Got this email today from a new division of Gold Tone banjos called “Wood Song”. Interesting engineering and although it’s hard to tell from a video they don’t sound bad, not great but good.
I’m not affiliated with these folks at all, I’ve had my eye on a Gold Tone banjo for a while and thought I’d pass this on to the guitar forum.
Interesting looking instruments. I like the zero fret concept (although I have rarely seen it well executed). I don’t like the internal bridge support. It seems to me that extra support under the bridge would restrain the top from vibrating rather than help it. But this looked the most interesting:
http://www.woodsongguitars.com/img/specs/17.jpg
I would guess that bending the top like that might cause the top to sound different than a flat top instrument. If the video sound clips are any indication, it would seem like the top loses some of it’s depth and bottom end. But I like the fact that it allows for a more comfortable arm position and may be the answer for some of us who are starting to feel the strain from deep body instruments.
Here is the video of their dreadnought from their website:
[video]http://youtu.be/JKgIYTaQS9A[/video]
The dreadnought in the video sounds decidedly thin to me, but it is also possible that the recording compresses the sound to the point of changing the video tonality.
Yes, I give them a A+ for ingenuity. And the guitars look pretty snazzy. The videos conveyed this metallic-like after sound (if that makes sense) that I didn’t quite like. I think the player in the vids hit his notes and his chords were clean and maybe he made them sound better than they are…or it could be the sound quality of the video. Who knows? It’d be interesting to hear/play one in person.