Posts Tagged ‘martin guitar’
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, “Wood is good.” And one of the most important places to start when choosing a guitar is tone wood (shape is also important and we’ll cover that another time). But where to begin? How do you know if you want a spruce top or cedar? Mahogany back and sides or Rosewood? What the heck is Ovangkol? Is there really such a think as Cocobolo?
Luckily, Taylor and Martin have created pages on their websites describing the qualities of the the many tone woods available for acoustics. These pages can be very useful when choosing the wood for your acoustic. Definitely worth checking out.
Tone (Taylor Guitars)
Tone Wood (Martin Guitar)
Related Stories
Guitar Woods in Short Supply
Design Your Own Martin Guitar
(more…)
Tags: guitar, guitar wood, martin guitar, taylor guitar, wood
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, September 12th, 2008
In today’s Fretbase Face Off, we’ll see two classics fight it out. In the first corner, we have the Martin D-28 - the solid spruce and rosewood dreadnought standard. In the other corner, we have the Gibson Hummingbird - a performer’s favorite played by artists including Keith Richards. We are pretty big Martin fans over here but we have been quite intrigued by Gibson guitars lately - in particular the Hummingbird and the J-45. If you want to see how these guitars did in the face-off, click on the link at the bottom of the story to see the video. And let us know which one you liked best in the comments.
Read more about Martin D-28 at Musician’s Friend
Read more about Gibson Hummingbird at Musician’s Friend
See the Video!
(more…)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Gibson Guitar, gibson hummingbird, guitar, Martin D-28, martin guitar
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
As I have mentioned a few times (including here), I’m very intrigued by OM-shaped guitars at the moment since I’m getting more into fingerstyle playing. Orchestra Models - with their wide nut and smaller bodies - are awfully nice for fingerstyle. While I’m intrigued by OM’s with cedar tops, I can’t avoid looking at the Martins with the standard spruce. Recently, I came across this great review of the Martin OM-21 Special that includes helpful info on a lot of other Martins. It is a good read for anybody considering a high-quality OM guitar.
Martin OM-21 Special Guitar Review (Maury’s Music)
Martin OM-21 Special (Official)
Martin OM-21 Special (InstrumentPro.com)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, guitar, guitar review, martin guitar, om-21, om-21 special
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
We were pretty intrigued last June when Martin announced the Steve Earle M-21 Custom Artist Edition guitar. The guitar - which combines jumbo (0000) body style with 000 depth - looks like a wonderful guitar for strumming and fingerpicking. The guitar was designed by Steve Earle and Matt Umanov and blends Martin Style 18 and Style 28 appointments.
We’re even more curious about this guitar now that it is available for pre-order. The guitar is expected to ship in September.
No videos yet of the guitar, so in the meantime please enjoy a great video of Earle playing an acoustic version of his song Tennessee Blues on a dreadnought after the jump.
Have you played the guitar? Please let us know how you liked it in the comments.
Pre-Order Martin M-21 Steve Earle Acoustic Guitar (Musican’s Friend)
Download MP3 of Tennessee Blues (Amazon)
(more…)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, guitar, martin guitar, Steve Earle, Steve Earle Custom Guitar
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, August 4th, 2008
A few years ago my wife and I were about to watch Letterman when I saw (through my trusty TiVo) that John Mayer would be one of the guests. I said to my wife, “A lot of people are into this John Mayer but I’m not sure I get it.” Then, John Mayer came on and tore into an electric blues number from his album Continuum that blew us both away. Once again, my wife looked at me like I’m some kind of fool. I get it now.
When I realized that John Mayer is also a fan of Martin acoustic guitars and even has not one but two of his own signature models, I was even further intrigued. I also liked the idea of writing about a signature guitar since Brian has been so critical of signature guitars. Personally, I like signature guitars. While I’m not crazy about the idea of having my guitar so closely associated with a single musician, I find the signature guitars to be an interesting reflection of what the artist likes in a guitar. The John Mayer OMJM Special Signature Edition is a great example. More on this after the jump.
Photo Credit: toddwickersty via Creative Commons License
(more…)
Tags: John Mayer, martin guitar, Martin OMJM, OMJM
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, August 1st, 2008
While some guitarists play a variety of different guitars from different manufacturers, others stick with what works. Johnny Cash fell squarely in the latter category. If Johnny Cash was playing a guitar, you could be pretty confident it was a Martin dreadnought. The Martin guitars that Cash played included 1969 Martin D-28, a 1976 Martin D-76 limited edition made to commemorate the bicentennial, a 1982 custom Martin D-45 signed by C. F. Martin III and C. F. Martin IV, a 1989 custom D-35 and #1 of the 1997 signature Martin D-42JC (Johnny Cash Signature).
The story behind the custom D-35 is the most interesting. According to the Martin Guitar website, the all-black D-35 custom was built when C. F. Martin III was head of the company and had to be built in secret because C. F. thought an all-black guitar was too “radical.” According to the story, C. F. remained unaware of the instrument until he saw Johnny Cash playing it on Columbo. Once he saw it on t.v., he liked it. In 2006, Martin released the D-35 Johnny Cash Commemorative Edition modeled on that first all-black Martin.
The American Recordings that Johnny Cash recorded during the end of his career are personal favorites for us at Fretbase. On the first album simply entitled “American Recordings,” Cash played the 1997 Martin D-42JC. That guitar was the first all-black limited edition guitar ever offered by Martin. It was a 14-fret dreadnought with forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing and a three-piece back made of East Indian Rosewood.
Martin D-35 Johnny Cash Commemorative Edition on Musician’s Friend
Martin D-42JC
Martin D-76 on Elderly Instruments
Click on for some favorite Cash tunes.
(more…)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, guitar, Johnny Cash, martin guitar
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
As I have mentioned before, one of my local music stores is Gryphon Stringed Instruments in nearby Palo Alto. I love Gryphon for many reasons including the fact that the guy who literally wrote the book on Martin guitars, Richard Johnston, is the co-owner. I have purchased 3 guitars there and I’m confident I am far from through. Gryphon carries a wide variety of high-end acoustic guitars including guitars by Martin, Taylor, Santa Cruz, Collings and Huss & Dalton. However, in the front of the store are usually a number of Blueridge Guitars. Blueridge? I hadn’t heard of Blueridge. Are they comparable to Martin Guitars? What’s the story here?
(more…)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Blueridge Guitar, martin guitar
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Update: We’d like to give a special thanks to BobLefty61 for letting Fretbase use his YouTube video for this comparison. Thanks!
It’s Monday morning here at Fretbase and you know what that means. Let’s get ready to Rrrrrrrrrrrrumble! For the first time in the long and storied history of the Fretbase Face Off, we will have 3 guitars competing. Three guitars with three different shapes but all from the same great maker. Today’s match will be a battle royale between the Martin 00-15, Martin D-18 and the Martin OM-42 in the Fretbase Face off. Read on to meet the challengers.
(more…)
Tags: fretbase, guitar, martin 00-15, martin d-18, martin guitar, martin om-42
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
I know you have been in this positon. You are debating between two different guitars and just can’t decide. Do you want to pay for the Martin or will the Chinese-built alternative work for you? You want a big bodied guitar. Do you go for a Gibson jumbo or a Martin dreadnought? Is the extra money for a Santa Cruz or a Collings really worth it?
Brian and I dreamed of (o.k., discussed) a feature where we would have videos comparing similar guitars, but our first conversation on how we would implement it went something like this.
Dave: That’s a great idea.
Brian: But where will we get all the guitars?
Dave: I thought you had them.
But then we realized we don’t need to run these comparisons ourselves. There are already plenty available online (I’m really starting to believe in this online thing). We’ll be sharing the best ones we find right here on Fretbase and make them easily available to you.
Without further delay, the first Fretbase Face Off….
(more…)
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Gibson Guitar, Gibson J-45, guitar, Martin D-28, martin guitar, Martin HD-28
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
With gas prices approaching $5 a gallon here in California, when we think of conservation we usually think of oil. However, the use of wood normally used for guitar-making (like rosewood and mahogany) for other purposes like Japanese home-building has severely limited the wood available for acoustic guitars. Last year the New York Times explored this problem in their article entitled “Saving Trees is Music to Guitar Makers’ Ears.”
According to Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars, “Adirondack spruce is unavailable. Mahogany was so plentiful it was a commodity. Now only specialty cutters are getting it, and the prices have gone through the roof. All these things
happened just in my lifetime.” It is awfully scary to think that some of the wood used to create classic guitars may not be available at reasonable prices in the near future. I tried to do my part by buying a Martin SWOMGT last year from Martin’s new sustainable wood series (although admittedly I also thought it sounded sweet).
Saving Trees is Music to Guitar Makers’ Ears (from the New York Times)
Image Credit: image licensed for use by sanferan under a Creative Commons license.
Tags: guitar, mahogany, Martin, martin guitar, rosewood, Taylor, taylor guitar
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
