Jinder

I used to borrow the house guitar at The Bedford in Balham which was a 2004 Dove, and was excellent...in fact the guitar that ignited my love for the Dove. If it's well played, it's probably a good 'un. I'd go along and try it!

My old '97 "Early" J45 was astonishing. Every early to mid '90s Gibson acoustic I've played has been remarkable. Ren once said he felt '95 was the real golden year for Bozeman, when they still had some seriously old and well cured wood stocks and had gotten thoroughly into the groove at the plant.

After three weeks with my H&K Era 2, I can absolutely, unreservedly recommend it. By far the best acoustic amp I've ever owned or used. I've used it for 12 or so gigs and even ran a showcase night with it a few nights ago with a mixer running into channel 3, an act's backing tracks into the Aux input on channel 4, several vocals and acoustics all at once and the tone was stellar-really, really pro.

Wonderful stuff, the Tux L-00 AND the Kel!! That is an absolute dream team. Enjoy...and please give us a full report after they land!!

Hercules every day of the week for me. I've used their guitar stands, mic stands, lecterns and just about everything else of theirs for many years and love them. Superb pro level kit and, in my experience, totally nitro safe.

My friend Marcus Bonfanti (fabulous blues player, check him out!) Uses D'Addario bluegrass gauge strings on his Hummingbird TV which sound magnificent. Basically the bottom three strings from a set of 13s and the top three from a set of 12s.

I think if you're tempted by a Kroyden but worried about issues with an original one, you could do worse than try one of the recent Waterloo Kroyden-based models. I played one recently that my guitar dealer chum Glenn Sinnock has for sale and it left me massively impressed. Not a guitar that suits my writing/playing style particularly, but within its field it was utterly superb. Incredibly lightly built and responsive but felt solid enough to last a lifetime.

That is GORGEOUS. I played a near identical 12 fret Tux L-00 from '33/'34 recently and it was exquisite. I think you'll be immensely happy with this one. Congrats!

I've owned quite a few 12ers, and they certainly can be intimidating, that's a good way of putting it...most I've owned have struggled with general usefulness, they tend to excel in the studio and suck live, or vice versa. One thing I can say for sure is that my Hummingbird 12 is the most stable and realistically useable of them all in any setting. Takamine make a decent 12er too, I very much enjoyed the one I owned but the Bird occupies an entirely different altitude. Mine goes in and out of vans/buses/trains (depending on the type of tour!) and in and out of hot/cold/lukewarm venues, hotels, studios etc and is always pretty much bang on in tune whenever I open the case. It intonates superbly and takes a capo (my G7th Newporter with the stepped pad) like a champ. Just a really high quality professional grade instrument...I'm very grateful to out very own JohnT for the great deal he cut me on it when I bought it from him!

Very much excited for your new arrival! I've owned four Hummingbirds and three Doves over the years, and love them. In my experience, if it has a bird on the front you can guarantee there's great tone inside.

Beautiful. I've always been a Gibson player and they are always my go-to, but have recently developed a real soft spot for Martins. I have a D18GE prototype from 1997 which is magnificent, and have recently put a deposit on a 1970 D35 which is one of the greatest sounding guitars I've ever had in my lap.

Gorgeous J15, and that Martin is a stunner too! Is that a D41?

Nothing is perfect. The very nature and geometry of a guitar dictates that it's slightly out of tune with itself when fretted. Perfection is subjective and is also dictated by the arc of appreciation during the ownership period. Viz: infatuation>honeymoon period>becoming accustomed>becoming overfamiliar>awareness of other potential options Any guitar that survives this and is still in the collection afterwards is as close to perfect as it gets. I have a few that have been with me for some years now and won't be going anywhere (my Custom Shop Hummingbird 12, SJ200, Maple AJ, '67 J45), and I strongly suspect my '95 Dove and '97 D18GE prototype will stay too. I've cycled through a good many guitars over the years and have gradually distilled my collection to things I truly love and appreciate, and that inspire me as a writer.

Fantastic performance Doug! However, what was the sound engineer smoking? There's nothing wrong that a decent mix and some EQ wouldn't fix, and solo guitar and vocal is pretty much the easiest thing on the planet to mix...your performance was stellar but could have been made so much easier on you by a decent/non deaf sound engineer!

I do! Usually the K&K Pure with my '67 J45 but my Boss AD10 does a great job with the 12.

I have a K&K in my Hummingbird 12 which sounds GREAT in it. Absolutely glorious from top to bottom. I'd definitely recommend exploring a K&K for yours if you're unhappy with the Element. I'm personally not a fan of the Element at all, every guitar I've removed them from has sounded better afterwards and massively better with a Sunrise as per most of my 6 strings.

Thanks Cabs!! Really appreciate your kind thoughts. I'm thrilled with the Dove. Em7, I did have a Dove for several years...went through a whole scene with Gibson CS Europe over frets falling out and a warranty claim that was incredibly difficult...I loved the guitar but it was never right after it came back from repair and was traded in with full disclosure for my cherry J180, which was also subsequently traded for my D18GE and '94 L-00. Exceptionally pleased to be back in the aviary and with a mid '90s example. Love these '90s flyers. Billroy, the Maple AJ and Dove are surprisingly very different animals...the AJ is VERY loud, with huge dynamic range and quite an aggressive nature (in a good way). The Dove is smoother, a little quieter and has a little more midrange. It has that lovely natural compression when strummed which is such a Maple Gibson trademark. The AJ doesn't have that compression in its nature due to the bracing, and will get louder and louder as the right hand emphasis increases, seemingly with endless headroom. In my opinion, both are great in their own ways but are distinctly different. The Dove is a fantastic strummer (arguably the AJ's weaker point) whereas the AJ is fabulously defined and articulate for fingerstyle. The Dove is a lovely fingerpicker but the AJ is just so full of spark when played with fingers it's hard to beat

I liked the acoustic version too...my last couple of records have been acoustic based though, and I wanted to do something a little different on this one. This song is more programmed/electronic than anything else on the album, the rest of the record is a lot more organic sounding. On this one it's a live drummer but with most of the live kit replaced with triggered samples in Logic as the "kit in a room" sound wasn't punchy or dry enough, the drum sound remit on this track was 'Springtime' from Donald Fagen's 'Kamakiriad' LP, super dry and tight with an aggressive pop from the piccolo snare. It took a lot of investment to make it sound this cheap!🤣 The next single is being mastered as we speak, we let the drummer stay human on this one...it has a glorious buttering of horns from our man Jim Hoke in Nashville and is a big summery alt-pop thing. Perfect for October 🙈

Hi all, I snagged myself a lovely new guitbox today...a '95 Dove (born on 7th December, the 16th guitar stamped in Bozeman that day!). It plays like butter and sounds beautifully warm and full. Ren once claimed that '95 was the year they really got it dialled in at the Bozeman plant and that it was something of a golden year, so I've been keenly pursuing a '95 Dove for some time. I traded my '41 Reissue SJ100 for it as my shoulder probs make playing a 17" Jumbo difficult, I wanted to keep one (my SJ200) so the admittedly gorgeous sounding 100 drew the short straw. The Dove is outstanding, but has a few mysterious quirks. Firstly, rather than the standard modern Dove bridge, this one has the bevelled '70s style bridge. There are signs (if you look VERY hard) that this bridge is a replacement, but it's done so well and hewn from such a lovely block of Ebony that it's not an issue for me. In fact, the '70s style bridge is what initially attracted me to it as I love the look of them. Secondly, it has an odd label-it's in the right place for the build era (to the right of the centre strip) but it's a Kalamazoo era label which has been completed by hand. On the opposite side of the back, the S/N has been pencilled onto the wood itself very lightly. Also, the S/N on both the label and the back is two digits out, ending in 018 rather than 016. I can only assume that when the bridge work was done, the label was either damaged or came loose and was lost, so was replaced by the person who did the work. The guitar is absolutely, definitely not a fake-I can spot a fake a mile off. It's not a '70s model that's been given a shonky S/N either, as it's single X braced and has the '90s Bozeman era rosette layouts and neck carve. The neck feels identical in profile to my 1990 Hummingbird, although longer scale of course. It's a unique guitar, that's for sure. And I very much like that.

Thanks so much for listening, all! I really appreciate it and very much appreciate your kind words about it. The album is super diverse, which makes this song a bit of a red herring in terms of what to expect! The next single is some sort of horn-driven soul pop thing, but the album runs the gamut from electronic sound design pieces to orchestral chanson...my producer Pete and I had a modest budget for it and wrung the value out of every last penny to make it as lush and dynamically produced as possible. Stuffed to the gills with great Gibsons of course! My last couple of albums have been a bit lo-fi and intentionally "difficult", so it's been massively fun to make a record that people might want to listen to (if we're lucky!) again 🤣 I'm so touched and pleased that you took the time to listen and report back. The song is partially about the end of my marriage and partially about a friend of mine's misadventures in paralysing procrastination...I'm a spontaneous and reactive person by nature but he is at the other end of the telescope, a lovely man but a chronic overthinker to the point that he can barely function at times. He once told me that he wished there was such a thing as Overthinkers Anonymous, as he would sign up in a shot...I suggested he start a group, and he's spent the last three years thinking about it 😏

Hi all, I'm not normally one for sharing my music on the forum but I'm really proud of this one and would love to know what any of you who'd like to take a listen think of it. This is the first single from my forthcoming eleventh album...a landmark for me as I'll have made twice as many albums as I've sold 🤣 The song's called 'Overthinkers Anonymous'. Guitars employed are my Maple AJ, '41 Reissue SJ100, Hummingbird 12 string, '88 Strat Plus and '82 Epi Casino...had so much fun recording this. Produced by the brilliant Peter James Millson.

Not the greatest picture, but here is my '67 cherryburst 45. Superb sounding guitar and one of my absolute favourites.

I've had some nitro reaction to stuff like capo rubbers, guitar stands, straps, allsorts...my guitars are hardworking instruments though and all wear their scars and the miles with pride. I figured long ago that I could either let dings and scratches be what they are or let them drive me nuts...I chose the former!

I've played a few Gospels and loved them. The '70s Maple originals are my favourite but the reissues are excellent too. I just have more of a thing for Maple over Mahogany, and the '70s models are by far the best of the Norlin era output.

Is it a Jackson Browne sig Smeck reissue?