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Guitarmania!
'06 Martin D-18 Golden EraBought from Jon at "My Favorite Guitars," in February, this recreation of the 1934 Martin D-18 is one of the best Adirondack/mahogany bluegrass guitars ever built. I had it set up by Richard Starkey, as I did my D-28 Marquis, and it is a pleasure to play and to hear. It "cuts" well through the gospel-bluegrass mix for when I play leads in our group, "Better Late than Never." It is a well built guitar complete with a shaded top, the first of these I've owned since I bought my first Silvertone guitar back in 1966. Here are some photos (click on thumbnails to zoom in):
In Sept/Oct 2007 I swallowed hard and sent the guitar to Bryan Kimsey, a luthier in New Mexico who is well known for his fine work in taking this model Martin and making it sound even more like the 1934 D-18 that it was designed after. He did some fairly major work including removing the "popsicle" brace under the fretboard extension, shaving down the back braces, plugging the tuner holes, redrilling & remounting, slotting the pin holes, replacing the bridge pins with buffalo horn pins, and the 1930's Tortis pickguard. I also had him install a K&K Mini-Western pickup with the XLR preamp. Wow, what a beautiful looking and sounding guitar! '04 Martin D-28 MarquisHere are a few photos of my D-28 Marquis. What an awesome guitar. It is one of the first D-28 Marquis built. After I had played the D-28CW for a weekend, I knew the Adirondack spruce top with the rosewood body is the combination that makes the sound I just love in a guitar, both as a solo and as an accompaniment instrument. As soon as they announced this one, I placed an order with Jon Garon at "My Favorite Guitars." That was in September or October of 2004. In early February 2005, it was delivered. WOW, oh wow! Click thumbnail for full sized view.
The D-28 Marquis is a reproduction of the dreadnought guitar of the "Golden Era" for Martin - about the mid-1930's through the early '40s. These are famous today for their sound. Frankly, I agree with most Martin aficionados that today's Martins are every bit the equal, and most likely better than those guitars. Christian F. Martin IV, who has taken over the family business, has an excellent head for business, guitar design, and a sense of the marketplace. What is special about this guitar? Well, the top is made of "Adirondack spruce", or red spruce as it is sometimes called. This was used throughout the first part of this century for their guitars until it was essentially logged out (not by guitar makers!) in the early 40s. At that point, they switched to sitka spruce. Now, second growth trees of Adirondack are finally reaching harvest stage, and, with careful management, will continue to last a long time. So, the top is made of that, along with the braces. The bracing pattern is also per the Golden Era specs as far as shaping and placement. These contribute to a huge, open quality of the sound right out of the box. All spruce tops age and get better sounding (usually), though Adirondack usually requires a longer time because it is a harder wood. It will be wonderful to hear how this sounds in five or ten years when the Adi starts taking on the patina of age and coming into its own. I hope I'll still be able to play it then! '07 Martin OM-28 MarquisPictures soon to come. I have a pickguard to change out on it, and then will post the photos
The current Bluegrass instrument collection:
Greven PickguardsMartin guitars are wonderful, but for some reason, they have elected to use really cheap looking pickguards. Many Martin owners replace them, and that's what I have done as well. I ordered this on from Maury's Music. So, I changed both of my premium guitar pickguards from the factory one to ones which I think are more fitting for them. Here they are:
Jose Ramirez III 3E Classical GuitarI also play classical guitar. I'm very lucky in that about 12 years ago I purchased a "student" guitar made by Jose Ramirez III. These are top notch guitars, and have all the sound (without the cost) of his professional guitars such as Segovia played, and Christopher Parkening plays today. I'll post pictures soon.
Significant Previously Owned Guitars'00 Martin OM-42 - the "pearly girly"This guitar is a Martin OM-42 built in the year 2000. It is my first really nice guitar, purchased in 2003. It has sweet, rich tone and is very responsive to fingerstyle playing. Here are a couple of photos of it (click the picture for a larger view): '03 Martin 00-18VS "UMGF" Custom GuitarI became aware of the "Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum" shortly after acquiring the OM-42, and participated in a project guitar they designed - their first. It is a custom design based on the vintage Martin "00", or "parlor" guitar designs. In this case, it's an 00-18, which means it has the standard spruce top with a mahogany body. The forum members (prior to my joining them) customized it by having it made of "quilted mahogany", wood with a beautiful figure in it, and having herringbone purfling on the top (that's the decoration just inside of the edge binding.) Joining the two book-matched pieces in the center of the back back is a zig-zag strip. The tuners are high quality Waverly, and it has a vintage "slot" head, rather than the peg head on my OM. Because of it's "12 fret to the body" design, the body is longer (extending up the fretboard 2 full frets further than the more contemporary design) and has a fuller, richer tone. This, on a mahogany guitar, which tends to emphasize purity of tone, makes for a beautiful solo, fingerstyle, or blues guitar sound. It just arrived (Feb '04), and has very beautiful tone. Here are a few shots of it taken moments after it arrived:
This guitar was sold in October 2006 - while I loved it's looks and tone, I found it just doesn't work with my music. I'm still looking for a mahogany that works for me. '04 Martin D-18VS with custom touches (10/06 - 8/07)
I have been on the search for a mahogany guitar that "suits" my voice and music for a couple of years now. I started with bringing home a D-18 Golden Era before I found my D-28 Marquis (above), and it just didn't quite make it, so it went back to the store. Looking back, now I think that may have been a good one to hold onto (not to mention how much their prices have gone up in the intervening year or so). Then I bought a custom D-18 which was partially vintage with the old "baseball bat" hand-carved neck. I liked it, but the tone was thinner than I find I like. Once more, looking back that might have also been a keeper. In October of 2006 I found this honey listed for sale on the UMGF. It is one of Martin's outstanding Vintage series of guitars and features the 12-fret body (larger than the standard dreadnought - connects to the neck at the 12th fret instead of the usual 14th fret), a slotted headstock, modified-V neck, and the traditional series 18 rosette and fretboard markers. The fretboard and bridge are solid ebony, the top is sitka spruce with scalloped braces, and the back, sides and neck are solid Honduras mahogany. The previous owner had it set up by luthier John Arnold, from Newport, TN, and it's a beautiful setup. He also added a Greven pickguard (the same pattern as the one I put on my Marquis), and he took off the already excellent Waverly tuners to replace them with a $200 set of "three-on-a-plate" snakewood tuners, also by Waverly. They are very pretty, as the 2nd photo illustrates, yet they retain the precise tuning of the Waverlies. I've found that the modified-V necks on the slotheads has a more gentle "V" shape than those with the paddle pegheads, and volutes on the back. That means that this one, like my (now departed) 00-18VS feel more friendly to the hand when playing barre chords. Finally, as I moved into playing in a gospel-bluegrass band, I needed a mahogany guitar that would "cut" the mix more for leads. I sold/traded this one to for a 000-16 SRTG Custom, but ended up selling it in favor of the OM-28 Marquis. Collings OM1APrior to my Martin OM-42, I owned a Collings OM1A (mahogany body, Adirondack spruce top) for a month. I traded it on the Martin because, while it had a stunning sound, it was heavy in the midrange, and weak on the upper and lower notes. Adirondack spruce is a wonderful (rare, and expensive too!) top wood, but it takes years for it to "open up," so I had no way of knowing if it would ever round out into an even balance. Due to the very high quality of Bill Collings' guitars, I sure it eventually would, but I don't have the patience to wait for it. The Martin OM-42 suffers none of that - it is already opening up, and it had a beautiful sound the day I bought it. Here are a couple of shots of the Collings - and what in impeccable job his craftsmen do:
Guitar and Music LinksHere are some links you might find useful: Martin Guitar -- Martin Vintage Guitar info -- "Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum" Collings Guitar -- Collings Guitar Forum Taylor Guitar if you found this page distasteful! Frets -- an incredible compendium of guitar information "Harmony Central" Guitar information -- includes reviews by owners, song tablature, etc., etc.
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