Interesting Gruhn Quote re New-Vintage

[Rambler]

George Gruhn opining (St Johns, Clapton's Guitar): " old instruments had to project [no mikes]. IF you are playing..in a studio, volume is irrelevant (just twiddle a dial). Studio players want guitars .. with no string louder than another... [the result?] " acoustically miserable. Poor volume, poor projection." Did I happen to mention Tayalor. Nope, not me.

[BluesKing777]

I like both!

 

I like an old vintage guitar, but nothing beats a lovely shiny new guitar!

 

 

BluesKing777.

[Rambler]

I like an old vintage guitar, but nothing beats a lovely shiny new guitar!

Guess I wanst clear. Point wasnt so much vintage is better [too many headaches with vintage for me to go there]. It's just that a lot of modern guitars are built in a way that isnt very... dynamic (flat EQs). I picked on Taylor, but they arent the only ones. A new git in the vintage style, like a Martin OM, is going to project. Is going to have a broader dynamic range. Like an old git, its made for playing live, not to a microphone in a studio.

 

Threw that out their because it gets at something we like in Gibsons and find lacking in other brands.

[EuroAussie]

I like both also, it all comes down to the individual instrument. Ive played both crappy vintage and new guitars, including many Gibsons.

[chasAK]

I agree on the "flat EQs" part. When I was looking and played a j45, I said, that's the kind of sound I'm looking for. Those slope shoulder hogs are great and Gibson makes one of the best.

 

chasAK

 

 

[tpbiii]

Randy Wood told us a story about studio guitars. (If you don't know who he is, it was a partner with George Gruhn and Tut Taylor -- the company was GTR -- George Tut Randy. Randy ran the repair shop in the early 1970s -- he was the guy Tony Rice flew to see when he bought the Clarance White guitar.)

 

Randy says that in the 70s there was a studio engineer in Nashville who was THE MAN -- he said the name, and he thought I would know who he was, but I didn't. Maybe someone here might know.

 

Well, this guy hated dreads and Js -- story is he would throw you out of you arrived with a big flattop. He had a small 00 or something that he made everyone play on all those 70s country hits.

 

Well, Randy got together with him to design a new studio guitar that made the engineer happy. Like the Jay Rhyne guitar described in this old ad, his goal was to make the guitar easy to equalize and that, he says, means uniform across the fretboard.

 

Well according to the story, Randy built 10-20 guitars, one at a time, with no decoration at all. The were experiments for a studio guitar -- after each was built, off it went to the studio for testing, and changes were incorporated into the next model.

 

Well Randy still makes those guitars and we have one -- a custom made for Ron Petersen, the Nashville songwriter and studio musician. Our guitar has the body shape of a '39 J-35 -- which is just the standard late 30s and beyond Gibson J shape. It is Adi over Cuban mahogany -- with Randy's custom bracing. The reason I have it is because when it came available, it sort of blew me away in the following sense. It is no BG guitar -- they are certainly not uniform across the fretboard. But for my other style, ragtime/Gospel with finger picks, it was better than anything I had young or old. The Cuban mahogany tone is between RW and mahogany, and I guess that uniform tone is what I want for my fingerstyle. I am told it is similar in tone to high $ boutique fingerstyle guitars, but that is outside my experience area.

 

The guitar it replaced as my favorite ragtime/gospel guitar was our '43 J-45 -- but I still like those banners pretty well.

 

Here are some pictures.

 

 

Best,

 

-Tom

[mountainpicker]

This is a great thread. That projection has been one of the main attributes I have looked for in a guitar...without kinda knowing why. Since the J body style predates the pickup systems that came later it makes sense that having that projection was what they were about. I just tore the electronics out of my J45 and I feel better about that guitar and that decision all the time.

But the Rhyne guitar shown here is stunning. I love 12 fret guitars and find this one to be pretty tasty. I wonder if the few 12 fret SJ's that are around compare tonally?

[mountainpicker]

Correction: it's a Randy Wood guitar not a Rhyne as I mentioned, but still the same guitar as shown and cool too. Interesting that they went to a J-body style in light of the rejection of that shape earlier in the description.

[tpbiii]

Correction: it's a Randy Wood guitar not a Rhyne as I mentioned, but still the same guitar as shown and cool too. Interesting that they went to a J-body style in light of the rejection of that shape earlier in the description.

 

Well, the thing to remember is that all that experimenting was done in the 1970s for a technology which I assume is mostly long gone. I gave the Rhyne story to show the historical perspective on the issue Gruhn was discussing and the story Randy told us.

 

Randy now builds guitars for studio musicians on a custom basis based on the principles he developed long ago -- he considers it his personal bracing approach. This was a custom order and I assume he built Ron what he wanted -- Ron is on the Martin forum, but I have never seen him here or he might comment. Randy is best known for his mandolins of course, which are used by a lot of traditional bluegrass players. Our guitar as a state-of-the-art pickup system -- wasted on me I guess, but I even plugged it in once on a gig in Canada:rolleyes:. So I don't know how this all maps onto the modern recording process -- maybe someone here can comment.

 

But this is no J-35/45 and it is no D-28/18. It is a Randy Wood guitar I guess, and not a clone from the past. I never thought we would buy a new guitar, but this one got us. For us Randy has built a banjo neck and has renecked a Roy Smeck Radio Grande -- as well as repairing a lot of our vintage stuff. We are so pleased to know him.

 

Best,

 

-Tom

[fp]

Tom, what is Ron's handle at the UMGF ?

[tpbiii]

Tom, what is Ron's handle at the UMGF ?

 

 

ronsongz

 

[Smurfbird]

Thanks for sharing. Info like this makes this board a must-read.

[Del Nilppeznaf]

Yeah, interesting thread.

 

I think a lot of modern players are happier with a more balanced guitar, with the ease of home recording and advances in amplification, unless you are playing purely acoustic music..blue grass ect..I think a lot of people want a guitar that is going to sound good when plugged in , and is easy to record.

 

My HB TV is just a joy to record..and as EA regularly testifies...it's his favorite for gigging because it sounds so good through the PA. It is not the loudest of guitars... but it's a very sweet balanced tone.

 

That being said.. we know a lot of sound engineers can be finickity fellows .... but a good engineer will be able to capture a good sound out of a good guitar... though of course some will sit better in the mix than others.

A true cannon of an acoustic guitar is probably not the best for playing through a PA or recording.. but great for a pure acoustic setting. I have played acoustically a fair bit in various public house .... and I'll take some amplification any day.

 

Tom

 

thats another beautiful guitar you have. It must be something special for you to forestall your vintage predilection.

[j45nick]

 

Well, Randy got together with him to design a new studio guitar that made the engineer happy. Like the Jay Rhyne guitar described in this old ad, his goal was to make the guitar easy to equalize and that, he says, means uniform across the fretboard.

 

It is Adi over Cuban mahogany -- with Randy's custom bracing. The reason I have it is because when it came available, it sort of blew me away in the following sense. It is no BG guitar -- they are certainly not uniform across the fretboard. But for my other style, ragtime/Gospel with finger picks, it was better than anything I had young or old. The Cuban mahogany tone is between RW and mahogany, and I guess that uniform tone is what I want for my fingerstyle. I am told it is similar in tone to high $ boutique fingerstyle guitars, but that is outside my experience area.

 

The guitar it replaced as my favorite ragtime/gospel guitar was our '43 J-45 -- but I still like those banners pretty well.

 

 

 

Best,

 

-Tom

 

 

Interesting and very practical pickguard configuration on that guitar, given the wear patterns we often see on guitars that are fingerpicked with metal picks, or aggressively flat-picked near the bridge for maximum sharpness of attack and minimum sustain.

 

Like a lot of folks my age who started stand-up playing when you might have a vocal mic but no guitar amplification, I started fingerpicking with metal fingerpicks back in the 60's, and have actually gone back to that now that I've started fingerpicking again. You get volume and sharpness of attack without having to dig in quite so hard, whihch lets you play a bit faster (think banjo pickers). Unfortunately, this type of picking can be a bit hard on the top of the guitar, especially when using a long thumb pick.

 

It's interesting that he chose Cuban mahogany, which is not that common if it is the real thing. It is also pretty difficult to identify when comparing it with other Swietenia species, but is certainly the king of mahoganies. I believe almost all of the currently-used true mahognaies are now plantation-grown in southeast Asia, as they are protected in their native habitats in the Americas.

 

I considered planting a couple of mahogany trees in my yard a couple of years ago to atomne for the thousands of board feet of mahogany I have turned into boat parts, boat furniture, scraps, and sawdust over the decades, but decided against it after realizing that all I would do would be to watch them grow in anticipation of the day I could cut them down to make into more furniture. My "green" credentials aren't very good when it comes to making stuff out of endangered tropical hardwoods.....

[zombywoof]

I have always wondered though if what is involved is that most folks seem to equate a brighter sounding guitar with a louder, more detailed and and oveall better sounding guitar. I also think builders know this and design their bracing to bring this out in a guitar.

[j45nick]

I have always wondered though if what is involved is that most folks seem to equate a brighter sounding guitar with a louder, more detailed and and oveall better sounding guitar. I also think builders know this and design their bracing to bring this out in a guitar.

 

 

It can be a fine line between "bright" and "brittle" and lacking a reasonable level of balance. Fortunately, most Gibsons don't have that issue when you compare them with a lot of modern guitars.

[tpbiii]

Hi Tom,

 

thats another beautiful guitar you have. It must be something special for you to forestall your vintage predilection.

 

True. Obviously, we love the clarity of an aged guitar and will always go that way if we can. However, (and I guess it is sort of pitiful in its own way) we are quite familiar with the tonal characteristics of a lot of American vintage guitars, and none of them really sounds similar to this guitar. We are not familiar with the modern boutique guitars that knowledgeable people claim this one resembles. We recently took a trip to MA and went to the Music Emporium with our friend Cambridge flat-picker Tony Watt. We went to look at, and talk about, vintage stuff -- and that is mostly what we did. But then the store guy, who was a friend of Tony's, offered to show us a high end fingerstyle guitar from CA -- I'm sorry I can't tell you the maker. Well, the guitar reminded me a lot of the Randy Wood guitar -- particularly the uniformity of tone -- I had the Randy Wood guitar with me on the trip but not at the store, which would have been nice. Tony, who is all about power flatpicking and does it about as well as anyone, rejected the guitar because it did not have the power mid-range he depends on so much in his style -- he has to project.

Here is a cut of Tony playing on a show with us last summer -- pro bono work I would say[biggrin]. That style is what drives BG guys to the old 30s Martin and Gibsons and their modern copies. That is a '37 D-18.

 

Another point about the Randy Wood guitar is more emotional. We could not own all our vintage guitars without close access to Randy Wood -- with all his expertise and reputation. His friendship means a lot to us, and having something he built is very appealing to us for that reason.

 

Interesting and very practical pickguard configuration on that guitar, given the wear patterns we often see on guitars that are fingerpicked with metal picks, or aggressively flat-picked near the bridge for maximum sharpness of attack and minimum sustain.

 

Hi Nick,

 

The pickguard is specifically for fingerstyle guitar -- Ron Petersen is a fingerstyle player. Obviously, it protects the area under the strings which can be damaged with metal fingerpicks, I only fingerpick this guitar. Like you, I use both bare fingers and fingerpicks. When I play without picks, my hand floats, but when I use fingerpicks, I either plant my little finger on the pickguard (ala banjo style) or I plant my palm above the low E string on the top to allow damping (ala Mose Rager and Merle Travis). This last technique leaves a greasy spot on the top that ultimately can damage the finish (I guess I am a greasy guy[biggrin]) -- on the Randy Wood guitar, that area is covered by the guard.

 

It's interesting that he chose Cuban mahogany, which is not that common if it is the real thing. It is also pretty difficult to identify when comparing it with other Swietenia species, but is certainly the king of mahoganies. I believe almost all of the currently-used true mahognaies are now plantation-grown in southeast Asia, as they are protected in their native habitats in the Americas.

 

Well, like a lot of old time luthiers, Randy collects and stores wood. Apparently he had enough Cuban mahogany in storage from long ago to build three guitars. He is good friend with Ron Peterson, and when the Ron custom came up, he went to the vault. He built a batch of three, so I guess it is all gone now.

 

Everything reminds me of a story. Last week, we visited John Arnold -- another iconic luthier. When we were leaving, we noticed his carport was full of new logs. Well, it turns out they were a freshly cut spruce tree and cherry tree which he had cut down that morning -- from Raymond Fairchild's front yard.

 

You could not make this stuff up -- no one would believe you!

 

Best,

 

-Tom

[onewilyfool]

I hear that sound engineers don't like guitars with boomy basses (Martin Drednaughts) uncontrollable ringing overtones (i.e.. Goodallls), just makes balancing the recordings just too difficult.

[j45nick]

I hear that sound engineers don't like guitars with boomy basses (Martin Drednaughts) uncontrollable ringing overtones (i.e.. Goodallls), just makes balancing the recordings just too difficult.

 

 

Lots of harmonics are a pain in the tail as well.

[BluesKing777]

A friend that did a bit of sound recording(he unfortunately didn't make it past the Cancer) would spend a lot of time on EQ - an EQ Perfectionist possibly. He thought a Martin Dread was one of the hardest to get right and my metal Dobro one of the easiest.

 

He would sometimes come over to my place with one of his current projects on a cd to try out on my bottom-of-the-line blue boombox because he thought that was about as low as he could go, and a nice double check after using all his hitech reference speakers.

 

 

When I do my amateur recording, if I play a dread, it sounds fine to me until I play a cd copy in my car - the offending EQ rattles the car speakers while no pro recording does. Absolutely no problem with my Blues King or LGs - straight to disk, no rumble.

 

The J45 seems ok too! Must be the slope shoulder....

 

 

BluesKing777.

[onewilyfool]

George has a vested interest in lauding and pushing vintage guitars. That being said, I know two people who have bought from him, and they say he is very good to work with and honest, THIS in contrast to the Marin County Vintage guitar show, Ive been to several times, where most of the guitars are just OLD. That is their only claim to fame. They don't sound good, they don't play well, and they need neck resets, refrets, crack repairs, and amazingly, they are all priced at high blue book value from Vintage Guitar Magizine Pricing guide (one of the sponsors) or the George Gruhn Price Guide....surprising, right? AND, you get the added joy of working with salesmen who make used car salesmen seem like boy scouts. I don't go anymore, period. If you can find an honest vintage guitar store who prices their guitars fairly, and either discloses all the stuff that has been done to the guitar, or needs to be done, OR gasp, actually DOES the required work before selling, then that source is gold. Otherwise, buyer beware!

[onewilyfool]

Spam spewing gold selling spammers!!!

[bobouz]

George has a vested interest in lauding and pushing vintage guitars. That being said, I know two people who have bought from him, and they say he is very good to work with and honest, THIS in contrast to the Marin County Vintage guitar show, Ive been to several times, where most of the guitars are just OLD. That is their only claim to fame. They don't sound good, they don't play well, and they need neck resets, refrets, crack repairs, and amazingly, they are all priced at high blue book value from Vintage Guitar Magizine Pricing guide (one of the sponsors) or the George Gruhn Price Guide....surprising, right? AND, you get the added joy of working with salesmen who make used guitar salesmen seem like boy scouts. I don't go anymore, period. If you can find an honest vintage guitar store who prices their guitars fairly, and either discloses all the stuff that has been done to the guitar, or needs to be done, OR gasp, actually DOES the required work before selling, then that source is gold. Otherwise, buyer beware!

Totally agree with this. I've been to one guitar show, and it was my first & last.

An utter waste of time, and you described it to a tee.

Rooms full of beat up stuff at full bore prices, and everyone trying to jive their way to a sale.

Part way through, I was shaking my head at the spectacle of it all,

and was so glad to not be one of those poor souls sitting behind a table.

[aliasphobias]

I have always heard that it is easier to put stuff in than take stuff out, when it comes to recording guitars. That makes sense to me, so it would make sense to lean more towards the balanced guitars.

As for "guitar shows" I completely agree with those above^. I went to a local one years back and traded an ES-150 for an almost new J45. It was embarrassing the way the dealers swarmed anyone with a guitar case. I thought it would be fun to take an empty case and just walk around, refusing to open it until you see something you're interested in, try to leave without opening it. Maybe get to the parking lot and "discus" throw it about 20 yards.

[tpbiii]

I have always heard that it is easier to put stuff in than take stuff out, when it comes to recording guitars. That makes sense to me, so it would make sense to lean more towards the balanced guitars.

As for "guitar shows" I completely agree with those above^. I went to a local one years back and traded an ES-150 for an almost new J45. It was embarrassing the way the dealers swarmed anyone with a guitar case. I thought it would be fun to take an empty case and just walk around, refusing to open it until you see something you're interested in, try to leave without opening it. Maybe get to the parking lot and "discus" throw it about 20 yards.

 

This tread is wandering around a bit -- personally I don't find that to be bad, but it can lead to some confusion I think,

 

George Gruhn's original quote was about vintage guitars, acoustic power, and recording/sound reinforcement. Those particular comments match very well both my own expereice with vintage instruments and the opinions of many musicans I have known over the years -- I am taking mostly bluegrass musicans here where acoustic power and cut are a requirement. Functional sound properties were the original reason musicians started seeking out old instruments. I think if that original sound-based desire was not there, the vintage guitar market would certainly not developed as it did -- maybe it would have not developed at all.

 

But if there is a demand, then generally some kind of retail commerce will develop to provide a supply. Retail dealers in vintage stuff is sort of a oxymoron I think -- the work retail applies much more naturally to the markets for new stuff. But of course it happens all the time -- people desire and collect everything from stone age artifacts to pez containers, and there are often well formed markets that form around this demand.

 

I agree that the acquisition of good vintage instruments can be a challenge, and there are several pretty well formed markets out there. There are high end, relatively knowledgeable dealers who are pace setters and whose word about the condition of the instruments can be generally trusted. They provide a good service if you are trying to find rare instruments, but in the vintage guitar market today, the main sources of big $s are from the collector side of the market -- high end retail dealers do definitely have a motive to push prices up and up. In my experience, they actually have only a small fraction of the high end market -- that mostly occurs directly among musician/collectors and a few well known brokers.

 

In the early days, Ebay was a great source of interesting stuff -- it still can be, but it is quite dangerous today in my view.

 

The shows, which are usually a collection of big dealers, small dealers, and amateurs, have evolved greatly over the years. It was a carrion market in the early days -- I know of one (still active) dealer who use to travel to a show and stop along the way buying guitars from pawn shops with bad checks. He then went to the show, sold the guitars, and had the money in the bank on Monday morning in time for the checks to clear. Of course, in those days, you could buy the guitars from the pawn shops yourself -- we did a lot of that.

 

Early shows were exciting, if somewhat sleazy, places -- but gradually they ran their course and became less and less interesting. Basically, the good stuff got sucked out of the closets and did not keep appearing at shows. Shows began to lose momentum, and for us they just became less and less interesting -- no instruments to seriously consider. I think it would be naive to expect retail standards at a guitar show -- more like flea market standards.

 

We did go the Gary Burnett's Spartanburg show a few weeks ago, and I was pleasantly surprised. I bought the guitar I came to see (love NGDs), but I also saw many old friends, met some new ones, found a surprising array of dealers (many from the NE -- that is new in my experience), saw quite a few serious guitars (we only look at vintage flattops), and saw an Almcrantz and OPF 9717 Studio King banjo -- how cool is that.

 

We don't get to set the markets -- we just have to use them to our advantage when we can. No point to whining about them -- they are what they are, and they are definitely an opportunity if you work at it.

 

I think to function in today's vintage guitar markets, you have to educate yourself and/or have access to appropriate expertise -- like the Australian outback, it is no place for greenhorns.

 

America vintage flattops, particularly those from the 30s, are sonic treasures. They have also been great investments -- done right, you get to have your cake and eat it too. But no one can say it is easy.

 

Best,

 

-Tom