What is next after Dreadnaught

Haugu · April 2022

Hi,

I purchased Martin D16-E Dreadnaught in 2020. Considered myself as intermediate player to learn all style of music.

Wonder what body size for second acoustic guitar collection. Would it OM or OOO be good guitar after Dreadnaught? Or parlour size.

I like GPC shape but it might be similar sound/tone as my Dreadnaught. I am not sure.

Appreciate if can hear some advices from you all. Thanks

brucegill · April 2022

Personally I’d go small, like a parlour, 0 or 00, maybe a 12 fret too…. Depends on what you like to play though I guess

Mellish · April 2022

What genre would you primarily use the new guitar for? Pop, rock, folk, country? It'll give us some idea what to suggest. Do you want something a little different or quite a bit different?

BigPaulie · April 2022

I'd get another dread in a different wood combination.
If you can comfortably play a dread, why go smaller?

Tannin · April 2022

Note first that adding a second guitar is vey, very expensive. You can safely own one guitar for many years, but once you add a second, there is no good reason not to add a third. And a fourth. And before you know where you are, you're living in a cave full of old guitars eating beans and picking the fleas out of your underwear.

Haugu · April 2022

brucegill said:

Personally I’d go small, like a parlour, 0 or 00, maybe a 12 fret too…. Depends on what you like to play though I guess

Thanks for the advice. I really gotto think what style I will focus in the next 1 or 2 years. most probably blues in my mind

Haugu · April 2022

BigPaulie said:

I'd get another dread in a different wood combination.
If you can comfortably play a dread, why go smaller?

Most probably blues. this is a good advice, I will need to research more on the body size then .

Haugu · April 2022

BigPaulie said:

I'd get another dread in a different wood combination.
If you can comfortably play a dread, why go smaller?

Interesting advice to go for other wood combination, I have never thought of this.

perhaps go for traditional dread with standard depth. my D-16E is same depth as OOO/OM

Haugu · April 2022

Tannin said:

Note first that adding a second guitar is vey, very expensive. You can safely own one guitar for many years, but once you add a second, there is no good reason not to add a third. And a fourth. And before you know where you are, you're living in a cave full of old guitars eating beans and picking the fleas out of your underwear.

haha... I thought there will always second, third, forth and next...

Yeah, my wife might stop talking to me for a week if I got the expensive second guitar. and second guitar need a lots of thought.

Kilgore · April 2022

Haugu said:

brucegill said:

Personally I’d go small, like a parlour, 0 or 00, maybe a 12 fret too…. Depends on what you like to play though I guess

Thanks for the advice. I really gotto think what style I will focus in the next 1 or 2 years. most probably blues in my mind

00 or 12 fret parlour would be my preferred options.

Mellish · April 2022

A Martin Streetmaster 000 15M would be a good choice for blues. It depends what your budget is, though

danishbacon · April 2022

Lowden S size

Tannin · April 2022

The classic, almost stereotyped, blues guitars are:

Martin 000-18. Spruce top, mahogany back, short scale, small body, amazing bass response, character to burn. There are many similar models, from Martin themselves (CEO-7 is a corker if you can stand the ugly black sunburst), and from a host of other makers (my single-luthier Mineur in spruce and tiger myrtle scratches my OM-18 itch pretty nicely).

Gibson L-series: small body guitars with a nasty, boxy characteristic bluesy sound. There are heaps of broadly similar alternatives, all have their fans. I rather think that the Guild M-40 is the pick of them.

But the reality is that you can play blues on anything. Seriously - any guitar makes a good blues guitar, and any good guitar makes a great blues guitar. I mostly play my bluesy stuff on one of my "blues guitars" (the Guild, the Mineur, or sometimes the Cole Clark Angel) but every now and then I happen to play blues-flavoured things on the theoretically unsuitable Messiah - a classic sweet-voiced spruce and rosewood guitar, rich and plummy-voiced a bit like a Taylor. And what happens? It sounds great. Sometimes I play blues-flavoured stuff on my gigantic Tacoma baritone. That works great too. If I had a ukulele that would sound ....well, it would sound like crap. There are limits. But in general, they all work.

boogieman · April 2022

Personally I’d try a few 000 sizes and see if it’s something you like. They’re a very different beast to a dreadnaught but don’t assume they lack volume or projection. You won’t get as much ooomph in the bass but the trade off is a more balanced guitar across the strings. I like mahogany for the back and sides, it really adds some great warmth.

GoFish · April 2022

The next big step after dreadnaughts are probably battlecruisers.

darthed1981 · April 2022

GoFish said:

The next big step after dreadnaughts are probably battlecruisers.

Damn beat me to it!!

ToneControl · April 2022

A Jumbo, lovely big sound but a little different to a dread, and better for fingerpicking

bertie · April 2022

Most people start with Dreads, simply cos they're much easier to come by - but they're not "the pinnacle" they're just another option - there is no "right guitar" just what you feel best with.

Personally Id go smaller, or at least give it a go - a good / well built "slightly" smaller guitar (OM) you wont notice much loss of tone, but will have different dynamics - you may find it more comfortable, you might not.

Drop down further to 00 / parlor and with shorter scales and 12 fret joins - they all provide different playing palettes

Ive got 3 (and had 5) different sizes of acoustics, and they all play/sound/respond differently and one isnt worse or better than the other. ( as does the wood they're made from)

You "have" to try different models to find the one that suits, much as trying LPs Strats Teles "pointy things" with electrics - and it can take years - but thats all the fun

TheMadMick · April 2022

If you're after a parlour, I've a lovely Auden Emily Rose up for grabs. I love the tone but I can't get on with the lack if fretboard real estate on a 12 fret. I simply love 14 fret cutaways. Also I need to raise cash for an Avalon due very soon, so I'm open to offers.

Cryptid · April 2022

A Dread One?

bertie · April 2022

Cryptid said:

A Dread One?

thread closed

Tannin · April 2022

If you can comfortably play a dread, why go smaller?

Because smaller guitars tend to have better, more balanced voicing. The dreadnought was introduced in the first place not for any tone quality reason but simply to be louder. (Back in the days before amplification, if you played in a band with trumpets and banjos you needed all the volume you could get!) Dreadnoughts, especially rosewood dreadnoughts, tend to be boomy. The traditional rounded guitar shape (as exemplified by classical guitars and reproduced in sizes large and small by everything from a parlour to a 000 to a jumbo) was made that way for a reason. So we are looking at the wrong question.

The right question is "If you don't need the volume of a dreadnought, why buy one at all?"

(Disclaimer: 2 of my 7 main guitars are in fact dreadnoughts. I bought them of my own free will because I liked them, and still do. One of my four best, most all-round playable guitars is a dreadnought - admittedly with a cedar top which makes it more balanced and less shouty than the average dred.)

Tannin · April 2022

Having said all that, you need to get out and play lots of guitars, @Haugu ; Don't bother playing spruce and rosewood dreadnoughts, you've already got one of them. You are probably not going to get anything hugely different in a spruce and rosewood dred, and a smaller spruce and rosewood guitar (a grand auditorium, say, or a 000) isn't going to be massively different. Here are some things you could explore:

* A parlour. I don't get the appeal myself, but there are plenty here who will be only to happy to tell why parlours are great.

* What's more dreadnought than a dreadnought? No, it isn't a battlecruiser - they were a hopelessly flawed idea from the very start - it's a jumbo. Jumbos are cool! Big and bold and sonically better balanced than a dreadnought. Not as boomy in the bass as a dreadnought and by golly gosh jeepers they can hammer out a tune and no mistake. And did I say big?

* Do you play fingerstyle at all? Or ever yearn for something a little more rounded and forgiving than a shouty spruce top? Something warmer and a little more compressed to give you a smoother, slightly darker sound? A guitar to caress rather than one to thrash? If you say "yes" then I see a cedar top in your future. Or redwood: any of the softer top woods will give you a richer, more mellow tone. Cedar is the most common of them and quite possibly the best.

* Or if you are happy with spruce, let's look at the back and sides timber. Rosewood is great but you don't need more than one rosewood guitar. You can go for something lighter and more percussive (mahogany, Sapele), or turbocharge that with a more piano-like sound (maple) or go full-on piano-tone goodness (Blackwood, Koa). Or maybe you are looking for a less coloured sound than any of those mentioned, a timber that simply does what you want to do and is a real all-rounder (walnut, Queensland Maple).

* Hardwood tops are another different world. In this context, "hardwood" can be taken to mean anything heavier and harder than spruce, most commonly mahogany, Blackwood, or Koa. Perhaps a Fretboarder who owns one will comment on their virtues. (You could stretch a point and consider my Huon Pine Angel a "hardwood top" but that's going a bit far in my view.)

* If you like blues, are you into slide? Resonators are really different. (And good for more than just slide.)

DavidR · April 2022

Yes parlour size for the sweeter tones. Worth exploring. Mainly saying that because I want one!

If you get a resonator, get a light one.

ToneControl · April 2022

as Tannin says, why go smaller?
I find it very rare that I find a small guitar that sounds as good as a jumbo. Many small guitars sound horribly boxy to me

I also agree on the woods: Cedar and redwood with rosewood or similar are the best combinations for me
I have an all-Koa jumbo too, that is a real contrast to other woods

Tannin · April 2022

^ Not me Your Worship! Must 'a been some other bloke wot done it.

GoFish · April 2022

As you seem open to varied ideas, I'd say a roadtrip is a sensible plan. By yourself or take a friend. Try everything! My instinct is to recommend something as far from a dread as possible. That means parlours, resonators, Jumbos, nylon(?), or a cheapo and a slide rather than something only subtly different. Don't discount crossover instruments like a guitar-lele or banjo git. You never know what will take your fancy.

bertie · April 2022

GoFish said:

As you seem open to varied ideas, I'd say a roadtrip is a sensible plan. By yourself or take a friend. Try everything! My instinct is to recommend something as far from a dread as possible. That means parlours, resonators, Jumbos, nylon(?), or a cheapo and a slide rather than something only subtly different. Don't discount crossover instruments like a guitar-lele or banjo git. You never know what will take your fancy.

I think the OP might be in Singapore - so that's one hell of a road trip

(tho TBH Im not sure what availability is like there)

Mellish · April 2022

If the OP is based in Singapore, he can pop along to City Music. They're a Martin dealer but no doubt have Gibson, Taylor and other big name brands to try

Tannin · April 2022

Singapore? Oh that's different. Singapore is the home of Maestro Guitars. Maestro are well-known internationally as a maker of quality, and I always reckon it's best to start with the home-grown product. https://www.maestroguitars.com/

(Disclaimer: I've never played one, but people I respect have said nice things about them.)

bertie · April 2022

Tannin said:

Singapore? Oh that's different. Singapore is the home of Maestro Guitars. Maestro are well-known internationally as a maker of quality, and I always reckon it's best to start with the home-grown product. https://www.maestroguitars.com/

(Disclaimer: I've never played one, but people I respect have said nice things about them.)

I see they offer "Brazilian Rosewood" isnt that now banned ?

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