This Lowden S-32 has an even and level voice that is fun for a whole host of playing styles. Made with choice Indian Rosewood and lovely variegated Sitka Spruce, the bass and mids have excellent pop for funky, bluesy picking and the trebles are dry and crisp, great for articulate fingerstyle pieces. This one has a custom slotted headstock and upgraded tuners that really add to the overall aesthetic of the instrument. Come try it today and see why everyone is raving about the Lowden line!
Here we have a Lowden S-25 in Red Cedar and East Indian Rosewood. This is a guitar perfectly suited to fingerpicking and folk music. The tone is bright and smooth with and has an underlying woodiness that ties the tonal palette together. The neck profile and string spacing feel natural in the hand, while string spacing at the saddle feels perfect for fingerstyle playing.
John Bogdanovich is one of the greatest Classical guitar builders on the scene right now. His guitars are uniformly spectacular, everything from build quality to tone is at the absolute peak of the craft. This 2008 Concert Classical is built from a beautiful set of Brazilian Rosewood and a perfect, even grained German Spruce top. John’s style is one of extreme refinement. From the stunning burl and handmade herringbone rosette to the tasteful colors used in the purflings. This is a guitar that commands attention when you see it. Tonally this classical has everything a concert level performer could want: clear and powerful trebles, present mids and full, boisterous basses, all with incredible balance and pianistic note separation. This is as good as it gets, a builder like John should be held to the same level as Torres and Hauser.
Here we have a Maurice Dupont Prelude model in East Indian Rosewood and Engelman Spruce. This classical has everything we look for in a good guitar, strong trebles warm mids and full but not muddy basses, and to top all that off it is a beautifully built instrument that invites you to play and practice for hours. Students and professionals alike will find plenty to love here, and at a fantatstic price!
Anthony Ennis has one of the most unique building approaches we have seen in the classical guitar world. His UniBody design insures an incredibly stiff side structure, allowing the top and back to vibrate freely. This UniBody is made from Spruce and Padouk, a combination that we find has great clarity and power. The trebles on this classical could punch through a thunderstorm! Another unique feature Anthony added to this guitar is the bolt on neck, it doesn’t have a traditional heel, and according to Anthony can be removed in three minutes. This is a fascinating guitar ready for the student and performer alike.
Julius Borges is one of the top names in replicating vintage guitars, play this gorgeous L-00 and you won’t be left wondering why. The term “3d” gets thrown around often when describing the figure of wood, and frequently the wood falls short of the description. That is not the case here with this set of Figured Maple. It is so intensely figured it almost looks like it is made from crumpled up paper! Paired with a straight grain Adirondack (Red) Spruce top, this guitar has head room and power to spare. Play this guitar with a delicate touch and it is instantly ready to respond with clear trebles and mids with warmth not often heard from maple. This is a guitar that will knock your socks off for a lifetime.
East Indian Rosewood back and sides + Carpathian Spruce top + innovative building techniques = Randy Muth’s S15, a killer 000 with tone to spare! Randy’s approach to lutherie is based in his education as a scientist, and the results of his experiments in, and they’re working wonderfully. From his brace construction and allocation to the materials used in his bridge plates, these guitars are novel concepts which consistently churn out great tone.
With a Carpathian Spruce top, this S15 has heaps of growl and fierce projection with focused trebles and a muscular lower register. This is the sort of guitar for which the more aggresssively your attack, the greater the sustain and richness, and it performs wonderfuly for both flatpicking solos and fingerstyle arrangements. Sealed up in an Ameritage hardshell case, this S15 is as secure as Fort Knox, but imminently more accessible.
With this guitar, you’ve got a chance to be a part of the future of all guitars. David MacCubbin has entered this instrument in the Sonic Sitka Project, an attempt by luthier Denis Merrill and others to document the impacts of aging on tonewoods under tension, and to quantify the sonic changes that happens to the top with time. Why do older guitars sound better? The Sonic Sitka Project is one of the first comprehensive efforts to pursue an answer to that question. The data recorded from this guitar will one day help luthiers to better understand the physics of their tops, and thus improve the voices of future guitars.
The stunning Bearclaw Sitka Spruce which Denis provided to over 90 luthiers is here accompanied by a perfect set of Madagascar Rosewood, giving this guitar a refined elegance in appearance and tone. Playing this guitar is an enveloping experience: from the first notes plucked the sound surrounds the musician in resounding sustain. The bottom end is tight and controlled, with a snappy tone which begs for thumbpicked basslines, and the other registers are bright and expressive, with great string-to-string separation for fingerstyle arrangements. No stranger to flatpicks, this guitar opens up beautifully with an aggressive attack, allowing a sweet array of overtones to fill out the voice.
Here we have a MacCubbin Heron Sunset model. This guitar was a part of a special project called the “Chesapeake Bay Guitar Project.” This was a project founded to help raise awareness and funds for the preservation of the Chesapeake Bay area. David built six guitars for this project, each highly ornamented, inlaid with scenes of the Bay. Craig Lavin did the expert inlay work on this guitar and it is some of the best we have seen – the colors used are vibrant and well suited to the chosen setting. Built from Sitka Spruce and Brazilian Kingwood, this guitar is as beautiful to listen to as it is to look at. The voicing of this guitar is shifted towards fingerstyle with a clear and articulate sound across the board. This is a highly rare and beautiful guitar that will have players and collectors alike clamoring to own it.
When David MacCubbin steps up to the plate, you know it’s going to be a home run. No matter that the bat’s made of different woods than you’d expect, the result is the same: thunderous tone, and lightning-crack responsiveness. The 2014 Concert Series we’ve got here stands as proof that not all guitars are created equally, or created from the same material. With Sinker Mahogany back and sides and a gorgeously colorful Tulip Magnolia top, this guitar has a voice rich in overtones and sustain. Tulip Magnolia seems to fall between Spruce’s brightness and Cedar’s warmth, offering a dynamic compromise between the two that allows for expressive fingerstyle passages just as easily as flatpicking crescendos.
David’s obviously onto something here, and when you find a topwood like this on a guitar so cleanly constructed, you’ve got a guitar which commands attention both for its appearance and its voice. The neck profile is particularly comfortable, with a slinky setup for fast and easy fretting, and the Ebony fretboard showcases MacCubbin’s playful sense of style with its wandering Mother-Of-Pearl dots. Trimmed in Flamed Maple with open-back Grover tuners, the words “stunning” and “classic” come to mind. Finally, this guitar comes in a brand new TKL hardshell case, so there’s no worries about any harm coming to this unique combination of Tulip Magnolia, Sinker Mahogany, Ebony, and Maple.
Randy Muth is another new builder to us that we met this year at the Woodstock guitar show. It is immediately apparent when you meet Randy that he is truly passionate about guitar building and eager to help advance the craft while honoring the past. This S16J is built from a jaw dropping set of Tasmanian Blackwood and Lutz Spruce. Randy has voiced this guitar expertly. It is perfectly balanced and the bass is one of the most fulfilling we have heard recently, while the trebles and mids blend and sing together like a choir. A true knockout of a guitar!
The Gibson J-45 is one of the all time greats in the guitar world, it has the grand and open voice of a dreadnought without the muddiness that can happen with a large bodied guitar. Many players over the years have found the J-45 to be a perfect all around guitar, whether you are strumming, flatpicking, or fingerpicking, the J-45 can handle it all with gusto and grace. This J-45 has had some love put through it, it is apparent in the voice that this is a mature guitar just raring to produce sound with even the lightest touch. Just 2 owners in over 80 years!
We love getting in guitars from builders we haven’t had in the shop before. It is at once a fun and inspiring experience to see what new ideas luthiers are coming up with. Keisuke Nishi, the man behind Keystone guitars, was an apprentice of Mario Beauregard, who trained under insdustry legend Ervin Somogyi himself. The fact that Nishi worked under such a capable master was a major indicator for us that Keisuke has incredible skill and talent for building guitars, so we were already excited to see his work. Then we heard and played it and couldn’t be happier!
This Keystone Mod-D in Granadillo and Adirondack (Red) Spruce has the build quality and voice we have come to expect from a builder coming out of the Somogyi school of building. This Mod-D sings as sweet as a bird when fingerpicked and has a full, resonant bass that seems to jump at a player’s touch. Pick it lightly and it will resonate with warmth and brilliance. Pick it a little bit harder and it will shine and shimmer. This is a guitar that has a mastery of all things fingerstyle and will surely bring you to new heights as a player.
There are few guitars more suited to song writing than the Gibson Hummingbird. The Hummingbird has been used on countless songs over the years, in part because they record exceptionally well and because they play as smooth as silk. This is a 1968 Hummingbird made from Mahogany and Sitka Spruce with a well matured voice that is sweet and charming. From the bass to the trebles you will find that this guitar has an even tone perfectly matched for strumming and light fingerpicking. If you are looking for a mature guitar to inspire the songwriter in you, try giving this one a try, it won’t disappoint.
There is something truly magical about playing a great old Gibson, this 1943 J-45 is like a time machine. It takes you on a trip with every one of its dings and scuffs, a dark bar in New York with this ding perhaps? or a lush medow with this one? who knows how many heartbreaks and happy moments this guitar has seen. The war time Gibson tone is in full standing here, deep dark woody basses align with quick and snappy trebles. This guitar has had a life and it really shows up in the wonderfully mature voice, what a fantastic instrument.
Here we have a 1918 Gibson L-3 with a Spruce top and Birch back and sides. This little prewar beauty has been incredibly well preserved with very little damage and just that great vintage charm. We think this L-3 is perfectly suited for blues and ragtime, it has that throaty growl that really lends something special to those styles of music. playability is as good as it would have been all the way back in 1918, smooth and fast. The big neck really sits in the hand nicely. This is a treasure of a guitar that has had no telling how much great music played into it, pick this one up and add a little of your own voice and history to it.
Here we have a rare and collectable bird from the Martin guitar company, a D-28S 12 fret slope shoulder Dreadnought in Brazilian Rosewood and Sitka Spruce. This guitar is all about the tone – it is sweet and rich thanks to the twelve fret neck, while thundering and powerful thanks to the large body size. If you are looking to play intimate fingerstyle passages or you just want to blow peoples hats off, this is the guitar to do it with. And with its perfect set up you’re sure to enjoy every minute of your playing.
We have been extremely fortunate recently to have two truly great pre-war Martins come in to the shop, both of which happen to be 00s. This is a 00-40H built from top shelf Brazilian Rosewood (good luck finding a set of Brazilian this nice these days) and a fine, tight-grained Adirondack Spruce top. The pre-war tone in full force here: this guitar is loud, with the mature complexity that you can’t find in a new guitar. Playing this guitar is all romance; it takes you back in time to that golden era–and this 00-40H plays incredibly smoothly. A proud survivor of the 80 years, this guitar has decades of music left in it, and let’s face it, they don’t make ’em like these anymore: you owe it to yourself to play this guitar before all of its brethren disappear.
We loved this one so much that we teamed up with Al Petteway and recorded it on our latest album: Dream Guitars Volume II Hand Picked, track #1, “I Don’t Want To Be Sad No More.”
We’ve got another Stella-inspired twelve string that we have in the shop! Ralph Bown, while better known for his smaller fingerstyle guitars like the OM that Clive Carrol plays, has proven himself an exceptionally dynamic luthier, building everything from Baritones and Harp Guitars to this Stella 12-string. Bown’s given us an extended scale length to allow for heavier gauge strings to be used in lowered tunings. We find that standard C or D works beautifully on this guitar; the voice is huge, lush, and projects outward with a cataclismic force. Moreover, at the reduced string tension of lowered tunings (which we recommend keeping this guitar in) fretting notes becomes fretless, so smooth is the action.
Decked out with a Sitka Spruce top and some seriously gorgeous Koa for the back and sides, the octave strings pairs exude rich tone like chocolate mousse. Designed for the Leadbelly approach to Country Blues, all thumbpicks and crackling treble strings, this guitar also behaves famously for flatpicked solos a la Jimi Hendrix (there’s a great clip of Jimi playing a 12-string on Youtube, if you haven’t seen it yet). If you’re looking for a 12-string with more snap, crackle, and pop than a bag full of flatpicks, this is the guitar for you.
Here we have what may be on of the most recognizable guitars ever built, the Gibson L-Century. Sporting a MOTS fingerboard and headstock, with full body sunburst, this little guitar is a stunner that stands out in a crowd. Built from Maple and Adirondack Spruce, there is tone here that belies it’s small size, you can play through an old blues song and the folks in back will hear you just fine. We think this is a perfect blues box with its woody growl and crisp tonal quality.
Chet Atkins came to Gibson with the idea for this guitar, he wanted a solid body guitar that would not feed back on stage but still had a great acoustic sound. What Gibson came back to Chet with was this, the CEC model. It is a solid body nylon strung guitar with acoustic chambers to assist with the acoustic sound. This guitar has a nice smooth sound when plugged in, equiped with a volume and tone control, and the often over looked volume control for each individual string located in the body cavity. This will make a great performing guitar that is sure to provide you with many decades more enjoyment.
Master Luthier Charles Fox has been in the forefront of modern Guitar technology for many years, he has some of the most unique designs and techniques in building that we have ever seen. We have come to expect great things from the Fox workshop, we weren’t disappointed when we first played this Sitka and Brazilian Rosewood Sierra Crossover. This crossover is a little more tame in design compared to the Ergo, but the tone is still all Fox, we think this may be one of the best crossovers ever. Charles has achieved a true classical like tone here, but in the package of a steel string guitar. If the standard two inch classical neck is to much for your fret hand, this is your guitar. Play Beautiful classical pieces or rock out a little bit, this Fox won’t care!
Froggy Bottom guitars build some of what we believe to be the best small bodied guitars around. They are lightly built and ready to respond to a light touch with a full and resonant tone. This is a Special Order C model built from Brazilian Rosewood and Adirondack Spruce. It truly is a Special Order guitar, the wood choices are as good as it gets. This is also the first Froggy Bottom guitar to feature Glenn Carson’s intricate pearl engraving on the fingerboard and headstock. These inlays really put this guitar in another league. We love the whyte laydie look of this Froggy and think it will make a valuable addition to your collection.
This Franklin twelve string built by Nick Kukich may just be the most exciting twelve string you will ever play. Modeled after the old Stella twelve strings, this Franklin is meant to be tuned down low to a D standard tuning which makes for a great string feel. We have always found a good twelve string to be rejuvenating to a weary six string player, this one will pick you right up and have you writing new songs in a heartbeat. The combination of Mahogany and Sitka Spruce make for a lively tone with plenty of sparkle on those octave and unison strings.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill 12-string, either: thanks to the metal tailpiece aned floating bridge, this guitar has a more dynamic, mellow voice than its fixed-bridge relatives, because the string tension is distributed more evenly across the top. The result is a 12-string that doesn’t have the bell-like sparkle of a Taylor 12, but instead has a more fully formed fundamental that is easy on the ears and the hands.
