BluesKing777
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Posts posted by BluesKing777
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9 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:
That if f-ing bad @ss.
Could be, you know.....real bad.......it was on the music stand while I was doing something else and out of the corner of my eye I saw........something move! It may have been an eye........😫
And a raven was cawing on the back fence...
BluesKing777.
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When I ordered my deep body 00 custom from my local luthier - many of you have seen it here in these pages, the promise was it would become Gabon Ebony back and sides, Honduran Mahogany 5 piece neck with Rosewood inserts, Ebony fretboard, bridge, faceplate and tuner buttons (Schaller M6 Tuners) and the top was to be the fine Italian 'Moonspruce'........same as used in famous old violins/viola.
So when I asked where the Moonspruce came from, quite a story it was!
The luthier's father had procured enough for one guitar top after travelling to the Italian Alps in 1946 for the secret Moonspruce Harvest during a Solstice coinciding with a Full Moon. (There was a similar solstice/full moon in 2016 but the wood would be too green for a guitar). He had to pass a small test before he could go on - complete a full acoustic guitar to demonstrate his ability and that the Moonspruce would not be wasted. He returned home with his one piece of Moonspruce mumbling to his family about (Guitar) fairies and elven workers...........
So the superfine grain on my guitar looks like there is ....no grain. It had 2 big stains and pen marks on it from the years between and I had it re-painted gloss black last year. It sounds even better!
I mention this because the guitar companies don't use this kind of wood unless they have a Custom Shop top of the line thing going on. And some run-of-the-mill guitars the tops are cut without anyone even looking at them.
BluesKing777.
Cargill Custom guitars Raptor deep body 00 :
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It is 40% humidity at this moment here, but we had a massive thunderstorm Friday/Saturday and a deluge - humidity was 95% (online weather).
It drives my poor guitars insane.
So what happens with the Soundchek plaster stuff in 95%? Will the wall start doing a Salvador Dali?
And PB, I am working on the only computer left on the planet with no sound card, thanks Boss...I will listen later on my Mac laptop.
I remembered one of the worst acoustic guitar sounds I ever had was when they built my house 20 plus years ago and we lived (dog and bird too!) in the out-laws basement in a hillside rumpus room. I thought it was kind of them at the time, but the whole thing with the uncle living upstairs was some kind of comedy and really was an act of sadism to see if we/I cracked. I did, but it was mainly because after driving past my house on my 2 1/2 hour daily commute every morning and nobody was at the house doing any building, well.....seeing red; get home after long drive in traffic and then a nice zip through the country and the stupid uncle can't do a simple thing like....etc, seeing more red....have a microwave dinner, horrid again..seeing red...but the final straw was grabbing my acoustic at the time and sounding....awful. Just the cream on top, eh?
So, it was a large square room with a slate tile floor and a big full length window on the sunny side, room taken up mainly by a full size slate top pool table next to a bar with English taps but no keg, a baby sink, a massive refrigerator and a massive freezer box that sounded like they had V8 engines. And our bed jammed in the corner. And the couch cushions sank to the floor when we sat on it! So after all the driving, I get to sit on the edge of a busted couch and my guitar sounded horrid. I ended up not playing much and yelling at everyone!
All something for me to keep in mind - while my guitars sound good in my music room, the surrounding people are the worst morons I have ever lived near. True. So I have often considered ditching it at a loss and moving.
But what if we move somewhere fantastic and the guitars sound awful? Oh no! (The in-laws/outlaws? place in the country was in a classic retiree to the beach/country area. It is a beautiful area with wineries, beach, everything but we were so tired that we never saw any of it. Most of would happily live there if we didn't have to work....Lotto!!!!!)
Revenge of the Guitar Fairies!
BluesKing777.
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I will take one for the team and get on over to the pawnshop to try a Donmo 'Galvo' they have for sale. even if it is totally unplayable, it could be an art installation....wall? Front doorstep? Back fence? Or..ooh, ooh, ooh as an ornament on the highest gable of the roof!!!!!! Yesssss!! A full statement of intent!😏
I like the one in the website with the old faded red tin roof piece for the cone cover. I tried to copy it to here but I got ALL the guitars he had. I found this other closeup pic online and saved it - really cool! Recycling to the max, eh?
You can play a reso guitar in standard tuning if you get it set up. A lot of players that imitate 20s/30s stuff use old junky National Collegians for the 'clank'...short staccato chops like a uke. But a reso does come alive with slide.
How about some 'Galvo" tricone (3 cones) with this cool dude:
BluesKing777.
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I saw this advertised on TV - I have no idea what it is like but if I was starting again, unlikely but - I would definitely look into building a dedicated space with this kind of board and the associated insulation:
https://www.gyprock.com.au/products/plasterboard-soundchek
If I moved house, for example, surely this stuff wouldn't be that tricky to replace the existing paper thin (read cheapo) wallboard stuff in a music room in an apartment, for example, or a different house?
BluesKing777.
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4 hours ago, Huley said:
Let’s remove cost from the conversation. If you were in my shoes, which path would you take? Which Gibson is the best match for a strumming singer-songwriter who plays mostly in small clubs and coffee houses?
Take a bus, train, plane, walk, bike, hitch....find the nearest guitar shop with a few of these and get there to look/try a few.
You could luck it with one sent to you but it is easier and probably fairer to everyone involved to try them in person at a shop. A few minutes playing a guitar and I know exactly what I think of it...next..next.......next. I went to a shop to try 'A' but came home empty handed and went back another time for 'Z'! (And another time still for the 'Y') 😁
BluesKing777.
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I use to drive rustbucket cars but now I want to play one!
This is just fabulous PLUS there is a 'Galvo' for sale at the pawnshop where I got my Dove!!!
I think I want a Galvo AND a Rustbucket!!!
http://www.donmo.com/Guitarsite/Guitars.html
BluesKing777.
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5 hours ago, j45nick said:
Frame houses where they haven't paid much attention to sound isolation and insulation can be like a big drum, especially multi-story building with open stairwells. The walls pretty effectively "breathe" when they reflect sound waves, just like your guitar body. Studded walls are just framed with two-pin-end columns that vibrate in the middle in most cases.
The morons that built my house would have loved to have made it resonate badly like that, but they didn't know how!
And we picked the 'boutique' model...ha ha ha ha ha ha ahahahahahaha eeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh single story that took approx 40 times longer than the 2 storey next door. At one point, it was at last due for bricklaying and der dum....they didn't have a bricklayer handy.. so they used an apprentice or something and of course, he 'mucked' it up. And on our independent inspection, it was all pulled down!!! So the frame and insulation sat there in the weather for a year until they could get a bricklayer. And when that all appeared unbelievable and we were moving to get a lawyer and our money paid so far back......, I stopped by and they had given up on waiting for a bricklayer and were fitting out the interior!!!!!
So later I got a phone call and asked to come to the site to meet 'Jimmy'. I am sure by now someone is videoing me and I am in a comedy. Jimmy is about 3'6" and is the head of an independent building crew that our builder has hired to finish off the house as they were never ever ever going to meet the extended finish date. First thing Jimmy told me was that he did karate.
And of course, the lawyer I hired was as bad as the building group and had not even looked at the case.
Somehow Jimmy and his gang finished off the rest of the house in approx 1/2 an hour or so and we were notified we were good to go. Ha hahhahahahhahhahah eeeyyyyyyaaahhh.
We had a architect group do a pro inspection, $500 each time they went to site and they furnished us with a list that honestly, looked like the house should be pulled down again! It was unclear if they had remedied anything after months of phone calls and on the final inspection, the inspector took me aside and said the builder had fixed 'some things' but not all. We had a nice chat and he offered the sage advice: "You could go on like this until Doomsday and they will still never get it right - it is 'liveable', so if it was me, I would just move in and get independent repairs done as I can......"
Oh yeah - we were living in the in-laws rumpus room way down in the country and driving to town for work for 18 months while these fool did all this, so of course....
And here I sit in a house still that is probably un-sellable. A really expensive knock-down!
And the lawyer never billed me. After 22 years, I assume he plain forgot about us.
Oh well, it is a roof. There was a crooked man who......
P.S. How does that resonator sound in the boomy parts, PB?
BluesKing777.
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22 minutes ago, E-minor7 said:
Read a post on some Forum where a luthier said he didn't relate to grain because experience had taught him there is no overall pattern to figure'n'follow.
He did the tap-dance however and always let his fingertips cross the floor. Another mystery there, , , tap tada tatap tap tap, , , "aaaahhh yes ! this will make a sublime guitar. . "
Look up Youtube and George Lowden’s fantastic videos about wood choice and he taps each type!
Funny, it under ‘Lowden Guitars’
BluesKing777.
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9 hours ago, PatriotsBiker said:
Indulge me. What are your room dimensions?
I hear you. I fought this tooth and nail. I even considered the previous round over-kill. It's difficult to explain how jealous I am of people who can record something nice without having to do a thing. The modal ringing was so bad that it effected plugged in guitars' tracked tone. Even those rubber sound-hole plugs failed. Electric guitars not even being plugged in caused this modal ringing.
My music room is approx 10ft x 10ft, but a 'built-in wardrobe' takes up almost 2 feet along one wall, complete with fake wood sliding doors! I have contemplated digging out to the property line but it would probably easier to ........eek....sell some guitars........👹
On the other side of that closet wall is a bathroom, sep toilet, laundry...... each would be the same size as my music room except for the hallway that runs to my music room.....(which has a row of guitars in cases on stands). There is a door to my room and also a sliding door at the end of the hallway. On the other side of the hallway is a living space type of thing.
There was an ad I saw for a guitar - computer interface, and the acoustic guitarist was sitting in the middle of fully minimalist totally empty music room and plugged to his laptop. I looked for the ad to show you but can't find it. It left me a little hysterical when I first saw the photo......
Sounds....... to me, my guitars sound 'correct' when playing in this room. The four or five other places in the house that I can play sometimes, probably while next door beasts have gone on holiday, include my TV room (carpet, semi dead room) where I play with on my chair with a window to my left - sounds depends on curtains open or closed. I often grab a guitar while working in my computer area if I am waiting for a call or software fix etc - I get the fully reflected sound of the guitar from the screen and a closet to my right, interesting but a bit deafening with a big guitar....
Before I set up the music room, I would sit on the end of my bed or the chair - this is a great way to kill your neck or back, but now again I do it for 'old time sake'...stare out a window while playing!!!!! ( I sort of miss a house I rented for a while where I sat by these windows in a sunroom on the side of a slight rise - I could watch all the goings on while picking! Of course, I could park by my front window and play if I wanted to but all the local neanderthals can see me and probably want to break guitar, eat the guitar or get me to attempt to teach their little Johnny or Jilly. Being a vampire muso guitarist ex rock and roll and shift worker, back to my music room/cave I retreat!
If the Boss is at work, I can play in the living/reading area facing a back garden. A totally different sound with a big glass window and slider door and fully different with the glass door open. A lot 'smaller' sound. It is nice to sit and play there, but there are a list of garden jobs needing to be done that I can see. I have also seen small faces hiding behind a tree branch watching from over the back fence. They could be interested in learning a bit of guitar but the blood curdling screams and massive amount of noise I hear as they play on their fort or in their pool leads me to believe they would rather break my guitar, eat my guitar or even see if it floats in their pool. More suited to being drummers, possibly. On the next house over is the enemy of recording, drummer, plays in garage with all doors and windows open. Can't play to save himself, lasts only 10 mins before doing a hamstring injury, normally. But if he has been drinking....well.
I use to like playing on/under my back veranda/pergola, totally different sound outside but there are swimming pools in 3 adjacent houses now and the constant ring of pool filters and pumps. Thanks, arsenstikens! There is no peaceful guitar playing out there, unless they are all on holiday!!!! But back to my cave....
Over the years in bands, I did all kinds of thing in studios from demo tapes to projects and a few unpaid sessions. At the beginning, I went from a small Sanyo recorder to a reel to reel to a Tascam with cassette!!! My piano player friend (RIP) caught the 'record bug' from me and bought all kinds of contraptions including Protools and a Mac tower and mics. I was his guinea pig - his gear was in his piano room and I sat in his lounge room in front of a wall of mics and leads...I have played in all kinds of situations but that one made me break out in a sweat. I am telling you this because he would sit there for months editing his recordings , down to microscopic level. For example, he would zoom in on any chair, clothes noise, mouth clicks, hair flicks, rustles and do little fades to hide them. A car backfiring out the front of his house while I was playing/recorded nearly broke his heart!
So I have not the patience for that. I leave the mics on their stand in the SAME place, ready to roll! My mouth noises stay and every recording I have made recently has my chair squeaking at the end! I have enjoyed recording with the mic boom fully extended straight up and the mic pointing down at me....one take, vocal and guitar together. Organic!
BluesKing777.
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I only see the first 4 photos and the rest are blank boxes....
Anyway, is The Band with Bob coming to record or just you?
A guitar friend did all the soundproofing with spray foam so he could have really loud band practice/soundproof overdub and tracking recording. It was sure soundproof but he forgot the air! No air! Halfway though the first band song, nobody can breathe. No air! Smelled awful too.
So even though I can now hear (as I type) the very loud and selfish John Bonham wannabe over the back fence playing the same doom doom doom rat a tat tat, and have screaming screamers all around the street, I haven’t done anything to treat my music room and often play with the door open! My acoustics sound great (to me) in my room because I have a lifetime of my guitar stuff in there as sound deadeners....guitars in cases, amps, mixer, desk, computer, gadgets plus all my music books and dvds are like a soundproof wall! If I sit in my chair, I can spin around to everything.....front is music stand, mic stand, mics, amps with boxes of pickups, leads on top. Floor has preamps, just lean down and plug one or all in! To the left is a row of guitars in cases and a guitar stand for the selected victim and an office /visitor chair with currently a camera in its bag and the guitar bag that the J50 came in folded up, plus my soft leather briefcase to take leads and books and capos etc out.... Spin to my right and I have my mixer, computer, printer, battery supplies, headphones, in ears. And a pile of guitar tab/lyrics/songs that I am working through currently. Under the desk is a box with strings, humidity things etc, and boxes of mics, electronica. Etc. Behind me is a printer, a bunch of tins with with guitar cleaners, polish, inspection mirror, guitar type tools and next to that is a small plank I hammered some nails in evenly to hold my fave slides and bottlenecks.
I have to get up to select a guitar from its case or to select a music book or lead or...but surely I could invent a ‘selector’ ala George Jetson.
BluesKing777.
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7 hours ago, E-minor7 said:
Been looking a bit into this lately. Not really sure what to think or which logic to follow - and it seems there's specific consensus or rule hammered in granit.
It was one of sweet'n'stunning Molly Tuttle's PRE-WAR dreads that me wonder. Been sleep-walking around thinking tight was preferred, but her top is wider than wide.
So what do you think - W or T or T or W ? ? , , , , and why ?
Of course the topic has been up before. Was about to revive this old thread, but it would have prevented the poll.
I voted for tight but that is for Sitka spruce tops.......the Pre War Guitar Company used NEW growth Adirondack tops. These are wide grain because they are newer growth trees because as I have read and correct me if I am wrong, most of old growth Adi was felled for the World War II war effort....mostly for planes, I believe. So the Adi in for example, Pre War Guitar Company guitars is quite new growth, for a spruce tree and probably grown fairly quickly on the sunny side of a hill - hence the wide grain.
The old growth Adi is a big part of the sound of early Martins, no idea about Gibson.
BluesKing777.
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6 hours ago, zombywoof said:
You got my thinking that while I have never been a fan of solid color guitar tops there are two which I would snag. One is an L00. The other an Oscar Schmidt Gambler which Mike Hauver makes an incredible repro version of.
I think if Gibson felt they could compete with Collings at the price point they would. But that would mean at the very least going with a different bracing carve which is something Gibson only has offered with the pricey Legend guitars. But even Colllngs attempts to keep costs under control. They no longer offer that Waterloo WLS Deluxe with the hand rubbed finish which is normally one heck of an upcharge.
And for what it is worth, finding a well done firestripe pickguard these days is a hard row to hoe. It is like it has become a lost art. Here is what I am talking about - the pickguard on my Gibson-made Recording King mandolin.
Exactly, ZW!
My '37:
A 37 in black with fire!:
https://reverb.com/item/29892364-gibson-l-00-1937-black
And a Stella Gambler on Reverb.com (sold):
https://reverb.com/uk/item/20169-stella-the-gambler-1920s-black
BluesKing777.
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I love my 52 for slide but this one here is not a massive bargain after repair...
For example, elderly just got a 1960 LG1 'as is' for $950. (I assume they are making $900 😁)
https://www.elderly.com/collections/flat-top-acoustic-guitars-used/products/gibson-lg-1-1960
BluesKing777.
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L-00 in black with no firestripe - more like they haven't thought of it yet...😁
Or they can't buy a firestripe guard in L-00 size? (some of the new Historics J45 style have firestripe though it runs the wrong direction.....)
Waterloo have managed to get the firestripe AND the WHITE tuxedo guard on their 14 fret AND 12 fret models. Perhaps Gibson doesn't want to compete with Collings/Waterloo for an authentic L-00 style guitar?
Just saying - I personally don't care and am a little bit glad i don't need to buy one! I have the real 1937 Gibson L-0, the Blues King L-00 and 2 Waterloo WL-14..X braced and ladder braced....
BluesKing777.
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Check this cattle dog out! They are incredible.
Sorry to hijack your LG1 thread - I do LOVE mine, really - Open D rules, ok.
But here is the 'best listening dog in the world. supposedly.
BluesKing777.
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This is last year’s model, literally!
Not for sale now, used maybe.
The new ‘Original’ lineup has a 60s J-45 in black with the white pickguard and err....titty logo. But round neck and skinny nut...
Keef is right, black guitars DO sound better! So where is the black SJ200 in the new Gibson lineup? And why doesn’t the new black L-00 at least have a firestripe guard? And why, why, why, is there no ‘Historic’ L-00?
BluesKing777.
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Oh well, forget all that, ditch the others and get a heavily used and fully opened mid 2000 Gibson Dove cherry burst top....
(My Dove has lost its beak....)
BluesKing777.
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1 hour ago, j45nick said:
BK, is she a cattle dog?
Rescue dog, Nick.
But the'adoption' agency person claimed she was half Australian Cattle Dog and half Staffordshire Terrier, so very, very, very clever as in chimp clever, but also does the Staffy excited Woooooooo sounds! In a first, they brought the doggy to our house instead of us hunting the dog pounds. As she walked up our path she went: "Wooooo, this is it! Leave me here, boss!"
Likes guitar, hates the computer and me working....
Frisbee since eaten:
She had never seen the ocean or beach before:
And she has taken up her rightful place as a princess!:
(I had a full Australian Cattle Dog given to me years ago and it could almost talk. It amazed visitors with some complicated tricks ...like me hiding their $20 and the dog coming back with $10! 3 barrel rolls in a puddle and getting the mail from the box were nothing!).
BluesKing777.
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5 hours ago, zombywoof said:
At least the dog did not lift his leg (assuming it is a boy) which be about as profound an opinion as there is.
While it may go against general guitar wisdom, I have found I prefer plastic saddles on my ladder braced guitars. Then again, I also dumped the bone saddle I had put on my '61 Gibson B45-12. and went back to the wood one.
Luckily, it is a girl dog with manners......and a bone saddle/nut connoisseur!
Though my previous boy dog wouldn't have thought much of your plastic saddle and would be ...err..hard to contain.....but probably just show no interest....
BluesKing777.
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Leave it as is and put it in Open D tuning and if you don't know any slide, start now!
My 52 is fabulous in Open D (I may have a 16 on the first string for smoother bottleneck).
In a previous life, I think someone must have sat on it and squashed it flat and someone put it back together and sold it to me expensive (opposite of cheap!!!) and sent it to me airmail in a black guitar bag worth a few cents but with the neck sticking out the top. Somehow it made it........ my dog loves the bone saddle I had put in.......................
BluesKing777.
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Elixir PB Medium 13-56 on my 2005 Dove!
Yesterday, I bought the last 3 sets that I could find in the whole state, the racks are all empty after Christmas, rang them first, sped over but late by the time I got home. So, this morning, a cup of tea before and the 12s I put on when I first bought it late last year are history and my Dove now has tone, tone, tone. The guitar could do with a new saddle - I don’t know what they were hoping to achieve with whatever they were doing, ninkimpoopery for sure, but that new saddle can wait for another day. The Baggs Anthem could get a new bit of sticky putty too - a gentle squeeze now again is needed to stop it rattling against the guitar. ....
But you know, I got it for a 1/4 the new Dove price from a pawnshop, so......it is plain fabulous!
P.S. I thought I read somewhere that Gibson in Japan use to do a lots and lots of special orders, eg a 2005 Dove in cherry like mine or a 2002 J50 that you couldn’t get elsewhere at the time. Correct me if I heard wrong.
BluesKing777.
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43 minutes ago, j45nick said:
BK, who doesn't want "several"? You, of all people, should understand that. At least you're not spending your hard-earned Pacific Pesos on cigarettes, whiskey, and women since you got the urge for more guitars.
How's the guitar fund coming, after your latest additions?
I am waiting for my car mechanic to finish some work on the old "B" car. He is superb but works alone and doesn't answer the phone ( I just rang).
Anyway, if it isn't too drastic a cost for the car repairs, the 2002 J50 will be off to the luthier. Like the mechanic, I left a message and he hasn't called back! But first, get him to do a full inspection. Then a new high density bone nut, saddle and non slotted pins a setup and a Baggs Anthem pickup to replace the horror in it.
And thank the Guitar gods that the new Gibson Historics don't include a 1932 L-00, a dreadful omission on their part but...phew.
BluesKing777.
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Nick wants 'several'!!😁
I would like to have a good try of 'several' too... though I have no idea where I would put them. It would be good if I could rent one at a time for a bit.
Funny, the local acoustic guitar shop has just received a load of the old models, full retail prices. They could only sell those to someone without internet, surely.
BluesKing777.
! Tight or Wide ?
in Gibson Acoustic
Posted · Edited by BluesKing777
I'm not smoking or drinking anything, Nick, just inhaling backwash from the old Dell computer cooling fan?
I was just having some fun putting up the photo of and talking about my black Cargill (with the reflections of the sky through my veranda roof). Another photo of it is a bit scary - it looks like 3 ravens sitting on a telephone line.... But I was talking about the Cargill because that is the only guitar I have or have played with nice top wood, except for the other unmentionable (local) 😠 production guitar with top of the line wood including the only known Triple A Sitka top I have. Certain people tend to froth at the mouth with mention of that one....😆
The other guitars with incredible wood and workmanship (and sound!) I own are Lowdens...WOW!
But sorry, I bought the Gibbies I have for the sound and playability and the tops are...a disparate lot, to say the least. I could almost say that when the guitars were being made, nobody was looking? Grain runout, mismatched tops, non pretty top - yep, everything they had they sold! But the 2005 Dove is in the running for on of the nicest, unusual sounding guitars I have, especially since I put the Mediums on last week! (Elixir PB 13s)...
Oh yeah...I would still be playing L-00s and that ilk if not for the fateful day a number of years back when I traded a number of bottom feeder acoustics and an electronic box for an incredible Lowden S35 at the pawn shop! Nobody wanted it because it had Tommy and Phil Emmanuel's signatures written on the top. But what a sensational playing and sounding guitar!!! The wood is Tasmanian Blackwood over Cedar and this led me to buy my first Maton - a budget model with the same (on paper) timber. And playing these different woods led me to order the Cargill (Ebony/Italian spruce) and other Lowdens and even the cherry red Dove would not have been even looked at (Flame Maple/Sitka)......but again, someone had written all over the top! Made for me, wasn't it? - mine! Keep those textas going people.
Oh yeah, this has all lead me to believe that I like early to mid 2000s Gibsons......preferable with writing on the top.😁
BluesKing777.