Jinder

Hi all, I’ve recently done some work on a friend’s mid-2000s 12 fret Faith parlour guitar, a really sweet little instrument that was hamstrung by a busted OEM barn door pickup/preamp. I removed the original electronics, did a setup, polished the frets and made a cover for the barn door hole from some EIR veneer, and installed a DeArmond Tone Boss soundhole pickup at the request of the owner. Not only is it a really stellar little guitar that is very well made, resonant and has a neck that I could play for days, I was also really impressed by the Tone Boss. It has a microphonic quality and picks up some top resonance and air, has a decent output level (surprisingly strong for a passive pickup) and is really responsive to dynamic shifts and attack changes. It has a very different character to my Sunrise pickups, and is more in line with Baggs units such as the M1 and M80 in Passive mode. Considering the price (around £80 in the UK) relative to Baggs mags (around three times that for the M80), I’d say that’s a fair achievement from DeArmond. The volume wheel on the pickup is a nice addition too, I found the sweet spot was backed off from full by about 1/5th of a turn. Sounded really nice through my AER amps. Great for fingerstyle and a nice wash for strumming too. I’ve been meaning to try one of these out for a long time. I may well put one in my CF100 copy as I’ve repurposed the Sunrise in that for another guitar, at £80 it’s hard to argue with the Tone Boss for an instrument that’s going to be doing occasional duty!

I have always played J200s, they’re a fine fit for me. I owned a J180 for a few years (basically a J185 with two large pickguards) and found it exhibited a different enough flavour to my J200 to keep it around. It was a phenomenally comfortable guitar-it fell into my lap and hand as if it were tailor made for me. The neck was excellent and I enjoyed the shorter scale. Like Buc, I used Medium strings tuned down to Eb. It could give the chunk and clang of a J200 if played in a certain way, but was largely more refined and incredibly balanced-I found it recorded very very well and sat in a mix with barely any need for EQ tweaking. Live it was excellent and very feedback resistant. I removed the wretched UST and fitted a Rare Earth pickup which was a marvellous fit. I really enjoyed owning it. I moved it on because I’d been looking for the “right” Dove and a guitar dealer friend of mine who had been assisting with the search called me and said “I have the best Dove I’ve ever heard sitting in front of me with your name on it. Come and get it” That was my ‘95 Dove which has been on every record I’ve made since then and has given me hundreds of songs. I really liked the J180 but I got the Dove in a straight trade and have zero regrets. Anything lesser and I’d have kept the J180, but my Dove is just ridiculously good, the best guitar I’ve ever owned. You owe it to yourself to hang with the J185 and see how you gel with it. They’re a friendly, personable and VERY comfortable instrument that may just be the ticket for you. They’re very well loved, that’s for sure.

Hey Kalle. I own a D18 and a Dove, which is very similar to the Frontier. I make extensive use of both. My Dove is an incredible recording guitar and I’ve written a great deal of songs with both. If there is any way you can keep the D18 and add the Frontier I think you’d find them different enough to complement one another and do different musical jobs. Personally, if I had to part with my D18 to facilitate the purchase of another guitar, I would have to be ABSOLUTELY sure that the new guitar was something I needed without question. I love my D18 (a mid ‘90s Golden Era prototype) and would find it extremely difficult to part with it. I love all my Gibsons too, but the D18 and I are always pleased to see one another. It’s never moody like my Gibsons can be at times!

I’ve removed the UST and installed a soundhole pickup in every UST-equipped guitar I’ve owned over the last few years. Significant tone/volume improvement with zero drawbacks for me…can’t stand USTs.

If you are looking for an acoustic amp with a view to playing out at some point, I absolutely recommend the AER Compact 60. I’ve owned so many amps over the years and the AER is so far ahead of everything else on the market. It’s great for guitar AND vocals-something that all other amps struggle with at meaningful levels-and the build quality is astonishingly good. I’ve had my C60 for several years and have used it at every show I’ve played since then. I play for a living and regularly do 3-6 shows a week, and it’s been in and out of cars, vans, buses, trains, plane holds etc etc and has never missed a beat. For small to medium sized shows I use it as my sole source of sound reinforcement (I’ve used it this way for everything from house gigs to 800 capacity rooms with a seated and quiet audience) and for theatre/arts centre shows I use it as my guitar monitor and DI. The DI in the Compact 60 is the best sounding and most clean DI I’ve come across, and regularly gets compliments from sound engineers who enjoy working with it. They’re not cheap, but it’s an amp that sounds stellar and will last forever. Super light and portable too. Cannot recommend AER highly enough!

Wow, that looks gorgeous with the SJ200 style pickguard! I had a J15 for quite a while, I traded it for a J180 which was nice but not as nice as the J15, which in retrospect was one of the best slope dreads I’ve ever owned. They’re an incredible bargain for what they are. Yours is the best looking one I’ve seen, love it!

I used D’Addario 12-53 on my L-00s. Anything heavier than 12s seem like too much input for such a small bodied instrument. To be honest I really enjoy 11s on my CF-100 copy, specifically Thomastik-Infeld Spectrums.

Gluing and cleating is definitely the solution…if you’re like me, you’ll overthink it for a bit when you get the guitar back, and convince yourself it sounds different, put it in the case and worry about it for a while…then take it out and fall in love with it all over again, and forget the repair was ever done! I’ve seen plenty of side cracks happen to other players due to keys in the pocket. Mahogany can be fragile when cut and sanded thinly for sides, my Martin D18GE prototype had a key crack when it came back to me recently, after I bought it back from a friend I’d sold it to during the Covid ordeal. I didn’t make a fuss about it as he’s a lovely guy and knew he’d feel guilty/responsible…I glued and cleated it myself, and I never think about it now. It’s strong and has stayed a stable repair so I’m happy.

Hey Buc! Great to see you. Hope you’re well. Looks like a wise swerve on that guitar, as beautiful and rare as it is. Would have suited you if it was in better shape!

It can certainly be done-I’ve recently seen this J45 that had a 2005 neck grafted on by Robbie Gladwell. Likely affects resale value, but also makes the guitar more valuable than one with no neck!

The factory setup (which, as you said, is supposed to be 6/64 and 4/64, but wasn’t for the OP’s guitar) is the ballpark in which I set up all my guitars-it’s a sweet spot that works for me. I play a mixture of flatpicking, hybrid, strumming, fingerstyle, lead, slide, allsorts. I absolutely agree that, as a setup guitars should be shipped with, it’s a starting point that will work for many players but allows wiggle room for those who like a lower action and wish for their guitar to be worked on to achieve that. I appreciate that a new guitar will need a setup according to the preferences of the player, but 8/64 and 6/64 (more than, according to the OP) is really too high for anything other than slide or, depending on action at the nut, first position cowboy chords. That sort of action will send intonation out of whack anywhere north of the 5th fret. I can’t help but wonder if that guitar was put aside for online sales as it was unsuitable to be put up for an in-store demo. The end result is that the OP was shipped a guitar which was uncomfortable to play and didn’t sound very good. Weird resonance, hard to play. Obviously everyone likes to tweak things to their liking, but after dropping a couple of Gs on a guitar it should at least be somewhere near usable. Instruments seem to be the only commodity that can be sold from new in a state that’s bordering on unusable, with the end user being expected to sort them out. It’s very curious and something I’ve never really been able to get on terms with. I love my Gibsons and have always been/will always be a Gibson player, but can say objectively that Gibson acoustic guitars tend to be the most extreme examples of this.

I wish Gibson could get on top of this stuff. That’s unreasonably/unusably high action for a new guitar. Not a single player I know would actually pick up a guitar with an action of 8/64 and 6/64 (3.2mm and 2.4mm for those of us on this side of the pond) and say “let’s go!”. Even 6/64 on the bottom E at the 12th is too much for some people, and is considered a medium/high action in Lutherie terms. It’s not hard to put a basic factory setup with a playable action on a guitar just prior to the QC stage of manufacturing, takes about 10 mins per instrument. Given that Gibson are charging a premium for something that is considered a high end instrument, shipping a guitar with an unplayable action is totally unacceptable. That odd low E is something I heard a few years ago on a 2014 “Brown Top” J45 which had a gigantic neck. Sort of a booming, vibrating wolf note at the low E. Made the guitar quite unbalanced and odd to play.

Beautiful! I’ve owned a few L-00s and enjoyed each one on its own merits. They’re very toneful and user friendly little beasts! My small body fix has been supplied for the last few years by a Sigma copy of a CF-100, which unexpectedly blew me away when I tried it out. Having said that, I will own another L-00 one day. They’re special machines. Enjoy!

My Dove has immaculate intonation, the best I’ve ever experienced in an acoustic guitar. I can’t find a duff note anywhere…it has had a bridge replacement in the past though. My SJ200 is a bit snicketty but is due a refret, so pulls sharp in places. Getting that sorted asap. ‘67 J45 gets wonky above the 7th, but is also due a luthier visit as the bridge is lifting a tiny bit. He’ll get it straightened out. My D18GE Prototype has superb intonation despite a medium action and worn frets…no idea why, but despite appearing to need fettling, it gets a great deal of work during sessions and always sound fabulous on record. I’ve had some Gibsons that intonate horribly though…they seem a bit unpredictable intonation wise.

As Em7 wisely said, Doves ARE amazing, and I’ve never come across a guitar that records anywhere near as well as my Dove does. It was the only acoustic guitar I used on my most recent record, it’s just perfect under a mic-so articulate and balanced. Gets out of the way of vocals and just fills the gaps in a mix with marvellous musicality. Mine is a ‘95, natural finish top with red back and sides as usual…I LOVE that red burst top though! What a score!