I have a 1991 Seagull S6 Cedar. While not an expensive guitar, I had a luthier add a bone nut and saddle with rosewood bridge pins while getting the frets leveled. It really sounds and plays great. I just tracked with it. The EB Earthwoods strings seem to sound best.

They're hard to find, but BC Rich made incredible acoustics. That was their stock in trade prior to outlandish electrics.

Krev wrote: Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:47 am Seagull

I had a Seagull from the 80's as my first acoustic. I loved it but played it to splinters. They are owned by Godin and they make some pretty fun to play but extremely ugly classical guitars.

Garth wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 10:15 am

Kniferide wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:09 am does anyone know of a company that makes a nylon (classical) style guitar that doesn't have a ridiculous extra flat and wide neck? I like playing nylon strings but it just isn't fun to play a 2x4. I tried ball end nylon strings on a regular acoustic but it sounded like shit and never really felt like it was in tune.

Seems like something Elisha could work up for you

I designed and built a guitar like this for FM wellbutrin last year and was super happy with how it came out. I liked it so much that if I ever have the time to build myself another guitar, it'll be one like this. I brought it home for a couple days after I finished it before I shipped it out and it was maybe the best couch guitar I've ever played. It was a pin bridge with ball end nylon strings but was specifically braced for them so it actually sounded good!


As for acoustic guitars in general. I've played, repaired and built a bunch and have some opinions and I'm just going to spout them off below in no order.

Pretty much every vintage guitar will need a neck reset if it hasn't had one yet. When looking at used and vintage guitars, check the neck angle and saddle height. Also see if the bridge has been shaved down.

Vintage guitars can sound amazing. I own a few and love them. That said, plenty of them can sound like shit. I see some vintage Gibson and Martin guitars going for tons of money and I know they sound bad at best. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's good.

If you want a Martin, get one from before 1965 or from the last 20 years. The D16R is a current production guitar kind of designed as a "real" Martin at a lower price point and I think they sound great. They have a kind of interesting A bracing scheme and I've wanted to make a drawing of it just to have around. I've had two come through the shop in the last couple months and have been impressed by both. A close friend has been touring with one for a decade and it always sounds great as well. Martin also makes custom runs for places like Musicians Friend and Guitar Center. They are often just marked as "Custom" on the neck block. They are typically a stripped down version of a regular model. Simpler binding, cheaper wood and tuners etc... and they can be a good deal on a good sounding guitar.

70's and 80's Guilds can be a great deal on an acoustic. While Martin and Gibson were making some of the worst guitars in their history, Guild was just sort of chugging along making good guitars. They're a pain to do a neck set on though so be extra careful when buying one that it doesn't need to have it done.

Don't buy a Gibson made from the mid 60's-80's. I'm rarely impressed with current ones either but they can be nice if you find the right one and I think their QC has improved a bunch in the last 3 years.

Taylor guitars never really sound good to me on their own but I think they record well with a band and I like how they're built.

I love some vintage Harmony/Silvertone and Regal guitars from the 20's-60's. They typically sound and play pretty poorly but with a bunch of work, they can be killer. They used good wood and they're not valuable on their own so modding them is not a problem. I love rebuilding them and making them into good guitars. I play a 50's Harmony H-165 more than any guitar that I own. It's the guitar I leave out in the living room and it's great. I have a pile of broken ones in my shop and wish I had more time to fix them up or that there was a bigger demand for them. I would be completely happy if I could just work on them all day long.

Don't get sucked into caring what type of wood the guitar is made from. Sure, Mahogany sounds different than Roeswood which sounds different than Maple but it's not like a night and day thing and they way the guitar is designed and built makes much more of a difference soundwise than what the back and sides are made of. If you read an acoustic guitar forum or group, it's basically all questions about which types of wood are the best and people spouting off about how they only like Brazilian Rosewood or European Spruce or whatever the current flavor of the month is but the truth is that the quality of the actual pieces of wood far outweighs the species. A bad builder can have the most expensive wood in the world and still make a shitty sounding guitar and you could give a good builder an hour at Home Depot to pick out wood and they'd make you a good guitar.

When people ask me what a good off the shelf cheap guitar is, I usually recommend Yamaha. Not the cheapest ones they make but if you go up a couple notches, they can be quite nice and are affordable. Some Alvarez guitars can be cheap and good as well although they always seem to have issues down the road.

When people ask what a really great off the shelf guitar is, I recommend Collings. Excellent build quality and sound. Not cheap but if you're looking to spend money on a factory built guitar, they're awesome.

More later.

-E

^ Super helpful. Thanks!

Throwing in some notes from decades of recording acoustic guitars of all kinds. The best guitars I've ever heard live and on tape are not necessarily the most known makes. As noted in Elisha's detailed post above, there are some sleepers you can find if you spend a little time auditioning them.

Gibson: 1960s and earlier are generally all pretty good, the best are real beauties but they're so expensive and collectable you can just about forget about ever getting hold of a good one. Their production models from the 80s on are stiff and dry sounding, not much to distinguish them from any other factory guitars.

Collings: First heard one of these in Robbie Fulks's hands, and it sounded great. Big, resonant sound with a great attack. He's mentioned that he has two and isn't that hot on the other one, but I've run into a couple others since and they've all been pretty nice. From Robbie's anecdote you might want to audition the exact one you intend to buy but my impression of them is pretty good so far.

Taylor: Never fail decent sound, though rarely exceptional. All eras, all models sound decent, play reasonably well and for utility work are the obvious choice. You can stick your hand out in a guitar shop and grab the nearest Taylor and it will probably be fine. Some of them are hampered by "stage" compromises -- cutaways, reinforcements and electronics that inevitably spoil the integrity of the build by stiffening the top or adding holes, hardware and weight to the body. I suppose the electronics are a necessity for stage use, the rest is a sort of bulletproofing that compromises the sound some.

Martin: I generally prefer the smaller body Martins, 0018 and the like. We have one here from the 60s and it's pretty sounding and easy to play. Their bigger guitars can vary dramatically and I'll go as far as saying I haven't particularly liked any of them that weren't museum pieces.

Guild: If I had to pick a bigger guitar, dreadnought say, and only had the name to go by, I'd say get a Guild. I've only heard a few bigger guitars that blew my mind and they've all been Guilds. There's the occasional 50s Gibson that isn't worth two houses that can sound great, but nothing off a line has impressed me as much as the few super sweet guilds I've heard.

Harmony: Echoing Elisha, the best of these sound sweet as fuck. Very even sound, not boomy but lively and ringing. Not particularly deep or dramatic, but great articulation and no dead spots. Jimmy Page's number one acoustic was a Harmony, and I've since recorded a few more that sounded great. There are a bunch of junk ones I guess, but the ones that have survived this long as players are generally pretty fucking nice.

Adamas, Applause, Ovation, pretty much any resin/carbon fiber/engineered material guitar: Trash garbage. Suitable only for gimmick playing where you need to whack it with a drumstick or whatever. Just awful. Brittle, stringy, thin sound with absolutely no bloom or sustain. Into the chipper. I guess they're waterproof.

A bunch of production guitars are reasonably well made (Fender, Yamaha, Takamine, Alvarez-Yairi, Seagull, Godin etc) and every now and again one will be a little sweeter than the rest, but honestly I've heard like two good Alvarez-Yairis, one good Takamine and the rest of them lifetime have been pretty clunky. Fine for busking or whatever but if you don't have a particular attachment to a bad guitar (Willie Nelson's Trigger for example) for a recording that features an acoustic guitar it's worth it to find a nice one.

Lastly, and I'm not just saying this because he's a good guy, but we've had one of Elisha's small-body acoustics in the studio for a couple years now and it regularly wins the "I'll try them all and pick one" shootouts. It stands to reason that a guy making a couple of guitars a year will be able to make each one with more attention and care than a shop that makes hundreds, but this little beauty is a fucking gem. Barking loud projection but without the honking nasal quality some smaller guitars have. Really pretty sound that still manages to project well. Big fan of the Weisner guitar company here.

FWIW, I just bought one of Elisha's guitars and it's phenomenal! It arrived yesterday and I've been playing it most of today.

If I needed a new acoustic, I'd ask Elisha to make me one. The little one at Electrical is terrific.

Other than one of Elisha's, I'd probably never buy a new acoustic. Too easy to find barely used ones or old ones that are good and less money.

My experiences mirror much of what has already been said, but it wouldn't be the internet w/o pointless redundancy.

My first acoustic was the cheapest Yamaha. It's pretty good. i still have it. Yamaha is the best bargain in acoustic guitars.

70s Guild F50, great guitar, doesn't have that bloated sound some big guys have. Andy Cohen and I were in the market for a small-body acoustic but couldn't turn it down when we found it. What Elisha said re neck set--it'll need one at some point, and they're a little tricky and not cheap to do

Old Martins can be amazing. It's tough to say how they are now b/c so many diff price points. Some are genuinely not good. Gotta play it and see. I have a Martin baritone 12-string that I'll never get rid of.

I'm not an expert, but Goodalls are my favorite nosebleed-level guitars. I have a baritone and love it.

The other acoustics I have are a little Spanish guitar that Geoff Benge fixed up that is neat and a little '30s Sovereign that a place in Seattle had underpriced. It's really really great, incredibly thin and resonant top. The plain old Sovereigns predate the Harmony Sovereigns--those are different, drier, boxier sounding guitars IIRC.

Setup really matters, more than an electric even. I brought the Guild into Geoff once for some basic intonation thing (I thought) and he said "I can tell you without looking at it that it needs a neck reset." And it did. And it played perfectly and sounded great when he was done.

It sounds like I need to send a formal inquiry to the Wiesner Guitar company. I suspect the hours required for such a refined build would demand a fair price higher than what I'm looking at, but I've never built an acoustic guitar before.

I finally made it to the local mom and pop acoustic guitar shop in town and it was instructive. Other than a vague sense from the guy behind the counter that my stated $1k - $2k was just barely a serious instrument, he was nice and helpful. Unfortunately, they didn't have a Martin D16 (or any other Martin models under $2k) and said the supply chain issues have hit guitar manufacturers, so they wouldn't see one for months.

What they did have me try was an Eastman and it was very nice. Dreadnought, but not massive and boomy, but also not super sparkly like some of the Taylors. Definitely made my list of possibilities. I hadn't been thinking Made In China, but if it's good, it's good.

Then I happened to be deep in suburbia near the dreaded Guitar Center so I thought I'd at least pick up a Martin in my price range. They had a grab bag of student and fancy guitars all on one wall. The lone customer service representative was getting a ton of questions about some cheap guitars, when I discovered they had a Martin D16 but it was locked on the wall hanger. The customer service dude split out of the acoustic room and I paced around for a minute. Then walked out to find him in an animated conversation with another employee. I wandered around in front of them and then just got an urge to flee the place.

Usually when I find myself at Banjo Mart I want nothing more than to be left alone, and I don't think they did anything especially horrid- I could have asked for help. But something about that place really made me want to not give them any money, whereas the local shop felt more welcoming, if not a little pretentious.

hah.. this thread piqued my curiosity too so I went to a fancy guitar shop in the neighborhood to try some stuff. There was a Collings OO sized guitar behind the counter I got to play for a bit: a beautifully made guitar indeed but was it 5k nice to me? Not really. Made the 2 Martins I tried seem reasonable by comparison (closer to 3k) but even then I wasn't blown away. I dunno.. maybe I just don't have the 'golden ear' for this stuff but none of it made more of an impression than non-crazy-expensive-Martins/Eastmans/Larrivees I've played that didn't cost as much as a decent used car. Or maybe most new acoustic guitars are just kinda boring..