Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- 231.8K All Categories
- 22 >> Start Here <<
- 12 New Members
- 8 FAQs
- 83.3K Gear
- 37.9K Guitar
- 3.2K Acoustics
- 1.3K Bass
- 14.1K Amps
- 16.7K FX
- 157 Digital & Modelling
- 730 Other Instruments
- 7.9K Making & Modding
- 406 Gear Reviews
- 100 Guitar Reviews
- 72 Amp Reviews
- 119 FX Reviews
- 84 Other Reviews
- 734 Made in the UK
- 932 Theory
- 1.8K Technique
- 2K Live
- 3K Studio & Recording
- 2.1K Making Music
- 202 Events
- 15 Guitar Show 2018
- 762 Plug My Stuff
- 100.6K Classifieds
- 39.2K Guitars £
- 2.6K Acoustics £
- 132 LH Guitars £
- 836 Basses £
- 10K Parts £
- 17.6K Amps £
- 32.8K FX £
- 2.6K Studio & Rec £
- 5.8K Misc £
- 443 Personnel
- 52.7K Chat
- 35.3K Off Topic
- 987 Tributes
- 6.3K Music
In this Discussion
Become a Subscriber!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
Recommendations for medium-bodied acoustic please (up to £500)
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
She may not like it and that's totally fine, but don't rule anything out yet
FWIW I think the Taylor GS Mini isn't going to work - too small and short scale really. She seems to prefer an OM/Orchestra size body. The Yamahas we tried were all very bright and almost harsh sounding to my ears. Some of the cheaper Fenders were pretty good, certainly for their price. Most of the others were nice but nothing remarkable for or against. But of all the guitars we tried, the one we both liked the best was a Faith Naked Venus - really nice full sound (both unplugged and amplified) without being boomy, and clear when picked without being too bright. There was just something about it that we both just liked a bit more than the others.
So I think the Faith is our new yardstick to judge anything else we try against. If nothing else we like better comes up I'd be more than happy to buy one of those, but for now we're in no rush so will keep looking. Interesting and useful afternoon though.
Be aware, though, that if your daughter decides on a Faith Naked Venus, it won't sound exactly like the one you both liked. That's just not possible.
Maybe try a few s/h next time as well, to get higher up the ladder without spending more
We didn't try any second-hand guitars today because the places we were in didn't have much used (Life Guitars is the obvious second-hand dealer in Exeter but they seemed to have nothing but dreads and classical today in that price range). Might have to make a trip further afield to find some more. All good fun though.
That's a good point about the s/h thing, too- they don't even need to be s/h. It can be a dangerous game as it can start you wanting stuff you can't afford, but being aware of how much better the dearer stuff is (if at all!) is kind of useful to know. Apart from anything else, it will inform your decisions about the cheaper stuff, it'll make it easier to evaluate the cheaper stuff.
I don't know what they're like now but 3-4 years ago when my sister was buying her acoustic, once she had pretty much decided that Faiths were what she liked best, we did go round several shops and try a whole bunch of them. I wouldn't say they were as variable as something like a Gibson, they were pretty much all decent, but some were noticeably nicer than others. Now- I'm in Northern Ireland, which isn't exactly a massive market, so some of those less good examples may have just been sitting in the shop for years (that's what it felt like! Plus the one she decided on was actually one from a few years previously but it just seemed to be excellent regardless) plus a lot of it comes down to setup with acoustics I think. But if you're not able to do the setup yourself or take it to a luthier (which ups the cost) then it's worth bearing in mind.
I do think (based on what I've tried- as I said, I'm much more an electric player so (a) don't have that much experience with acoustics and (b) being an electric player is almost certainly influencing what I like in terms of playability, tone etc.!) if the Dowina is just too much of a risk to buy without trying/just too much over budget then Faith would be very high up my list too (especially since she knows she likes them!). But there are definitely some things I haven't tried at that price point that I would like to try as well, just to be sure. The all-solid Guilds, Corts etc..
EDIT: Just in case you're not aware (you probably are) there are a few different wood choices with the Naked Venuses- you've got the Engelmann Spruce/Indonesian mahogany (and also a black stain version of that one), also the Cedar/Indonesian mahogany, and then an all-Indonesian mahogany version. The spruce is probably the cheapest, but (at least if you shop around) they should presumably be all close enough in price that she should get the one she likes best... if she can get to try them all, of course!
(I keep saying "Indonesian mahogany", because that's what it's specced as. They don't specify "Indonesian" on the more expensive Faiths, which makes me wonder exactly what that "Indonesian Mahogany" actually is... To be honest I kind of suspect it's not "proper" (i.e. Honduran) mahogany even on the dearer ones. They specify "African" (which isn't "genuine" [Honduran] mahogany, but which is probably the closest thing to "genuine" Mahogany available- it's Khaya, an African wood pretty similar to, but not quite, mahogany) on the dearer Legacy models, which makes me think it's not even African Mahogany. What might it be? Sapele? Oukumé? Something else? Your guess is as good as mine (plus it might not even matter anyway). I guess if you really cared you could email Faith...)
Next trip will hopefully be somewhere with more second hand stock now we've got more idea what she likes. I think pretty much every guitar we tried today suited her playing style better than my mahogany parlour or 12-string dread though.
There will alwaysays be a difference in tone, despite the fact that it's two identical Martins or whatever because, for one thing, you can't get identical woods
(a) No, no two guitars are the same (certainly not acoustic ones)
(b) The variation between "identical" guitars is not constant from make to make and model to model. Some makers seem to have the ability to turn out very similar guitars pretty much every time (Taylor, Maton, probably Yamaha, though I haven't played enough Yammies to be so confident about that one) while other makers have a much wider within-model variation (Martin, Cole Clark, probably Gibson though I'm no Gibson expert).
It would be easy to ascribe this to superior quality control, and that's no doubt a part of it, but I think there is more to it than that. Look at Martin as an example: different examples of a given model can vary a lot, but although you might prefer Example A to Example B, neither one is by any means a dud, and I might prefer the other one. Some makes just vary more than other makes do.
The point here is that there are some guitars I reckon it is safe to buy online (e.g., I've played and liked Taylor 314s and, at a pinch would buy one sight unseen, confident that it would be very like the other 314s I've played) and some I wouldn't (one of these days I'll probably buy a Martin HD-28, but I wouldn't dream of just ordering one, they vary so much. None of them are "bad" guitars, but only one in 5 or 10 has the magic dust in it.
But in the end, playing a few and deciding which one you like the most is half the fun. And doing it together with your daughter is double the fun.
But all of that notwithstanding, if you find a good Gibson (and they *are* out there) you've got a great guitar. I know cos I've got one
I mostly found that the Gibsons had better playability. And now, with Martins Re-imagined series, I've given up on 'em - too much wood in the neck for me.
I think I've found my "dream" guitar anyway so no longer searching
I spend a bit of time on the USA acoustic forums, and there are quite a few reports of Martins have a lot of issues with binding, and a few new ones requiring neck resets.
I haven't really tried enough Martins to know (plus I haven't tried any recently if @earwighoney is correct!). I wasn't super-fussed on the Martins I tried- whether I tried bad ones, or whether I just don't like them, I dunno. Of course... I could try one now and love them.
EDIT: I should probably add I haven't tried any Gibsons recently, either. Maybe slightly more recently than Martin I think. But still about 4-ish years I think.
Yes. ..... But when?
Also, a few threads crop up about new Martins needing neck resets. There are far more threads about poor QC for Martins than other brands from what I have seen.
The difficulty is trying a lot of used guitars in one place at once. But guitar guitar seem to have quite a good selection of newish used exaamples- don't forget to haggle!
I'd certainly be happy to buy used if an example of what we're after happened to come up for sale, but I think trying lots of them out in one place is unlikely to happen unfortunately - although Bristol may be worth a trip if there's a place there that has a good amount of used stock.
I think at the sort of price we're considering, the advantage of being able to try the actual guitar we end up buying (i.e. buying from a more local shop, which probably means new) may turn out to outweigh the savings made by buying used (which will more than likely involve a long road trip). With a £4000 guitar where you're potentially saving £1500 it makes more sense.
But I won't rule anything out yet.
Yeah I agree. Some people act like you should always go used and that going new is silly (never mind that some of the stuff I've got new for better-than-second-hand prices!). But sometimes it just doesn't really make sense. I'm not sure either that blowing a sizeable amount of the budget on petrol and then having to go used to recoup that money makes a whole load of sense...
I thought that was a myth? Even if it's not, a bigger percentage of a much smaller figure is still usually quite a bit less than a smaller percentage of a bigger one...
"BMWs have lower fuel consumption and hold their value so much better" is the claim. (As compared to, e.g., a Ford or a VW or a Toyota.)
The fuel consumption advantage, if any, is usually swamped by the high cost of servicing and the outrageous price of parts.
As for "holding value" better, the $95,000 BMW can be re-sold for $75,000. Wow! Only 20% depreciation! Isn't that great! Compare with the $35,00 Toyota which you can only get $25,000 for - a massive 30% haircut!
Ahem .... when you do the sums, the BMW owner actually lost twice as much money to drive the same distance.
Unless you are Mr Clueless, you don't buy a BMW to save money, you but one because you want one and you can afford to waste a few tens of thousands. Good luck if that's you.
In BMW-speak this is known as an 'upgrade'.....although absolutely nothing is upgraded or changed, not even the satnav. The rest of us call it Switching The iDrive Back On. Unsurprisingly this is something "only a dealer can do". It's punishment for not having a dealer service the car to begin with and £200 of guitar money down the Swanny.
Sorry. Just ever so slightly off-thread - and a little bit bitter tbh. :-)
Hope hunt for guitar going well and that you are both having fun looking. Don't buy a BMW.
And thanks, I'm sure whatever we end up buying she'll end up with a nice guitar that will fulfil her needs for a good few years. One downside is that most of these guitars we've been trying have been considerably nicer than mine - I don't generally suffer with GAS, but this isn't helping