 is a lifer. I purchased this from a very nice acoustic ā€œboutiqueā€ about 15 years ago. And out of dozens of Martins, Taylors, Santa Cruz, Gibsons, Collingsā€¦etc, it was one of the nicest sounding in the store. I have fine tuned the set up on this guitar so that it plays like buttaā€™. It has a nicely silked sitka top with rosewood back/sides and ebony fingerboard/bridge. It is very well balanced and a fingerpickers dream. The tone is smooth and very even (not too bright, not too dark, not too fat, not too thin). The fret to fret note balance is extraordinary.

That is the story on those 5 guitars. The recording does sound very close to their actual sound (especially if played though decent monitor speakers like I have at my desk). I would state my favorite, but Iā€™m not sure I have one. I will say that I play the Recording King out at shows (and it has the dings to prove it), and I pull out the Martin M38 on special occasions. The Silver Creek does itā€™s duty as the student use guitar in my studio during student guitar lessons. But all of them are quite nice to play.

Mike

#41

Thanks Doc!
Well, I had 1 out of five correctly pictured. I did have all five body types right. The M-38 was the only one I got the model right. I had A and C pegged as the small bodies, but I got them flipped. Now that you say which is which, it makes senseā€¦ the 000-15 would be darker. I also had B and D as the dreads, but I had them flipped as well.

I am blown away by the silver creek. I thought it was the 000-15 (I like singing with my mother-in-lawā€™s 0000-15 a bunch, and it is fairly similar to a 000-15). Like you said, if building a guitar, one would have to spend almost that much on a decent top set and bracing. I bet I could spend $169 on glue and nitro. Is it available in brick and mortar stores or just online? I am guessing itā€™s 1 11/16" at the nut?

One thing you canā€™t take into account in a blind taste test is the feel of a guitar. I love sitting with the 0000 shape guitars. A dreadnaught feels much less comfortable to me. I am even more comfortable with an 000 size, but the 0000 is a nice compromise between comfort and volume. All that said, lately I play a dreadnaught more often then any other.

They are all nice guitars, thanks for sharing.

#42

Silver Creek guitars were a store brand for Musicianā€™s Friend for a few years. They made both mahogany and rosewood all solid wood guitar in both the dread and 000 size. From what I can tell, they were originally early Recording King factory guitars that were labeled for Musicians Friend (still not completely sure of this since I never received this confirmation for Greg Rich). Unfortunately, Musicianā€™s Friend replaced the line with a more expensive and less nice alternative.

You can still purchase a Silver Creek on eBay at a huge markup in price over the original prices, but I have read that most of these are seconds and folks are taking advantage of the original mystique of the great sounding Silver Creeks. :open_mouth: