Favorite Acoustic Guitars

[Larry Mal]

I have a bunch of fun acoustics, but I guess a big favorite of mine is this affordable F-30 from Guild:



The F-30 is sometimes Guild's OM model guitar, like this one is, think of an OM-18 from Martin. At other times it's been a "small jumbo" shape that I usually associate with Guilds but they might not have pioneered it, they used it in the 70's at times. Those are also a lot of fun.

But this F-30 is the more upscale "Aragon" model, which is this era means an Adirondack top and a three piece neck and some cosmetic upgrades.

I am not going to make any claims to the Adirondack top and don't really think it makes all that much of a difference what kind of spruce is used on a guitar of this kind, regardless this era of Guild- the New Hartford era- they were very much trying to compete on quality and my opinion is they made some excellent guitars at that time- and all the other times, I just happen to like this one.

I'd recommend anyone try out a Guild in general and these F-30s if you like that form factor. I think I spent like $1400 on the thing.

Acoustic guitars can be pretty personal things, maybe more so than an electric. It's hard to recommend them I find, because at the end of the day it's you and your connection with an acoustic guitar that makes the difference and that can happen with anyone and any acoustic. I'm not a believer that you have to buy some Holy Grail pre-war Martin fucking thing you just have to find one that for whatever reason works for you and what you are doing on the guitar, and that can be almost anything.

I was watching this video on YouTube, the "Produce like a pro" channel with Warren Huart. He's pretty good.

Anyway, in that video he records acoustic with a variety of microphones, you can make up your mind about that, and he is using a Yamaha LL16 guitar. He likes that guitar and talks about how it is a relatively inexpensive, modern and factory made guitar it still records well, as he puts it, "it makes records".

I found that to be very interesting. Fun thread. There's a lot of interesting guitars on here that I hadn't considered.

[øøøøøøø]

I'm not a believer that you have to buy some Holy Grail pre-war Martin fucking thing you just have to find one that for whatever reason works for you and what you are doing on the guitar, and that can be almost anything.

Once on a day off from tour I played every acoustic above $500 in a shop

My two favorites cost $599 and $10,099. My least favorite cost $25k

The $599 one was also from my least favorite acoustic guitar brand

So it does pay to keep an open mind especially w/ newly-made guitars

Certain older guitars really do seem to have something special (for me).

The Advanced Jumbo and Bigsby D28 happen to use woods that are no longer legal to use on a guitar (but correlation doesn’t equal causation)

[Larry Mal]

I'm not a believer that you have to buy some Holy Grail pre-war Martin fucking thing you just have to find one that for whatever reason works for you and what you are doing on the guitar, and that can be almost anything.

Once on a day off from tour I played every acoustic above $500 in a shop

My two favorites cost $599 and $10,099. My least favorite cost $25k

The $599 one was also from my least favorite acoustic guitar brand

So it does pay to keep an open mind especially w/ newly-made guitars

Certain older guitars really do seem to have something special (for me).

The Advanced Jumbo and Bigsby D28 happen to use woods that are no longer legal to use on a guitar (but correlation doesn’t equal causation)

I would like an Advanced Jumbo, and I surely would like one from the 30's, but I doubt I would purchase anything that expensive. Maybe one day.

I recently decided to buy a classical guitar, I've never owned one. Not knowing a lot about them I decided to buy an older Yamaha GC model, and had I done more research I would have bought an earlier 70s one with the Brazilian rosewood instead of the later 80's Indian rosewood model I did get.

Now, I doubt that I would have been able to tell any kind of difference with Brazilian rosewood on a classical guitar especially since I never owned a classical guitar (which I feel kind of weird about).

I just find it kind of fascinating how long Yamaha was able to have Brazilian rosewood in their lineup and how inexpensive a Brazilian rosewood Yamaha Japanese made classical is compared to a Brazilian rosewood American made steel string guitar, which kind of shows you the power of the marketplace more than anything.

Not sure how I feel about the classical guitar, I bought it cheap and it arrived filthy, with corroded strings and much in need of a setup, which is fine- but I'm probably going to pay someone to set up this guitar.

[B.T.]

Apparently PA Bigsby agreed to re-neck a few D28s back in the mid-20th century

And at least one Gibson that I know of

[mediocreplayer]

I have exclusively played acoustic guitars for 20 years and pretty much owned instruments from every brand/maker that retails for $3.5k and under. My boring conclusion is that the J-45 is the best acoustic guitar ever made. Interestingly, I do not currently own one, but have an Iris DF, which is a guitar that pretends to be a J-45 but sounds like a Martin when no one is looking. And even though I am not a square-shoulder dreadnaught guy, I recently played an Atkin Essential D that I cannot get out of my mind.

I still have my Blueridge Br-43 that I bought in 2006 from The Music Emporium. Made in China with laminate back and sides. I bought it even though at the time I played a Santa Cruz OM/PW. But that's the thing with acoustic guitars -- you really need to play them in store and you will know in the first few minutes if this guitar is for you or not.

[Larry Mal]

I'm glad this thread is continuing since I did want to talk a little more about a subject I like, and I wanted to tell about a guitar that is still under the radar and is still a tremendous deal on an incredible guitar, the Gibson J-15:



The J-15 is exactly the same as a J-45 except that it is made with walnut back and sides instead of mahogany and has a three piece maple neck.

At the time when Gibson came out with the J-15 they had not decided how to introduce walnut to their customer base and the guitar community as a whole, and the J-15 represents their conflicted thinking, there are some upscale elements to the guitar from when they were going to sell it as a premium alternative, they ended up slotting it in kind of as an entry level J-45 and some years later they scrapped the J-15 and started using walnut as their entry level guitars.

This would probably make some people think that walnut is somehow worse than mahogany, it's not at all, in some ways it is better. I would say it sounds closer to rosewood than mahogany in terms of crystalline high end, but it doesn't quite sound like rosewood either.

You can still find the J-15 out there for $1100... people that know know but the rest of the guitar world is not aware of how good they are. Gibson's other walnut guitars that came out immediately after the J-15 were nerfed in some way or the other. Gibson has finally started making their Studio line of acoustic guitars have the same body depth as the other ones, then again they are $2400 for them so they are hardly entry level really.

But yeah, if you are looking for a truly great acoustic guitar at a reasonable price the J-15 is still a tremendous value.

[Flurko]

I have owned a Gibson J-29 since having it in a very generous trade against an acoustic archtops that I didn't enjoy playing very much, and I don't find it especially magical but it just sounds like "a good proper flattop guitar", looks great and smells very nice. I only have played entry level guitars to compare it with, but I don't really want to spoil myself by trying other nice guitars and risk disappointment, this is already too much guitar for how few I play acoustic.

[Larry Mal]

Your J-29 (I have one too) is in essence a short scale model of the Advanced Jumbo that Brad mentioned earlier, well, short scale and 90 years newer.

That means it has "advanced" bracing, which is lighter and shifted differently than what Gibson now calls the "standard"- anyone interested can see the difference here.

I find the J-29 to have a very bright and metallic sound to it, although it's honestly an all around winner and sounds great. But it is not a vintage voiced instrument, I'll say that for it.

[Elvis63]

Guilds in general are underrated in my experience--you can get a 1960s Brazilian rosewood dreadnaught for a fraction of the cost of a Martin from that era. They're built really heavily, but that weirdly seems to make them resonant.

[Jonesie]

I'm glad this thread is continuing since I did want to talk a little more about a subject I like, and I wanted to tell about a guitar that is still under the radar and is still a tremendous deal on an incredible guitar, the Gibson J-15:



The J-15 is exactly the same as a J-45 except that it is made with walnut back and sides instead of mahogany and has a three piece maple neck.

At the time when Gibson came out with the J-15 they had not decided how to introduce walnut to their customer base and the guitar community as a whole, and the J-15 represents their conflicted thinking, there are some upscale elements to the guitar from when they were going to sell it as a premium alternative, they ended up slotting it in kind of as an entry level J-45 and some years later they scrapped the J-15 and started using walnut as their entry level guitars.

This would probably make some people think that walnut is somehow worse than mahogany, it's not at all, in some ways it is better. I would say it sounds closer to rosewood than mahogany in terms of crystalline high end, but it doesn't quite sound like rosewood either.

You can still find the J-15 out there for $1100... people that know know but the rest of the guitar world is not aware of how good they are. Gibson's other walnut guitars that came out immediately after the J-15 were nerfed in some way or the other. Gibson has finally started making their Studio line of acoustic guitars have the same body depth as the other ones, then again they are $2400 for them so they are hardly entry level really.

But yeah, if you are looking for a truly great acoustic guitar at a reasonable price the J-15 is still a tremendous value.

I'm with you on the sound of Walnut. I have a G45 Standard (one of the "budget" models, but before they put a giant hole in the side of the guitar), and I really enjoy how it sounds. The body is slightly thinner than a J45, and the guitar is a smidge brighter, but it sounds great when the strings have broken in a bit. It does everything I need an acoustic to do, for the most part.

[øøøøøøø]

Guilds in general are underrated in my experience--you can get a 1960s Brazilian rosewood dreadnaught for a fraction of the cost of a Martin from that era. They're built really heavily, but that weirdly seems to make them resonant.

The heavy build makes them fantastic 12 strings!

I feel like the larger-bodied 6-strings are typically just a little too… inert for my tastes, but as 12s they’re just about ideal

And many of them are beautiful visually too

[Larry Mal]

Guilds in general are underrated in my experience--you can get a 1960s Brazilian rosewood dreadnaught for a fraction of the cost of a Martin from that era. They're built really heavily, but that weirdly seems to make them resonant.

I spend a fair amount of time on the Let's Talk Guild forum, seems that there are certain eras of Guild that are built heavier- they usually say the 70's ones are. I did have a 70s F-30 for a little bit and didn't find that to be the case, on the other hand I never had one of that kind of "small jumbo" guitar before or since.

Everyone there does agree that even when they are built heavily that they sound good, which is not what people say about the overbuilt 70's Gibson era.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Guilds in general are underrated in my experience--you can get a 1960s Brazilian rosewood dreadnaught for a fraction of the cost of a Martin from that era. They're built really heavily, but that weirdly seems to make them resonant.

The heavy build makes them fantastic 12 strings!

The best 12-string acoustic I ever played was an old Guild, back when Denmark Street was unmolested & full of hidden gems.

[øøøøøøø]

I think personal preference is never wrong, and if someone likes the sound of something that’s a bit less-universal it’s a great thing.

Consensus for most things is relatively easy to track—how many people want it? Which is of course easily correlated with “how much is it worth?”

By that measure, the six-string Guilds are a bit less universally-loved

Which doesn’t mean that an individual can’t love them most of all

[BoringPostcards]

I’ve owned a few really nice acoustics, including a vintage Yamaha and an old Guild. I’ve never owned a Gibson, but I really enjoy playing my buddy’s old Gibson dreadnaught, whenever I visit.
All that being said, my favourite to play is my Eko Ranger VI. It’s a bolt-on neck acoustic and it doesn’t sound the greatest, but the neck is EXCELLENT. I may take it off and use it on an electric build in the future.

My second favourite acoustic I’ve owned was a Fender Elvis Presley Kingman. It was made with wildwood back and sides and had a solid top. It was made in China and was an excellent guitar. I sold it to an old dude who collected Elvis paraphernalia and regretted it immediately.