This one of kind Collings C10 sounds like it looks – magnificent
Bringing new meaning to the claim that Collings is the Cadillac of acoustic guitars
Part of the collection of the late Stan Jay, founder of the Mandolin Brothers Dream Fulfillment Center, this 1993 guitar was inspired by Stan’s own 1955 Cadillac
“Having not looked at the tag when I first played this Collings C10 Deluxe Custom, I assumed its pale blue body was made out of maple, and that I would hear clear, prancing top notes with dry open prairie behind them. I got plenty of Collings clarity all right, but I felt plenty of power in the bridle, and I was happily surprised by the warm presence rising from under the low-mids, like the comforting waft of just-baked biscuits filling a ranch house kitchen.
The back and sides are made out of mahogany, and that provides a dollop of richness to the otherwise clear and cheerful voice of this beautiful piece of luthiery. The top is made from very good Sitka spruce, my favorite top wood for mahogany, when it comes to accentuating its strength and subtle warmth. It is especially my favorite top wood for Collings mahogany, since the clarity and definition one looks to mahogany to provide is part and parcel of the default Collings build…”
A 1931 OM-28 in fact, which I happened upon while acquiring various guitar sample videos at Mandolin Brothers.
Like me, it was well worn and had seen better days. But it’s one of the best sounding OM-28s I have played. So I took the time to do a quick take of a full tune.
Not a perfect take, but I liked it enough that I set to a slideshow of photos taken across the English countryside.
There is not as single bud on a tree yet in my neighborhood and these photos help remind me that April, come she will… maybe… one of these days…
~
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(Watch on Youtube in 1080p HD for best sound and picture quality.)
What do YOU hear when listening to these two Martin guitars?
A friend is thinking of buying a guitar and we were sitting around playing a couple Martin guitars, when I thought it might prove helpful to get some blind taste test opinions when comparing these two guitars.
Captured with a Zoom H1, hand held recorder, this was an impromptu recording and not meant to be polished performances or even in tune guitars. But it does a pretty good job of capturing the personalities of each guitar.
No compression or special effects, the file was just dumped into Reaper and cut up and rendered in its present state.
There are two different guitarists, each plays Guitar #1 followed by Guitar #2.
Feel free to comment here or on related threads at the Unofficial Martin Guitar forum and the Acoustic Guitar Forum.
Each guitar has its own personality even within the same model or very similar models, as anyone knows who has sat in a guitar shop and played two or three different D-28s side by side.
Give these a listen and see how you feel they differ, or not, and what you like about one or the other or not etc.
And if you were going to buy one of them, which one might you choose?
The Taylor Road Show was off to its first week of 2015 dates, with a stop at Matt Umanov’s guitar shop in New York City’s famous Greenwich Village.
One Man’s Guitar dropped in to see what was new and interesting in the world of Taylor Guitars.
Taylor Guitars’ Nate Shivers, L, with Wayne Johnson, R, and Matt Umanov, C
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
The MC for this road show was Nate Shivers, Taylor’s District Sales Manager for the northeast region. And joining him was Grammy winner Wayne Johnson, in his tenth year as a Taylor Product Specialist. Together they put together the kind of enjoyable and educational evening that I happily recommend to anyone remotely interested in the music made on acoustic guitars.
After some welcoming remarks by the affable Mr. Shivers, Wayne Johnson launched into a demonstration of his “go to guitar,” a 13-year-old Taylor 74NS, the precursor of today’s 714CE-N. He explained how this particular Taylor model was nylon string guitar ideal for steel string players who didn’t want to have to tackle the 2 inch neck on a classical guitar, and that it was designed with amplified performance in mind. He then proceeded to play some impressive upbeat Latin-tinged Jazz, through a Fender amp, aided by an array of effects pedals, including a looping box that allowed him to lay down bass and chord progressions before soloing over top of them.
As he switched seamlessly from fingerstyle to flatpicking, and from ingrained composition to off the cuff improvisation, it was immediately apparent why Wayne Johnson has spent decades as a studio and touring guitarist for acts like Manhattan Transfer and Rickie Lee Jones. But he displayed a different sort of professionalism in the role of product demonstrator, as the rest of his performance was less about displaying his mad skills and more about showing off the potential and personality of the various Taylor guitars put through their paces over the next 75 minutes. All other guitars had steel strings, and with one exception they were all heard acoustically, with the aid of a Rode M5 microphone.
Nate Shivers was likewise entertaining in his own respect, with a winning demeanor, wry sense of humor, and the easy going enthusiasm of someone who loves his job and has sincere appreciation for the guitars he markets, and a respect for the company who makes them, from their farsighted commitment to wood management and ecology, to their innovations in modern luthiery and a product line that has evolved through what Taylor has learned from practical experience and the feedback from their customer base among amateur and professional musicians.
Smooth Operators
Door Prizes Giveaway
They certainly have the road show concept down to a smooth and entertaining operation. Shivers first took the audience through the current array of instrument sizes, and Johnson played basically the same progression of chords and melody examples on each. From the Grand Concert, with its short-scale neck and relatively small top area and body depth, on up to the prodigious Grand Orchestra that has replaced the Taylor Jumbo design, each size was heard in an example of the 800 Series, made with Indian rosewood back and sides and a Sitka spruce top.
The second part of the presentation focused on the tone woods employed across the various series, including mahogany, maple, rosewood, ovangkol and koa. Each was heard via Taylor’s Grand Auditorium body size, which has become one of the most popular guitar designs in modern times, inspiring other brands to produce similarly progressive shapes and sizes in much the same the way the Martin dreadnought and the Gibson jumbo designs did in the twentieth century. The GA was said to provide a Swiss army knife kind of versatility, and Wayne Johnson took advantage of this to stretch out and play various pieces he felt worked well with certain wood combinations.
When it came to top wood, most of the guitars had Sitka spruce from the Pacific Northwest, but the example made from Hawaiian koa wood had a koa top. There were some other guitars available for playing before and after the presentation made from other wood like Engelmann spruce.
A high end Presentation Series guitar made from Cocobolo was used to demonstrate the latest generation of on-board amplification systems, the Expression System 2. This patented pickup consists of three small piezo crystals that sit behind the saddle, rather than under it. They are held in place by three screws set into the bridge. Instead of some 60 pounds of pressure squashing the crystals, as on traditional undersaddle pickups, the ES-2 only brings a few pounds of pressure to bear, resulting in a less-strident piezo sound when plugged-in, and a pickup that is sensitive to nuanced changes in finger pressure, string tension, and any percussive or damping techniques a guitarist might use on the instrument’s body.
A major highlight for me was getting to know the newly reworked 600 Series, designed to make the most of American maple, a sustainable native hardwood. Like the new 800 Series that underwent a similar refresh last year, the 600 series also gets Taylor’s new thinner finish and animal protein glues. But it also gets a torrefied Stika spruce top, and unique bracing designed expressly to wring out as much warmth, resonance, and complexity as possible. And over all that maple is a hand-rubbed dark Brown Sugar stain, meant to evoke the look of classical violins.
I thought they did a great job with these new 600s. They definitely have more going on in terms of presence and color down inside the voice, while there is also a hint of old dry box sound to them that is likely due to the torrefied spruce, which provides some “vintage tone.”
At the end of the presentation, Wayne Johnson took us through a special maple version of the T5 hybrid, a true acoustic-electric guitar that offers five-way switching of three pickup sources. When combined with adjustments in tone controls, effects pedals, etc. offered an astonishing spectrum of guitar sounds. From Tele to ES-35 to Santa PRS, to a perfectly pleasant and more than acceptable acoustic guitar tone, and all of it weighing much closer to a typical acoustic guitar than most any electric guitar. I was totally sold on the T5 and am seriously considering test driving one for possible purchase sometime soon – even if I cannot fit it into the budget for a few months yet.
In the words of Nate Shivers, there is nothing like bringing a bunch of really cool guitars and putting them into people’s hands and letting them decide for themselves. And for those of us in attendance on this particular evening, we had the opportunity to play the same guitars that Wayne Johnson had just used in such impressive ways, as well as some ultra-cool instruments from the Taylor Custom Shop.
And it was a very nice touch that Matt Umanov provided cheese plates, crackers and cold cuts, as well as beer, wine and soft drinks, which I heard does not normally happen at such Taylor Road Show presentations. So any dealers reading this may want to make note of it.
I cannot recommend taking the time to attend one of these evenings. And if you are fortunately enough to have one passing through your neck of the woods, don’t forget your wallet. The guitars brought for display, and at least in this case the other Taylors available at the dealership, were all offered for sale at abnormally low prices!
Learn more about the upcoming Taylor Road Show schedule HERE
And stay tuned for One Man Guitar’s first Taylor review, coming soon!
A refreshed Taylor 814ce offers many reasons why it’s among the world’s most popular acoustic guitars
Impressive to first time players and hardcore Taylor Guitar fans alike
Evenness across the strings and up the neck, nicely balanced between power and sensitivity, the 814ce provides the commanding fundamentals with the high end sparkle and sculpted low end definition, enhanced by the extra warmth and complexity that people look for in a Taylor made from rosewood. There was that exemplary Taylor sound, where strings picked across melodies or fingerstyle patterns retained their identity, with nice separation and precision, no matter how hard or soft they were played. There too were the classic Taylor chords, each fusing the notes together into one colorful entity.
But there was a whole lot more going on when it came to the sonic detail and dynamics in this particular guitar.
“This model didn’t get a makeover, it got seriously buff…”
Below is the greater part of a rather interesting message I had received out of the blue, and my reply, both of which have been redacted.
“… People are largely clueless about TSP and assume too much about his connection to Martin. He may prompt some people to post dumb things like [Name Redacted] did, and others to believe they’re doing the world a favor by promoting him. But they don’t know him. He’s a fake and his playing is remedial at best. It’s garbage guitar stuff, but since most members can’t play too well, they think it’s good. It is kindergarten nothingness. Just Mel Bay Fake Book -1. The other forum dealers have had enough of him promoting MM. One is planning to hire Craig Thatcher or Richard Starkey to demonstrate their stock and post it on the forum. The others will follow. It will expose Phillips’ for what he is.”
Mr. Phillips’ Reply:
There is nothing new about people casting aspersions about me and my writing, or suggesting there is some secret arrangement between Martin and me – often put forward by people whose personal tastes bias them against Martin in a manner similar to my own bias for Martin.
Just as there is nothing new regarding you taking the time and trouble to share privileged information about the terrible things being said about someone by individuals named or anonymous. Not that you are ever capable of such things yourself, of course.
My Relationship to Various Dealers
I make it plain [in the About section] on my website that I consider Mandolin Brothers my local Martin dealer and that I have been responsible for many sales for them [and other NYC dealers like Rudy Pensa, and Sam Ash, and Guitar Center, etc.] and I lay out in detail my relationship with Maury and Lori Rutch [of Maury’s Music,] which goes back to before they were in the guitar selling business, even though I have not actually been directly responsible for sales that I know of, except any that might have happened because of the videos I do for them. And I go into detail about some of the many guitars that were sold by Jon Garon [of My Favorite Guitar] because of my direct advice and recommendations. I also include a long list of links to other dealers who I have heard good things about, even though I have never had dealings with them.
But I did enjoy the notion of someone suggesting my motives and opinions could be countered by hiring some professional guitarist or other who has been paid by Martin for many years, presumably to offer a more trustworthy and less bias opinion than the person who has never worked for Martin.
In Re: My Guitar Playing
I would be the first to hope my playing could qualify as remedial, since the point of the videos is to provide a level playing field for people to compare various guitars. And I am the first to say that my playing is nowhere near the quality of many other guitar demonstrators.
I actually received a rather funny backhanded compliment from some reader who sent me an email just yesterday. He equated my videos to other guitar example videos by way of the underwear he had ordered for his wife. He basically said that once it was delivered and tried out at home, it failed to recreate the impression given by the teenage lingerie model in the catalog. 🙂
His point was that my simple examples of music, used over and over, “put the focus on the guitar and not the amazing chops of a guitarist who could make an Esteban sound good.”
On the same day, I received a comment on my site from another reader who I do not know, saying, “I really appreciate what you do and am in awe of your talent regarding translating what you hear into words, something that is far more difficult than can be imagined. Your professionalism, wit, and thoughtful comments always make one confident in the knowledge that you impart in your reviews.”
So I must be doing something right.
Considering the Source
As for your personal comments relating to things I have said to others about you [Redacted from the above communique,] you simply have no idea how many people I met in [your home city] and elsewhere who encountered you under other guises than the one you have presented on the guitar forums.
But really, I haven’t bothered about such things for years.
I met one of my all-time favorite people and had some of the most fulfilling and enjoyable experiences of my entire life because of your subterfuge. I am indebted to you for that more than anything else, and I always felt a little sorry for you that you needed to embellish yourself when you were plenty charming and entertaining without your suspect connections or masquerades.
Sure, I was taken aback when I first figured out the person with all the famous friends, who considered me worth flattering for some reason, wasn’t who he claimed to be. And yes, I did tell a few people about my revelation during that initial period of shock.
But I was truly surprised to hear in reply that some people had already known all about you and your machinations, from sources independent of mine, and told me much more that they had known for years before I found out about you, but which they chose to keep “back channel” for their own reasons.
That was what? Almost ten years ago now.
And while you may continue to influence the minds and opinions of various people of a trusting, well-intended nature that have yet to learn better, I would bet their number is outpaced by those who do know better – without a word being said by me about any of this.
When it comes to the internet forums, the long list of isolated, ‘just between you and me, because I love you like a brother and I don’t just tell that to anyone…’ type of communications you engage in, often focused on disparaging the reputation of various individuals, famous or familiar, through almost too hard to believe accounts of shocking or vindictive behavior, has long been compiled by a much broader collection of aware individuals than you would ever allow yourself to believe.
That fact brings into serious question any attempt on your part to confide with anyone about anything construed as being in their best interest.
Facets reminiscent of various iconic guitars embellish core elements with some rarity about them, making Mr. Martin’s CEO-8 an appealing musical instrument that seems familiar yet very much its own entity.
A Grand Jumbo body of sycamore and a Sitka spruce top torrefied with Maritn’s VTS – Vintage Tone System
“The fundamental notes leap out from the strings with a good deal of pop to them. They are quite solid, yet slender, with space between each, and between the fundamentals and the expansive harmonic tonescape humming below, around, and above them…
While not as warm as mahogany, sycamore’s tonal palette has extra presence down below when compared to maple or cherry, and the Grand J size makes the most of it. The large body promotes that bottom end, which is helpful to drier, leaner tonewood, so each plunk, thunk, and nuanced picking holds its own with the punchy mids and vivacious treble…”
Custom Shop creativity exudes from the new Martin CS-00041-15
A Limited Edition of 75 Instruments
The Martin CS-00041-15 is made by the Custom Shop, in the 000 size, with Style 41 appointments, and produced only in 2015.
“There is a rich throb in the bass that is a bit fuller and more pronounced than typical for an Auditorium size Martin. At the other end, the treble lifts out from the voice, pristine and with thinner fundamental notes reminiscent of the old 000s and OMs of the 1930s. Framed between them, the focused notes of the midrange solidify like firm little gems. But during extended playing, the resonant undertone permeates up around the midrange, smoothing it out, as heard in other modern rosewood Martins with this body shape. And just like its voice, the feel and looks of the 00041-15 offer the sort of never-found-together-before array of facets that has come to epitomize the CS guitars.”
With all the projection and string-to-string balance heard from the legendary first modern acoustic guitar, Martin has resurrected their original Orchestra Model in the OM-28 Authentic 1931 – the most anticipated addition to the Authentic series in many years.
Martin’s historically accurate Vintage Gloss Finish makes its first appearance on this new OM-28 Authentic, and heard for the first time is a refined version of their Vintage Tone System of wood torrefaction, reserved exclusively for the Authentic series of vintage Martin reproductions.
“…I approved of how it responded at every level of attack, and how it felt in the hands, both in terms of the tactile experience of holding it, and how the strings pull and release, as well as the clarity of the notes and how they pop out, yet stay connected to the resonant undertone glowing behind them.
Even though this OM requires little effort to reach the “sweet spot” of optimum resonance with minimal resistance, this is not a frail instrument. In fact, it flourished with a certain amount of extra string tension from the fingertips. It was like it said, “Oh yeah. That’s the stuff!” when I would increase the pull on the strings, so it could convert that potential energy into kinetic energy, and ultimately full, unbridled tone.
That was but one of the subtler prewar Martin traits to be found in this new OM-28 Authentic 1931.”
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