narad
Progressive metal and politics
Hmm, "Sevenstring Guitars" or "Jazz, Acoustic, Classical & Fingerstyle"?
Whelp, this is the closest I'll ever get to posting a true dream guitar. Behold - A 7-string Matsuda Guitars M1!:
Specs:
Top: Adirondack Spruce
Back: Cocobolo
Board: Ebony
Neck: Mahogany?
Scale: 26-25.25"
...this feels a bit bare when talking about acoustic guitars. BKP Blackhawk pickups?
I've secretly had this guitar for a couple of weeks now, and I'm sort of over the moon with it. Over the past few years I've been increasingly getting into fingerstyle musicians more and more (though not the slap-the-guitar-body cliche kind), and I'd always be a bit bummed when I had nothing to play it on. My last acoustic took a tumble down a flight of stairs after a guitar final, and I just never got around to getting another. That was about ten years ago, and everytime I'm in a guitar shop I'll sit down and have a go at some acoustics but they never seem to be adequate counterparts to the kinds of ERG outside-the-box electrics I like.
Enter Michi Matsuda. Michi was an apprentice of Ervin Somogyi, the guy that literally wrote the book on acoustic guitar building and developed something that's been called "the Somogyi sound". Every builder has their niche, and this is a niche in producing clear, balanced sound that seems great for fingerstyle. Naturally I thought...aren't these similar to the priorities we often have in ERGs? So I knew pedigree-wise where Michi was coming from, but what I think sets him apart is how creative and experimental he is. His harp guitar is frikkin' crazy:
http://www.matsudaguitars.com/images/harpguitar1_300.jpg
or take his uke deconstructed for instance:
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6161/6204499028_7719525858_z.jpg
And he has a sort of minimalist take on everything which is very much my style. So I approached him with the idea of doing a seven string, fanned fret acoustic instrument. I think about 4 years later, this is the result!
Now I'm a funny reviewer for this, because I played acoustic only a handful of times in the past decade, and I have no experience with any of these high end $3k+ guitars, let alone something of this caliber. I always sort of wondered, where that money goes in all the $20k+ brazilian rosewood acoustics, etc., and if it has a tangible effect on sound. It does! Maybe Collings and other good mid-range acoustics also sound this nice, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm done acoustic shopping. Though an 00/000 shape would be nice... (oh Michi?)
My only gripes are that the frets are really low, and I deaden a lot of strings when trying to bar across the entire board. I'm not sure if people do jumbo fretted acoustics - the thought never occured to me - but theoretically I could see that helping out. The notes that sound are very beautiful, and I've even managed to get a person's jaw to drop as I was messing around with some mostly-open chords. And I can't fault Michi, but damn acoustics for their rib-jabbing designs.
The fanned frets are definitely a win. It's a subtle fan, but on an acoustic I think anything more than this would be a bit cumbersome. I don't mind much larger stretches on my dingwall bass, for instance, but here it would have been disasterous. As it stands the action is very low, so it's not too much of a problem to stretch a bar. As to the seventh string, I'm sure it would be a bit punchier at that extended range, but it suits the guitar nicely as is. I'm finding that thumbing a string of this gauge (without much fingernail) is a bit lackluster - it doesn't have the punch you can naturally bestow to lighter strings. Currently looking into possibly trying out some fingerpicks.
Oh, and about the headstock - it's something Michi and I came up with together. He liked the idea of using slotted tuners on the bass side to get a better string angle above the nut, kind of sketched out some things. I wound up trying to modify the opposing side to be a bit more ...shall we say, metal inspired? Hope you guys like, I think it's perfect.
So Matsuda guitars? Highly recommended. Now if anyone has some suggestions on what the hell I should learn on this thing! I'm currently re-arranging some Bach cello pieces to try and take advantage of the seventh. Kind of opening up a whole new world for me.
Whelp, this is the closest I'll ever get to posting a true dream guitar. Behold - A 7-string Matsuda Guitars M1!:
Specs:
Top: Adirondack Spruce
Back: Cocobolo
Board: Ebony
Neck: Mahogany?
Scale: 26-25.25"
...this feels a bit bare when talking about acoustic guitars. BKP Blackhawk pickups?
I've secretly had this guitar for a couple of weeks now, and I'm sort of over the moon with it. Over the past few years I've been increasingly getting into fingerstyle musicians more and more (though not the slap-the-guitar-body cliche kind), and I'd always be a bit bummed when I had nothing to play it on. My last acoustic took a tumble down a flight of stairs after a guitar final, and I just never got around to getting another. That was about ten years ago, and everytime I'm in a guitar shop I'll sit down and have a go at some acoustics but they never seem to be adequate counterparts to the kinds of ERG outside-the-box electrics I like.
Enter Michi Matsuda. Michi was an apprentice of Ervin Somogyi, the guy that literally wrote the book on acoustic guitar building and developed something that's been called "the Somogyi sound". Every builder has their niche, and this is a niche in producing clear, balanced sound that seems great for fingerstyle. Naturally I thought...aren't these similar to the priorities we often have in ERGs? So I knew pedigree-wise where Michi was coming from, but what I think sets him apart is how creative and experimental he is. His harp guitar is frikkin' crazy:
http://www.matsudaguitars.com/images/harpguitar1_300.jpg
or take his uke deconstructed for instance:
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6161/6204499028_7719525858_z.jpg
And he has a sort of minimalist take on everything which is very much my style. So I approached him with the idea of doing a seven string, fanned fret acoustic instrument. I think about 4 years later, this is the result!
Now I'm a funny reviewer for this, because I played acoustic only a handful of times in the past decade, and I have no experience with any of these high end $3k+ guitars, let alone something of this caliber. I always sort of wondered, where that money goes in all the $20k+ brazilian rosewood acoustics, etc., and if it has a tangible effect on sound. It does! Maybe Collings and other good mid-range acoustics also sound this nice, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm done acoustic shopping. Though an 00/000 shape would be nice... (oh Michi?)
My only gripes are that the frets are really low, and I deaden a lot of strings when trying to bar across the entire board. I'm not sure if people do jumbo fretted acoustics - the thought never occured to me - but theoretically I could see that helping out. The notes that sound are very beautiful, and I've even managed to get a person's jaw to drop as I was messing around with some mostly-open chords. And I can't fault Michi, but damn acoustics for their rib-jabbing designs.
The fanned frets are definitely a win. It's a subtle fan, but on an acoustic I think anything more than this would be a bit cumbersome. I don't mind much larger stretches on my dingwall bass, for instance, but here it would have been disasterous. As it stands the action is very low, so it's not too much of a problem to stretch a bar. As to the seventh string, I'm sure it would be a bit punchier at that extended range, but it suits the guitar nicely as is. I'm finding that thumbing a string of this gauge (without much fingernail) is a bit lackluster - it doesn't have the punch you can naturally bestow to lighter strings. Currently looking into possibly trying out some fingerpicks.
Oh, and about the headstock - it's something Michi and I came up with together. He liked the idea of using slotted tuners on the bass side to get a better string angle above the nut, kind of sketched out some things. I wound up trying to modify the opposing side to be a bit more ...shall we say, metal inspired? Hope you guys like, I think it's perfect.
So Matsuda guitars? Highly recommended. Now if anyone has some suggestions on what the hell I should learn on this thing! I'm currently re-arranging some Bach cello pieces to try and take advantage of the seventh. Kind of opening up a whole new world for me.
