Blondie

Thanks for your insight, really appreciate it. And it's nice to know that another Gibson fan also has a Martin 000-15 in his collection and feels it can add something. I am guessing the SM version can't be so different in tone, so you must understand me a little when I say this guitar lacks the fullness of something like a Hummingbird. It just feels like a kind of "cheaper" sound in comparison.. Perhaps there are nuances I am missing that will take time to come out. It is definitely an easy guitar to play, I didn't realise there would be a difference in string spacing to my Hummingbird.

I know this topic strays towards the dark side, but please hear me out.. I bought a new Gibson Hummingbird in 2010 (regular version) and it has been my only guitar for 13 years. It has been gigged to death and I've probably played around 700 shows with it. Somehow I have survived on this one guitar as it has been so reliable and I've never needed anything else. Last week I decided I would love another guitar, more for a change than anything else and so I decided I would like to try a Martin. If I'm only going to have two guitars in my locker then owning a Gibson and a Martin seems a pretty good place to be. I decided I wanted not only something I would hopefully keep for life, but also something very different to the Hummingbird, so after doing a ton of research online I thought the 000-15m could be the way to go. I know both guitars share Mahogony, but I wanted something completely different in feel, size, looks, tone, and still classic Martin. I also wanted something really lightweight (I often play 3 x 50 min sets) that I wouldn't be afraid to take out and gig and so I decided to stay away from the high end Martins but thought that $1500 was a good price point for getting a classic guitar but one I would not be afraid to get knocked around a little on the road. I spent 2 hours in the guitar shop and tried everything, and to be honest, nothing really spoke to me. I was hoping for a "wow" moment and to get excited about being able to choose anything and coming home with another dream guitar (Hummingbird was my dream guitar as a teen) and the only guitar I really felt much affinity towards was a Gibson J-45, but that just seemed completely counter intuitive as it went against nearly all my reasons of choice for something new. I thought perhaps I am just so used to my Hummingbird that the J-45 was bound to feel nice.. and I really wanted to own some of that Martin goodness that everyone talks about.. So I made my way to the 000-15m and I quite liked it. On first play it actually seemed to play better than my Hummingbird and I was convinced the action was actually lower than my bird (it isn't) even with just the store setup. I decided to go for it, after all I play mainly solo/duo acoustic with no other instruments and all my research told me this would be the perfect guitar. But now I've gotten it home and I tried it again and I just feel sorta... flat. It feels so much cheaper than my Hummingbird and the tone just feels really thin and almost tinny in comparison... I've decided to live with it, but can't help feeling I've made a mistake. I don't have money to burn by any means. I've heard so many great things about this guitar and I really want to like it, but why do I feel like it is just half of the guitar that my hummingbird is? Am I just too inexperienced to appreciate it? My only other ray of hope is that the guy in store told me they were strung with Elixir strings, I don't have much experience with them but I know they are thin sounding, could that also make so much of an impact?