Wife's away acoustic guitar showdown

[Guildedagain]

Picking her up at 9:30p at the airport tonight, just a few hours of messless solitude left, lol.

The closer you get to "the end of the vacation", the more precious time gets and last night I had the definitive acoustic guitar showdown, armed with my best picks.

I kept a notebook nearby, from start to finish on every guitar, like the D5CE "It's a tank, Rosewood reeks of cheap whorehouse but better, etc."

A pile of Guilds and some MIJ dreads and an Art & Lutherie "Spruce" Dread from the 90's that's actually quite good.

The MIJ dreads culminate with an early 70's Matao high end model with factory gold Grover Milk Bottle tuners, solid quite possibly Brazilian 3 pc back that sounds like Brazilian when tapped, solid Rosewood sides, great Spruce top.

The Matao in fact is a "sonic weapon" as described in my notes, has a "Mean G chord" meaning it kicks butt at loud hillbilly Bluegrass guitar music, and I did play it at one last summer when I bought/refurbed this guitar. it was exceptional. My luthier neighbor guitar buddy next door wanted to swap guitars during the jam, the Matao for his 50's Martin D-18 and I said no, I was afraid he wanted to trade straight across and I paid $100 for the Matao at a pawn shop.

So what happened, who won?

 

[plaidseason]

I've been here. And it's how I ended up with a 12 string (which I've since sold).

 

[jedzep]

I'm a song stealer, not a composer, but if you have those poetic bones, I suggest you spend the remaining time honoring your wife with a short love song. Better yet, find an obscure diddy somewhere and say it's yours.

 

[Guildedagain]

So here are the winners, it's no surprise, they're Guilds. This was a fixed race all along.

It's no secret I've been enthralled with my '71 F-30 lately, and I gotta say, no partiality to Guild, but this guitar sounds "really really good", it's got this great bass.

So, most shootouts were rather quick.

I just made sure each guitar was perfectly in tune with itself.

There were no side by side comparisons. Just playing each guitar, forming an impression, and writing notes along the way for future ads maybe.

Like first impressions almost.

The F-30 beats em all. It's got it. You can strum the dog out of this thing and it just makes music. It just sings. And it's not too bright. It's not as cutting as one of those dreads - my '73 D-35 was in the mix - but it sounds better.

Next up is/was the F-112. The guitar could use a taller/new saddle, so it does sound a little weak. But Holy cats, the guitar has the most amazing tone, it rivals the F-30, only it could rival the F-30 but it's better to have both.

Both guitars are bone stock original with original MIJ tuners. Both tune up/hold tune well.

The cat was unintentional. She saw I was doing a photo shoot and wanted to be in it, wtf, isn't that just too precious?

 

[Guildedagain]

The picks.

Starting from the left the Guild medium is very good, I used it for most of the tests. The Dunlop sounds a litte flat compared to a good celluloid pick. The classic D'andrea No: 351 pick shape white script Guild medium is my favorite of the bunch, a little stiffer than the Guild medium with the gold script. The G shield pick on the right is very old, and cupped, it's a heavy and works really well for lead runs.