Taylor GS Mini-e Modifications

pvdmac · September 2020

I have been given a GS Mini-e Koa as a birthday present....absolutely loving it.....but like most folk...we all like to mod our guitars “now and again”....has anyone moded their GS Mini...and what mods do you recommend.

Winny_Pooh · September 2020

I cut a new bone saddle just to get better intonation but it made the tone perhaps too pristine. Not much else you can do with them.

Jez6345789 · September 2020

I love my little Koa
After many months of agonising as I loved the tone, I did lower the bridge saddle to get a better action despite risking tone but I can't cope with the Taylor recommended action. That and a little fretwork and it plays super and still sounds great.

As for modding, they are such a great little guitar as is, I might put some better tuners on only as the supplied ones seem to be a much lower ration than most other guitars I have. They hold tune ,frankly the whole thing holds tune really well considering that now I have a temp humidity meter here the humidity through the day swings from 70/80% to 40% later afternoon back to 70% and the temp swings this summer have been from 22 at 7 am to 38 by 2 pm they drop at 5 pm then as the land cools the warm air comes off the sea about 8 o'clock it is a weird micro-climate for sure. One of the benefits of laminate construction I can pick it up any time of day and it will only ever be a few cents out but always evenly out across the strings if that makes sense the Little Sister Crossroads my other guitar here copes less well.

One of the things I love about it is how great it sounds recorded I use the built-in and a mike a few compressor and plugins touch of verb it sounds like a million dollars in the mix.

I tried it with a friends spruce one and the Koa has a different tonality that works well.

As you can tell I am a bit obsessed with the thing LOL

thermionic · September 2020

Mine came with a somewhat high action, despite playing well. I had a spare Tusq saddle from a few years ago so I used that to lower the action by a mm or so. Interestingly, the cheaper Nubone had a much nicer shape to it (both are from GraphTech, but I’ve had the Tusq saddle in my spares box for several years). I also got a set of Taylor ebony pins to replace the plastic pins. I can’t say it’s made much of a difference sonically.

The first thing I thought I’d do was change the strings - I switched from Elixirs to D’Addario EXPs on my Taylor 310 and thought they were such a great improvement I’ve never gone back. However, I quite like the sound of Elixirs on my GS Mini. When they get scruffy I’ll experiment with EXPs or Martin Lifespan.

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Taylor GS Mini-e Modifications

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