Looking for an acoustic

He was explaining in the clip they were double tracking the acoustic with a high-string, so I wouldn't put too much merit into that guitars actual solo sound.

Acoustics can be tricky...you can find one that sounds good on bottom, but not on top...sounds good with a steady strum, but fall apart when you hit it hard, or only sound good fingerpicked.

I spent the better part of 5-6 years trying to find one that did it all good, and I didn't find anything that cost less than $2K worth a damn. Then one day I walked into GC and sat down with a Martin that was on consignment for only $350....I almost crapped my pants. I didn't have a dime on me...I sold off a few things in 2 days and got it before anyone else did!

If you are looking for a bright sound, Taylors are good; for a more balanced sound Martin or Yari's are great. I'd stay away from anything with a shiny laquer on it if you want a good tone...I also would avoid acoustics with electronics in them unless you plan on gigging with it. I've heard some Takimine's that were OK, but I'm not a fan of them.

One of the biggest problems I found is that the same two guitars back to back will have different sound charachteristics. This is mostly due to the wood quality, and that's where the big money comes in. Back in the 60's Japan bought up a lot of quality wood, so many of the imports are pretty decent. I would pend the better part of a few months trying different acoustics at different shops to get a benchmark of what you are looking for and how much it will cost. Especially if you will be using it for many years to come.

ORIGINAL: MikeTSH

Can anyone tell me what the model of the acoustic in this video looks like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLzJ_kCbXgg&NR=1

To me it looks like a takamine, but I don't know which model. Cos I love that kind of sound, not dreadnought but sort of thing enough to sound crisp but has that edge.

EDIT: image here

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5959/screencq4.png

I give up... I can't find it. Maybe an old Alvarez Takamine or Yamaha.

you might try a taylor with DR strings. i got a 110 (no electronics) and i liked the sound but it was pretty bright with elixirs. got some DR strings and the tone was great. unfortunately i got the action lowered which messed with the intonation and now my strings are old so it doesn't sound as good. i'll have to find someone who really knows what they are doing next time around.

at any rate, the taylor + DR strings are a good combo for a gutsier tone with some edge. kind of a dry woody sound but still with presence and attack.

I don't think there anything to go looking for.

That sound has nothing to do with that guitar.

Take any acoustic guitar... play the bottom 4 strings. Don't hit the low strings. Yank all the low frequency out of it with EQ. Maybe treat it with a little phase effect by mixing the mic and the piezo.

That guitar seems to be a generic plywood Florentine electric pickup clone... or it could be a high end solid wood Takamine... but either way you are hearing a very stylized representation of it and I think you should be able to get that sound from just about any guit box.

I think the opposite is very difficult. Getting a luscious and even sounding spectrum in the low and low-mid frequencies is a lot harder and usually requires that you locate an instrument that works well with the player's style and the room.

best regards,
mike

I think you are making it overly complicated.

I may be wrong but I took the band members high stringing comment to be quite literal. They are only playing the high (4 bottom) strings because that's the role of that guitar part in the conception of the arrangement.
Remember, that was the pianist who made that comment... I dare say pianists are more conscious of the ideas of arranging and voicing. I think it was just a casual and literal statement.

I own a custom made Martin OM that I commissioned for my wife. The idea was to avoid the Dreadnought sound... having said that I think your opinion of what a dreadnought can and can't do is a bit narrow. I think any lack of versatility, tone wise, is more likely to be a combination of the player and the actual instrument.

Good luck and all the best,
mike

They seemed a bit more together than the hair costumes would suggest. :-)

I'm more into plain old acoustic guitars but I think Takamine makes the best of the breed for electric acoustic stage guitars... I hope you find one you really like.

best regards,
mike

yep, I tried before I bought and have settled on one. I put it behind the counter for the bank holiday and will be collecting it as an end of GCSE present on Monday. For those interested, my results were

A* English Literature
A English Language
A English Media Studies
B Mathematics
B Woodwork/Metalwork
B Science
C ICT

I went on Yamaha's website and couldn't find the guitar Noah330. Thanks for the information on the Nashville tuning, I've gone with a concert body because of the sounds it gives, very nice warm lows with crisp highs, like a mini jumbo.

ORIGINAL: Noah330

The guitar in the video is a Yamaha.

For Nashville Tuning, the gauges for a medium set would be .012, .016, .010, .014, .020, .030 high to low.
A light set would be .010, .014, .009, .012, .018, .027 high to low.
All strings are unwound except for the low E which is wound.

were you thinking the guy in the video is playing a Nashville tuning?

I had a synthetic backed Yamaha electric acoustic. Not a very expensive one. $500.00 variety. The small body on it gave it that tone you speak of. Then I happened to get my hands on a Martin Sp Namm edition that was exactly what I had been looking for. Still a relatively small body, electric acoustic, stereo capable, and action like an electric. The tonality is much better being a non-synthetic backed guitar. Spend some money, get a good one. It will be worth it.

The only way to buy an acoustic guitar is to try it first. Two identical models can sound entirely different.

ORIGINAL: droddey

I got an accoustic a while back. Being as I hadn't played an accoustic for well over a decade, and that was a classical back in my music study days, I had no real experience and coudln't really spend weeks traveling to music stores all over the place trying out guitars. And, even if I could, I couldn't have recorded them all with various mics in various situations to see how they sound recorded. And I couldn't have afforded more than $400 anyway.

In the end, I just got a modest little Yamaha. If it's what I've got to work with, I'll learn how to make it sound like I need it to sound. Some day when I'm rich and have time, I'll do the great accoustic search and buy 10 or 20 of them, one to fit any any social occasion. But, in the meantime, by any means necessary...

Not to beat up on anybody for making a purchase that they're happy with, but you really don't need a lot of money and you certainly don't need to drive all over town for weeks on end to "try before you buy."

It should be said that plywood ("laminate") top acoustic guitars will tend to sound much more consistent from one to the next. They may also be more road-worthy than a similar solid-top. So, if for whatever reason you have set your sights on a laminate-top guitar, then you can probably safely order from a catalog or whatever if you know the model you want.

However, if you are looking for a guitar primarily to record with, then my guess is that you will like the sound of solid-top guitars better, even in inexpensive price ranges. And there is no need to get all precious about miking up the different guitars-- the differences between acoustic guitars are not that subtle. A lot of the immediate differences are from the age and brand of strings, but there is also a really big range of differences in terms of how the guitars resonate and feel. From big, boomy, thump n' twang dreadnoughts to light-and-strummy "artist" models, the shape and type of bracing used makes a big difference. There is also a difference with how the top resonates. Some guitars sound woody and boxy, others sound bright and clear (even if the body is big and the tone is deep). Some have a rich, reverberant quality that makes single-note melodies come to life but that turns open chords into tubby mush. Another guitar that strums along beautifully might sound thin and limp on leads, by comparison.

It's hard to describe the differences without over-stating them, but if a player with a little experience tries out, say, five different guitars in her price range, her chances of not having a favorite are pretty small. Her chances of not having any preference between the five are zero. There is a point of diminishing returns to this stuff, and it's not necessary to try out thousands of guitars in a quest for the holy grail, but if you can try a few, chances are very high that one or two of them will sound and feel a lot more like "your voice" than some of the others.

I think the guitar is a Washburn... I can tell from the big soundhole, headstock, and bridge combination. I'm still looking for the exact model.

Washburn EA9F Festival, or EA20.. looks like it to me.

This is as close to a reference I could find...

http://www.elderly.com/vintage/items/20U-10871.htm


This might be the latest version that is still for sale and close to the same...

http://www.proaudiomusic.com/instruments/guitars/washburn/ea20.htm

Also see e-bay auction 270269932283

I'm not jumping in on the brand name discussion... there's just not enough info to consider.

But I'd like to thank Noah for turning me on to the High Stringing concept. I found several references to it on the web. I'm going to start using this technique in my own work.

Here's a bit of info I grabbed from here: http://www.musicplayer.com/article/john-beland-on/Jun-06/21310

"John Beland on His High-Strung Tacoma Chief

Trial by Fire

By Adam St. James | June, 2006

WHO? John Beland’s email handle is “sessionman,” and with good reason. In a career spanning five decades he has laid down countless tracks behind many a legend, including Ricky Nelson, the Bellamy Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Gene Vincent, Arlo Guthrie, Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, and Ry Cooder. Since 1980 Beland has piloted the Flying Burrito Brothers (he says the band hung it up in 2000, but there’s always hope of a reunion), while continuing to record with and produce dozens of artists. Among his producing credits are the first country record ever cut in Mainland China, and some of the final tracks by Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings.

WHAT?
Custom-painted Tacoma Chief single-cutaway mini jumbo with a Fishman pickup in “Nashville” or high-strung tuning.

BELAND’s GEAR
Late ’40s Martin small-bodied acoustic (similar to a 000-21 model), also high-strung; 1981 Guild F50 Jumbo; 2005 Fender Mexican Vintage Telecaster with a Bill Bores Bender; Fury BBM electric; Korg AX30G; Fender Deluxe Reverb; any studio compression and echo available through the console when recording.

TESTING ENVIRONMENT
Recording studios large and small, on several continents.

CHEERS
“A high-strung guitar sounds fabulous. I use one on everything I record. I’ll mix my Guild F50 left and right—using two separate takes—then pan a high-strung track in the middle, shadowing the Guild tracks. And when you mix in that high-strung guitar, you get this incredible, bright sound. People often say they don’t want a 12-string on their record, but when they hear this, their jaws just drop.

“The effect is almost like hitting the ‘enhance’ button on your stereo—that’s what a high-strung does to your recordings. It’s such an asset to any session, I couldn’t think of putting acoustics on without including some form of high-strung in the song. When you pull it out of the mix, all the other guitars suddenly sound dull. It’s this magic little spice. We used to call it the ‘enchanted guitar.’ I used it on the Bellamy’s hit “Cowboy Beat,” in 1992, and I’ve used it on albums by Ricky Nelson, Nicolette Larson, Bobby Bare, T.G. Sheppard, and Kim Carnes, as well as everything from the Burritos since 1980.

“When I first heard of high-strung guitars back in the ’60s—it was always called Nashville tuning then—Bernie Leadon was the only guy in L.A. who played one. He showed me how to string it up, and I started to use them for sessions back in about ’68. If you listen to ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ or ‘Witchy Woman’—some of Bernie’s work on the early acoustic Eagles tunes—you can really hear the high-strung sound. You might think it’s a 12-string, but it’s not—it’s Bernie playing high-strung guitar.

“By contrast, a 12-string sounds almost folky. But when you take away that heavy 12-string sound and replace it with a high-strung guitar, you’ve got this texture almost like a harpsichord. And now you’ve got the opportunity to play different voicings on the high-strung than on the main 6-string tracks. I even use a capo on my high-strung, though if you go too high it starts to sound like Mickey Mouse. But you’re left with this fragile, octave thing that blends really well into your acoustic tracks. And also, it’s really cool for fingerpicking because you have these inversions that are just incredible, due to the unusual order of the string pitches.

“A high-strung set is essentially nothing more than the higher octave strings from a 12-string set. Typically the gauges are .025, .017, .012, .009, .014, and .010, from the sixth-string low E to the first high-E string. You set them up in standard tuning, though the low E, A, D, and G [strings 6-3] are an octave higher than standard tuning. The high E and B strings are at normal pitch. All your fingerings are just like in standard tuning. You can get a light gauge 12-string set, and then just use the high string of each pair for a high-strung set.

“You’ve got to try this—it’s the greatest. You won’t want to put your high-strung guitar down! The Chief is perfect for this purpose because it’s not a big guitar, but it’s not dinky either, and the unusual shape and placement of the soundhole works well for high-stringing.

BEEFS
“Until recently, you always had to put together your own string sets for a high-strung guitar. Fortunately a couple of string manufacturers have now come out with ‘Nashville tuning’ sets. Also, these strings are very fragile, and they just don’t stand up to the rigors of the road. The strings—remember the heaviest is typically a .025—are very easy to break. They can’t handle aggressive or heavy-handed strumming. You have to play delicately, you can’t be slammin’ it like a regular acoustic. Also, the lighter touch that’s needed to bring out the incredible voicings and timbre of a high-strung guitar just doesn’t cut through onstage.

“Guitars with shorter scale lengths are easier to use in high-strung tuning. The tension is pretty high on some of the strings, and when you use a longer scale, you really risk breaking strings. The nature of the tuning being very bright means you have to use a smaller-body guitar or you lose the sparkling tone.”
"

Whoops! thought that was a molded back! The one in the video has an oval soundhole, the pictured one has a round sound hole. After looking at the headstock it could be a Takemine. I looked around, I will look again. You can tell I'm in a rut.