Maple dreadnoughts

BigPaulie · January 2022

I know about the Jumbos, and the Dove/Frontier dreads, but what else is out there (off the shelf)?

Why are solid maple b&s dreads so rare? Seems like a much more sustainable wood choice than RW or hog, and we know it sounds awesome, so are manufacturers missing a trick?

ICBM · January 2022

BigPaulie said:

I know about the Jumbos, and the Dove/Frontier dreads, but what else is out there (off the shelf)?

Why are solid maple b&s dreads so rare? Seems like a much more sustainable wood choice than RW or hog, and we know it sounds awesome, so are manufacturers missing a trick?

Yes.

Overly conservative buyers are the problem though, really - it's not just maple which should be much more common as a body wood.

stickyfiddle · January 2022

My Dove was a spectacular sounding thing. I don't know why more makers don't build them. I guess "because people want Martin style dreads" except people don't have much choice, so that's inevitable.

BigPaulie · January 2022

You'd think with maple's long established track record on Doves, old Epiphones, J200s, Levin Goliaths, etc. the guitar buying public would be ready to accept it as a mainstream choice by now.

We really are a backwards bunch, aren't we?

bertie · January 2022

wasnt Maple always was punted as a "neutral" tone wood great for recording ?? - I had Taylor 612 and a 614 and nice to play were very......... blanced but TBH ."non descript" now that Ive played other combinations of tonewoods (mahogany/rosewood/gum etc) much wamer/fuller sounding, and more "organic" - maybe maple is a V30 and others are G12Ms and Hs

ICBM · January 2022

bertie said:

wasnt Maple always was punted as a "neutral" tone wood great for recording ?? - I had Taylor 612 and a 614 and nice to play were very......... blanced but TBH ."non descript"

That's Taylors, not maple

.

My Dove is anything but neutral or nondescript - it's hugely powerful but detailed, fantastic for strumming but almost equally good for fingerpicking.

I did once have a Taylor too - nice guitar, extremely easy to play, but the very definition of an acoustic guitar with no specific character.

BillDL · January 2022

The Yamaha FG840 has maple back and sides.

BigPaulie · January 2022

Laminated, unfortunately

Tannin · January 2022

Maple makes a wonderful back and sides timber; it has that magic snap and bark, and it looks great. Credit to Taylor for using it; discredit for using stain to disguise a timber beautiful in its own right.

I'd never thought about the maple dreadnought thing BigPaulie, but you are right: most of the well-known maple instruments are jumbos. I'm very fond of my Tacoma Thumderhawk, which is a maple jumbo.

earwighoney · January 2022

Guitar players and builders are so set in traditional means even when there are cheaper options which exceed other alternatives, for example Maple, which should be cheaper than Mahogany but doesn't seem to be that way.

For acoustic guitars, as Martin in their golden era (which then went on to be a more significant influence than others) only seemed to use Mahogany and Rosewood. Which isn't to say Maple wasn't used in the golden era, there are some wonderful maple Larson Bros guitars from the 30's, Gibson J200 and Guild used it for a number of guitars, I still lament not buying a maple Guild in Tin Pan Alley about 10 years ago it wasn't that expensive but it sounded remarkable.

It also really works really well for classical and flamenco guitars.

Epsilon · January 2022

Guild put out quite a few maple dreads over the years, though not so much recently. They 'd do an arched maple back rather than solid or laminated in the traditional sense, which I think improves the projection. It's a big part of why the F-412 12 string sounds so huge.

The G37s were nice and you can pick them up for very reasonable prices.

Tannin · January 2022

The F-412 is no more. But there is the F-512 Maple, which so far as I know, is exactly the same thing. I've said this before (and will doubtless say it again): the F-512 Maple is the best 12-string I have ever played by quite a margin, and one of the best few guitars of any kind it has been my pleasure to meet. At around 8 grand it was too much to spend on an occasional-use instrument (I'm not really a 12-string player at all these days and I've even taken six strings off my Cole Clark 12) but I still think about it wistfully from time to time.

Epsilon · January 2022

Tannin said:

The F-412 is no more. But there is the F-512 Maple, which so far as I know, is exactly the same thing. I've said this before (and will doubtless say it again): the F-512 Maple is the best 12-string I have ever played by quite a margin, and one of the best few guitars of any kind it has been my pleasure to meet. At around 8 grand it was too much to spend on an occasional-use instrument (I'm not really a 12-string player at all these days and I've even taken six strings off my Cole Clark 12) but I still think about it wistfully from time to time.

Yep, a weird model change move but there you go. I suspect the logic was that the F-412 and F-512 were traditionally the joint top of the line 12 string for Guild, and they didn't want people to think the F-412 was lesser than the F-512 due to the lower numbering.

I had a chance to try one of the new F-512 maples and I agree that it was exceptional, which as a long-time Guild fan I was really pleased to see. I have 1973 F-412, but fantastic as it is the modern one sounded just as good and played better. The New Hartford versions were, I think, the best of the lot. I passed on the chance to purchase a brand new F-512 for £1500 just after Fender sold Guild in 2014. Still kick myself for not going for it.

bertie · January 2022

ICBM said:
I did once have a Taylor too - nice guitar, extremely easy to play, but the very definition of an acoustic guitar with no specific character.

"word" (I believe is the phrase of choice

)

DavidR · January 2022

I know it's a jumbo but for good looks alone Eastman AC630-BD must deserve a few points! Gorgeous. Never played one though. Some express concerns about wood sourcing.

BigPaulie · January 2022

It certainly is visually striking!

Stuckfast · January 2022

Washburn make a few maple guitars but I can't see a dread among them. I remember trying one of their maple jumbos years ago and it was a nice guitar but super bright.

BigPaulie · January 2022

I imagine they're all laminated maple though...

thermionic · January 2022

Taylor have just announced an all-maple model.

meltedbuzzbox · January 2022

BigPaulie said:

I imagine they're all laminated maple though...

I dont get why people get pissy about laminate.
If it sounds good it sounds good...

if its for the purpose of bringing a guitar in at a certain price then you have to consider that too.

DavidR · January 2022

thermionic said:

Taylor have just announced an all-maple model.

Do you know name thermionic?

thermionic · January 2022

https://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/acoustic/ad27e-flametop

Epsilon · January 2022

Not sure about maple as a top wood at all. To get anywhere near the stiffness of spruce it is going to have to be a pretty heavy piece of wood, which I can imagine resulting in a somewhat dead sounding guitar. Looks pretty though, if you're into that.

thermionic · January 2022

A few demos have appeared on YouTube, it sounds pretty good imo.

BigPaulie · January 2022

meltedbuzzbox said:

BigPaulie said:

I imagine they're all laminated maple though...

I dont get why people get pissy about laminate.
If it sounds good it sounds good...

if its for the purpose of bringing a guitar in at a certain price then you have to consider that too.

Pissy?

Surely it's just a matter of how an individual decides to spend their own money and make their own choices?

The opening post clearly states that the subject of discussion here is "solid maple b&s dreads". There's a whole forum to discuss anything else.

Mellish · January 2022

Bottom line: your money your freedom of choice between laminate or solid

Tannin · January 2022

Epsilon said:

I had a chance to try one of the new F-512 maples and I agree that it was exceptional, which as a long-time Guild fan I was really pleased to see. I have 1973 F-412, but fantastic as it is the modern one sounded just as good and played better. The New Hartford versions were, I think, the best of the lot. I passed on the chance to purchase a brand new F-512 for £1500 just after Fender sold Guild in 2014. Still kick myself for not going for it.

Yep. You certainly pay top dollar for them now - but worth every penny I reckon. I was able to play an F-512 (rosewood) and an F-512 Maple side-by-side. The rosewood one was excellent and I couldn't fault it, but the maple was in a completely different league. I noted that they sold the maple one just a couple of weeks later (not many people in a little town like Hobart buy $8000 guitars of any kind, let alone 12-strings!) but they had the rosewood one for some months before it went.

thermionic said: https://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/acoustic/ad27e-flametop

What a visual horrorshow! They start with a perfectly good, beautiful looking timber like Rock Maple and then cover the thing in ugly stain. That is just so stupid. I like a lot of things that Taylor does, but their idiotic habit of coating beautiful natural timbers in stain colours most people wouldn't use on a bloody floorboard, never mind an instrument, undoes a lot of their good work. I've even seen Taylor dye Blackwood - a timber people go out of their way to find and pay top dollar for because it is so good looking.

Epsilon said:

Not sure about maple as a top wood at all. To get anywhere near the stiffness of spruce it is going to have to be a pretty heavy piece of wood, which I can imagine resulting in a somewhat dead sounding guitar.

Taylor aside, Rock Maple is occasionally used as a topwood. I see no reason why it should not be. It has about the same strength as Honduran Mahogany and slightly less weight, slightly more strength and less weight than Huon Pine, less weight but quite a lot less strength than Blackwood, and slightly less of both strength and weight than Koa or Khaya ("African mahogany"). All of these are known and respected topwoods.

Looks pretty though, if you're into that.

Not if you let the idiots at Taylor near it!

drofluf · January 2022

Epsilon said:

Not sure about maple as a top wood at all. To get anywhere near the stiffness of spruce it is going to have to be a pretty heavy piece of wood, which I can imagine resulting in a somewhat dead sounding guitar. Looks pretty though, if you're into that.

Was about to post that it was widely used in mandolins as a top wood until I found that it wasn’t

. What I did find was:

” Maple is occasionally used for soundboards, but more often for backs and sides, due to its flatness of sound and for its relative shortness of decay—an attribute that happens to make the wood more resistant to feedback in amplified situations than rosewood or mahogany. Not all builders find maple to be a suitable top material, though. “I wouldn’t typically recommend maple as soundboard tonewood,” says Andy Powers, Taylor Guitars’ master luthier. “One of its singular characteristics is that it’s almost perfectly transparent—it doesn’t sound like anything, which isn’t usually how you want a top to respond.”

https://www.tfoa.eu/nl/blogs/blog/tonewoods-explained/

mikew · January 2022

I tried a Mayson MS7/S a while back (not Maton!). Not many in the UK - Jimmy Egypt in Glasgow had one in and I bought. Sound was a cracker but the build quaility was poor so I sent back. In reality I've not heard anything else approaching that sound from maple and should have kept it.

Pigknows · January 2022

The Guild D30 is a great guitar. Muscular, punchy, percussive, authoritative, clear and pure. The acoustic equivalent of playing an early Tele through a Twin Reverb. Weirdly, I once tried a G37 which is basically the same guitar, but it didn't sound as good as the D30. Would love to own an F50 but I wonder whether - for its considerable extra bulk - a Jumbo would be that much better (if at all) than a dread.

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