Martin OM-45
The D-45’s new little sister, the OM-45 has big beautiful voice
Martin OM-45 specs include: Highest grade all-solid tonewoods throughout, including Indian Rosewood back and sides; Sitka or Lutz spruce top; Sitka spruce Golden Era style bracing and small maple bridge plate; tropical American mahogany neck with GE Modified Low Oval profile; ebony fingerboard with Authentic series shallow depth, High Performance taper, 1-3/4″ at the bone nut and 2-1/8″ at the 12th fret, comfort bevel edge, Style 45 abalone hexagon fret position markers; abalone inlays on all edged of guitar body, sound hole rosette, and end pin box; ebony bridge with new smoother shape, bone bridge pins with abalone dots, bone compensated saddle with 2-5/32″ string spacing; open gear tuning machines.
“The Martin OM-45 is a regal musical instrument with an authoritative voice of power and beauty. The rich, complex tone makes it one acoustic guitar that deserves the designation “orchestra model,” as the multitude of warm, resonant undertones and effervescent harmonic overtones can sound like an entire orchestra.”
The Martin OM-45 is made in their Orchestra Model size with Style 45 appointments, the top of the line in their fabled Standard Series, which sets the standard to which all professional-level acoustic guitars must compare. Like the mighty D-45, it has Martin’s highest-grade tonewoods, inlaid with copious amounts of abalone pearl along every edge of the body. It also comes with the top-of-the-line price tag required of such lofty features. My reaction to the insider news that Martin was going to offer an OM-45 at the 2025 NAMM Show was, “Well, it’s about time!”
This new model is a stellar example of why Martin OMs are beloved for their tone. It sounds full and complex, with a marvelous dynamic range. It is wonderfully responsive and has effortless projection, so light fingerpicking patterns are heard clearly throughout the room. But the long-scale string tension in combination with the Auditorium-size soundboard allows for the headroom to withstand robust strumming with a pick, increasing the overall volume while resisting sonic distortion beyond what can be achieved by a short-scale 000, which has the same size body.
The voice of this new model is expansive, as only OM’s can be. But it also sounds and performs differently than Martin’s pre-2025 OMs, because of several changes made to all Standard Series Martins, which were revealed at this year’s NAMM Show.
GE Bracing
The 2025 OM-45 has Golden Era scalloped braces made from Sitka spruce. GE bracing has more wood removed from the X brace and tone bars than the previous Standard Series bracing, for greater flexibility, resulting in a soundboard that responds better to nuanced playing.
Compared to the bracing used on standard Martins prior to 2025, the GE scallops are carved to have greater depth and the scooping is longer across the brace, so that the peaks between the scallops are narrower. It was meant to be more like pre-war bracing without the kind of detailing used on lofty Authentic Series instruments. It is fair to say these new Standard Series guitars do have voices with a more-vintage-like tone, in certain respects.
There is an “openness” to the voice which is reminiscent of vintage Martins. It creates an impressive volume and projection when played lightly. Like all guitars made with GE bracing, that exquisite responsiveness to delicate playing comes at the cost of the top being more-easily over-driven when strummed very hard with a pick. So, one loses some of that “mini-dreadnought” power chord thing, due to the slightly lower attack ceiling and heading into distortion sooner than Martins made with the previous “standard” scalloped bracing. The voice compresses rather than roars. But that too is more like a prewar Martin OM than not.
On the whole, the OM-45 has as rich and complex and voice as one could wish for from a rosewood orchestra model. The prototype I played at the factory has a warm and beefy bottom end and strong, buoyant mids. The chiming treble strings sound with a marvelous purity and are as colorful as the sympathetic harmonics that mirror them and meld seamlessly with them. In other words, a classic Martin OM, only more so because it is no ordinary Martin OM. It is an OM-45.
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Legacy of Luster
Style 45 resides at the tippy-top shelf of the Standard Series. It offers the most opulent appointments, including high-color abalone shell inlaid around the sound hole, in the top of the bridge pins, the headstock logo with the iconic C Martin F pattern that first appeared in the mid-1930s, and the fabled Style 45 fret position markers.
The OM-45 has the large abalone hexagon position markers just like the D-45. The luster and holographic hues from the hexagons must be experienced in person, as no photo can do them justice. Copious amounts of abalone shell are used all over the guitar.
Only wood of the highest grade is chosen for a 45, and then it is embellished with the most colorful shell, hand-selected by the artisans who inlay it along the edge of top, sides, and back. This includes the “end pin box” and the V-shaped joint where the neck heel is attached to the body. This fine trim takes intensive work hours to accomplish and is a major component in the price tag of an OM-45. While some might think it is no big deal, since people see the front of the guitar most of the time, it is actually one of the reasons the OM-45 sounds so marvelous.
I am a proponent of the claim that routing out channels for abalone inlay along edges of the sides, back makes those thin rosewood panels even thinner right where the connect to one another. That makes them more flexible, like the head of a drum, so they react easier to vibrations passing through the wood, leading to enhanced resonance and responsiveness.
I remain convinced that someone playing an OM-45 in comparison with an OM-42, OM-28, and OM-21 will hear the difference in resonance and complexity of tone, as I heard in this OM-45 prototype, when the only significant difference between an OM-42 and an OM-45 is the extra abalone inlay around the edges of the back and sides.
Today’s OM-45 has similar looks to the OM-45 built between 1990 and 1994. But there are many features that set it apart, other than the look of the faux tortoise shell pickguard and vintage-style open back tuners.
New Neck Shape
The new GE MOD neck shape combines Martin’s Modified Low Oval profile with the Golden Era heel shape originating on the OM-18GE and used most recently on the Modern Deluxe Series instruments with great success. It also has a new shape to the decorative volute where the back of the neck meets the headstock, for additional comfort.
The heel is sleeker, resulting in less mass in the upper frets, but that removal of mass at the outer edges of the neck continues all the way down to the headstock. The mahogany neck does not feel as bulky where it meets the fingerboard. It also makes it feel a bit deeper at the back of the neck. By no means a V, to my hand it feels like they took some wood away from the neck where it meets the fingerboard and transferred it toward the apex where it nestles into the trough at the center of the palm.
Part of the sleeker feel may come from the new “comfort bevel” along the edge of the fingerboard, which required Martin to adjust the string spacing at the nut, bringing in each E string a tiny bit. This new OM-45 has a bound fingerboard, which always makes an upscale Martin neck feel a bit differently from unbound Martin neck. All in all, I find the new neck an improvement over the original Modified Low Oval it has replaced, and I loved the bound version on the OM-45.
Authentic Fingerboard Depth
Another vintage-esque specification that may contribute to the new Standard Series tone in general is using a solid ebony fingerboard that is planed down to genuine prewar height. So, it has less mass and may allow more kinetic energy from the vibrating strings to travel down the neck to the sound chamber where the GE bracing is already maximizing the magical metamorphosis of kinetic energy becoming audible sound waves. Make that, gorgeous audible sound waves in the case of the OM-45.
The Martin OM-45 is a regal musical instrument with an authoritative voice of power and beauty. The rich, complex tone makes it one acoustic guitar that deserves the designation “orchestra model,” as the multitude of warm, resonant undertones and effervescent harmonic overtones can sound like an entire orchestra. Magnificent.
And that is One Man’s word on…
Martin OM-45
List Price: $9,799.00
