December 22, 2024

Category: Review

Review

K Wingert Guitar Review – Model F Custom

one manby one man0

The first thing that comes to mind when seeing this K Wingert guitar is, “That’s a big guitar!” The first thing that comes to mind when I hear this K Wingert guitar is, “That’s a big guitar!”

But as big and bold as it sounds, its voice remains refined and lovely from the first note to the fading final moments of the resonant sustain.

The second thing that comes to mind is how this K Wingert guitar stands apart from instruments I am used to seeing and playing, and how its uniqueness makes it a good example for anyone contemplating a custom order from an independent, small-shop luthier.

“With quality tonewoods matched by the artistry used to create it, this custom Wingert Model F has a full-bodied voice rich and satisfying as steaming hot cocoa made with half and half, while allowing for clear notes that come right through all that indulgent rosewood/alpine spruce tone.”

Read the Full K Wingert Guitar Review

K Wingert guitar Model F Custom - guitar review at onemanz.com

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Randall Kramer Guitars Debuts at Woodstock Invitational – exclusive preview

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Randall Kramer guitars debuts this weekend, at the Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase – our exclusive up close and personal preview

Sparky Kramer was visiting one of his customers in New York City last night, on his way to the big guitar show. So, I stopped by for a chat with the California wood charmer, and a look at these new and delightful musical instruments, made with gorgeous woods and super smart design features.

“The guitar sounded huge for such a small size. It invited one to play with the absolutely lightest touch they could, and be rewarded with such lovely tone and marvelous projection. But it had no issue with being attacked, and effortlessly turned into a blues machine.”

Read the Full Article on Randall Kramer Guitars

Guitar interior by Randall Kramer from sound port

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Martin D-45S Authentic 1936 Review

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Visit the Mountaintop of Acoustic Guitars in Our D-45S Authentic 1936 Review

An instrument as impressive as its hefty price tag

… a sound bigger than Texas and just about as audacious. I have played examples of them all, from the D-100 to the Celtic Knot, to the Stephen Stills. There just hasn’t been a modern-day pearly Martin with a sound this enormous. The D-45S Authentic 1936 provides a sumptuous feast when playing even the basic cowboy chords. Add in some harmonic drone strings, or Jazz chords, and you also get to have Christmas pudding while sitting before the tree in all its trimmings.

Not many readers will ever get to see one of these, let alone actually afford to buy one. But we present this review for educational purposes, and to offer the opportunity that some might be inspired to knuckle down and put their nose to the grindstone, and become the kind of self-made man who actually can afford to buy one. We feel we owe it, to society. You can thank me when you invite me over to play your D-45SA 1936.

Read the full D-45S Authentic Review

D-45S Authentic 1936 Review

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Our Martin D-18 Authentic 1939 Review

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The Classic Mahogany Dreadnought Explored:
Our D-18 Authentic 1939 Review

The time machine Martin closest of all to the priceless pre-war instrument sought after by so many.

The light build on this mahogany/Adirondack is reinforced by rear-shifted braces, with the main X brace placed a bit farther back than on modern Martins. This helps add to the openness of the voice, and reduces the rumble in the bass, so the bottom notes retain great definition while the highs have all the cutting power a Bluegrass flatpicker could hope for.

Whether you are listening to Brownie McGhee singing the Blues, or Kris Kristofferson singing about Bobby McGee singing the Blues, you are hearing a D-18 laying down the rhythm. The folk music of Simon and Garfunkel, Donovan, and Gordon Lightfoot featured the D-18, as did the Rock n Roll of Elvis Presley, Jerry Garcia, and Kurt Cobain. And when it came to Mountain Music, Old Time, and Bluegrass, the D-18 has reigned supreme, especially among the hot-handed pickers.

And no D-18 yet is as like to taking a time machine to the 1930s and buying one, days after the glue has dried.

Read the full D-18 Authentic 1939

Martin D-18 Authentic 1939 review
photo: R. Dennie

 

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Martin D-28 Authentic 1941 Review

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We get to the heart of the heart of Martin’s Authentic Series with our D-28 Authentic 1941 Review

As our D-28 Authentic 1941 review shows, “this isn’t just a good vintage D-28 reissue; it’s a great guitar.”

Tone, dynamics and playability matter most to me when judging a guitar. This guitar gets top marks in all three areas. When it comes to tone, it had me at the first strum, because of its ringing purity, impressive depth, effortless volume, and its expansive, open, room filling presence.

If I didn’t already have a 1966 D-28 that was converted to pre-war specs, I would have bought one of these guitars the day I played the prototype at the Martin factory.

The Martin D-28 is the most copied guitar in history. Martin alone has no fewer than 10 different versions of the D-28 available in their current catalog, with varying prices and levels of vintage appointments.

Many luthiers, from small workshops to major manufacturers have come out with their own take on the D-28, and many have tried to put in the specs they think matter most when trying to capture some of that legendary vibe, sound and feel that made pre-war Martins so famous. Well, this is Martin’s own attempt to make a D-28 as close to how they made them back in the day, as realistically possible. And they have done a pretty amazing job, especially considering the relatively low price tag.

Yes, Brazilian rosewood would have been very nice to have for the back and sides. But it simply would have put these guitars out of sight. The D-28 1941 Authentic is not a collectable museum piece to be set in a closet to protect the investment required to own one. It is an exquisite, yet practical musical instrument that can and shall be played, recorded and enjoyed.

Read the Full D-28 Authentic 1941 Review Here

D-28 Authentic 1941 review

Acoustic Guitars / NAMM 2013 / Review

Martin Grand J12-16GTE from Summer NAMM gets our exclusive reivew

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Martin Month continues at One Man’s Guitar with our review of the Martin Grand J12-16GTE

A Grand Jumbo 12-string with a Gloss Top and on-board Electronic amplification.

Made from solid mahogany and Sitka spruce, using the largest ever made by Martin. At this price point, the new Grand J12-16GTE offers more tone per dollar than any other 12-string currently available from Martin.

“There are all the bright and clear chimes one could desire coming off the trebles and harmony strings. And there is a nice definition in the bass, without all the smoke clouds that can gather under the low end of a rosewood guitar with a large bottom end.”

Read the Full Grand J12-16GTE Review

Martin Grand J-12GTE

 

Acoustic Guitars / NAMM 2013 / Review

CEO-7 – Martin’s slope shoulder 00 for the ages

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The CEO-7 is Martin’s successful take on the prewar Gibson L-00, which remains more Martin than anything else. It is a slope-shoulder 00 for the ages.

“When it came down to it, the whole time I was playing the guitar I kept feeling like the CEO-7 is the Golden Era Series reissue of a pre-war Martin that never existed. One might say it seems like it came from an alternate universe where Martin had been copying Gibson designs from the 1930s, rather than the other way around. But just as Gibson’s square-shoulder dreadnoughts like the Dove, Hummingbird and Gospel sound little like a Martin D-18, the CEO-7 may have a certain trebley ring thing that reminds me of an L-00, but it also has a resonance and sustain unlike any Gibson I ever heard.”

Read the Full Review of the CEO-7

Martin CEO-7

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Martin OM-18 Authentic 1933 – Exclusive Review

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This new OM-18 A 1933 is the first OM made with Martin’s Authentic Series specs and hide glue. And boy, is it a doozy!

Martin OM-18 Authentic 1933

I played the prototype at the factory in January, when it was about as new as new can be. With mahogany for the back and sides, the OM-18 Authentic 1933 sounded clear and full at the same time.

This weekend I played an example of the production run and it was even better. It is like taking a time machine back to 1933 and getting your hands on a brand new OM-18, made the year C.F. Martin and Co. were celebrating their 100th anniversary and were busy setting the gold standard that all acoustic guitars have been compared to ever since.

Read the Full Review of the OM-18 Authentic

Watch the Companion Video

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Martin Authentic Series – Exclusive Reviews

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Martin OM-18 Authentic 1933

New vintage models like right out of a time machine, the Martin Authentic Series offers affordable replicas of their most legendary pre-war guitars.

While we have been slow to update the site after our successful review of the new Schoenberg Quartet, we have been busy as bees preparing for a whole slew of new reviews. July is shaping up as Martin Month, as One Man’s Guitar delves deep into the Authentic mystique, with reviews of all the new Authentics, in many respects more authentic than ever.

“Between 1930 and 1944, C.F. Martin & Co. set the gold standard for steel-string acoustic guitars. Today, Martin offers a new a growing number of models virtually identical to those priceless vintage instruments…

As economic realities changed after World War II, along with tastes in popular music, so did Martin’s designs and core product line. While their contemporary instruments remained popular with professional musicians and amateur enthusiasts alike, the lightly-built and ultra-responsive instruments from Martin’s “golden era” remained highly coveted, even after prices for a pre-war dreadnought, 000 or OM reached into the tens of thousands of dollars. As C.F. Martin IV was fond of saying, “Our number one competition for a new Martin is a used Martin.”

… in January 2013, Martin introduced a collection of guitars as part of the Authentic series. Made entirely in the Custom Shop, the new Authentics have proven to be among the most accurate reproductions of pre-war Martins available today, and certainly among the most affordable available anywhere.”

Read the full article and the reviews of individual models

 

Acoustic Guitars / Review

Schoenberg Quartet – Our Exclusive Review

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The Schoenberg Quartet Stephen Bruton model combines the expanded tonal range of a large guitar with the response and dynamics of a small guitar, thanks to its 12-fret 0000 design.

“A mightily successful combination of traditional and contemporary design and construction, the Schoenberg Quartet wide-top, 12-fret cutaway guitar is light of weight but large in voice. With impressive projection and effortless volume, it has the woody, full-bodied lows of a cello, trebles that sustain like of a well-played violin and some of the most richly complex chords this side of a baby grand piano.”

Guitarist Eric Schoenberg designed the guitar based on the concept originally suggested by his friend, the late Austin session man and touring sideman, Stephen Bruton. The guitar is named the Stephen Bruton model in his honor. It is available exclusively through Schoenberg’s shop in Tiburon, California, north of San Francisco.

California luthier Randall Kramer was engaged to built the entire line of Quartets. This particular example is made with Brazilian rosewood back and sides and an Adirondack spruce top. It also includes several custom-ordered features. It is the result of pre-war guitar traditions, cutting edge luthiery technology, and the scientific method of Chladni plate resonant frequency tuning, which inspired Benjamin Franklin to invent the harmonium, and was used by nineteenth-century violin makers.

The Schoenberg Standard and Schoenberg Soloist now have a big brother for those seeking a bigger, fuller voice with all the comfort of a classic fingerstyle lap-piano.

“This guitar is so finely tuned in terms of dynamics and response that it is basically effortless to play, in any tuning. There is a gorgeous complexity to the harmonics, but an unperturbed clarity to the fundamentals, and an organic sensibility to the sustain and decay of each, which makes it a delight to play.”

Read the Full Review of the Schoenberg Quartet

The Schoenberg Quartet