GAS report - some of the guitars I've played recently

Cafe Society
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Sorry, I’m a little behind in my GAS paperwork. (Not sure if I should really use ‘behind’ and ‘GAS’ in the same sentence, either.) Anyway, I’ve finally had a chance to compare and contrast the Godin 5th Avenue and its Kingpin cousin, as well as I dropped in on my friend Edward Klein and got to play some of his newest creations. (I also got a Squire Mini Strat for my 7 year old son, but other than its 3/4 scale length, there’s little to recommend it. It will encourage me to learn guitar maintenance, as the consequences of screwing it up are minimal.) Read on if you dare…

I had an interesting conversation with John at Ring Music about the Godins - the two guitars were set up just slightly differently, the main difference being the strings. I really hadn’t taken into account the vast difference between stringing it as an acoustic instrument and as an electric instrument, but of course, you can’t use bronze acoustic strings on a pickup 'cause there’s not enough magnetic resonance there. For a true test of whether the pickup has a significant effect on the acoustic resonance of the soundboard, you’d need to restring it. That being said, touching the soundboard after a vigourous strum on either guitar showed that it was good and responsive.

The other big thing is that neither of the 5th Avenue nor the Kingpin seemed to be a ‘campfire’ guitar. There was nothing wrong with the Freddie Green ‘throb’ on either of them, it’s just it wasn’t quite the sound for ‘Wild Horses’ or ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’; I’d have preferred a more traditional dreadnought Gibson, Guild or Martin for that. But when it came to Gypsy style picking, finger-picking, 4 on the floor, Whoohee! What a sound and what a feel! Either one would be great as a folk jazz country crossover guitar, and with the tone rolled off on the pickup and not much treble on the the amp, it gets that great Herb Ellis kind of ring to it.

I’m right tempted to get the Kingpin and keep both sets of strings on hand so that on a day’s notice, it could be either an electric or an acoustic. There’s also the possibility of putting a piezo in the bridge; I think it’d take too much fiddling to get one in the body. A friend who plays double bass has a piezo that’s flat, kinda like a squared off quarter with a string coming off it - I’ll have to ask him what precisely it is.

There was an earlier thread that I started about Edward Klein’s website - that guitar, the Evolution, has been sold to a US based collector. (WordMan, I’m looking over your way… :wink: ) I hadn’t been to the website since I started that thread, so I asked him if I could play the steel string I saw on the website. Imagine my surprise when he brought out a different steel string that’s been generating a lot of comment - the Ellipse. Well, it’s a beautiful sounding instrument. WordMan, you are bang on when you said in the other thread that coming from a classical background he’s more likely to make fingerstyle instruments, but what an easy-to-play guitar this is. He has deliberately worked it so the tension is the same on each string. I didn’t want to use a pick on it - there’s no pick guard and it’s worth $9,000. CAD. It has beautiful projection on individual notes, though, and the Chet Atkins tune I played on it came through just fine. Ignoring the price tag, this is the guitar that I’d want when I pretend to be John Abercrombie. I coulda played it for hours.

He showed this guitar at the Montréal Guitar Show, and the Guitar and Bass magazine article (PDF warning) picked the Ellipse as one of the top 5 guitars in the show.

We then got into a long discussion about tension of strings on steel strings, and why players like a guitar that makes them work harder. It’s an interesting question, and I don’t have a ready answer - I’m used to a Seagull where the instrument needs the heavier strings to project, but if the instrument projects anyway, why would I prefer the heavier strings? At any rate, Ed’s instruments are beyond my price range at the moment (although the first year I clear $9,000. more than I expected, I’ll buy a new pair of shoes and order another guitar from Ed!), but man! He’s doing some gorgeous work…

At any rate, we are in negotiations for the piano - considering how much effort it was to move in, I don’t want to go through that again; ever! - so after we’re done with that, then I’ll see if there will ever be any money in the requisitions fund. I suspect I have to build some closets before I can even run that idea past the Minister of Finance…

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Aw man - I am just seeing this and have to get ready for a meeting. No real time to comment - other than:

  • Of course you’re right about the Kingpin - you can’t look for a single guitar to cover all the bases, so expecting it to be a Cowboy Chord guitar is probably a bit much. But if it fires on all the other cylinders you say it does, it sounds like a smart buy. I would seriously consider getting one - the ones I have played have really impressed me regardless of price - and they are a great price, too!

  • That Klein - whoa; I normally don’t like artsy guitars all that much, but that one looks very functional in its unconventionality. I would love to try playing it. And from the types of music you were playing on it, I think I would intimidated trying to cover a fraction of the genres you play! :wink:

  • String tension - as I mention in my Guitar Building Project thread - I like the feel to be taut and articulate - I need something to push back at me, especially when I do hybrid picking…

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WordMan - don’t be intimidated - when I say pretend, I really mean it. Me “pretending to be John Abercrombie” is like a kid in a parked car going “VRRROOOM” pretending to be Mario Andretti…

I went back to collect my classical - Ed put a Schatten HFN-C Passive Pickup in it with a Schatten/Ultrasound DI/Preamp to go with it - and I brought along my Seagull, which I proceeded to bash away at to show him what Cowboy Chording is really all about. We then sat there and timed the sustain of individual notes, and compared back and forth the sound quality, the projection. I still didn’t take a pick to the Ellipse, and I doubt I ever will, but it was amazing how much longer it could sustain open strings, individual fingered notes and chords, esp. when the Seagull was vigourously strummed with the pick and the Ellipse was finger-picked. Ed was speculating that the stiffness of the top, with all of its bracing to handle the tension, actually inhibits the resonance.

“I don’t know if I want all that resonance and sustain all the time - what about rapid strumming patterns like “Pinball Wizard”? You wouldn’t play that with the reverb pedal on, why would you want the guitar to reverb that much?” said I.

“What about Gypsy style players? What about when Bucky Pizzarelli does those tremolo strokes and banjo slides his way up and down the neck? They play pretty resonant instruments, too.” says Ed. Well, he’s got a point there.

I’m with you, though - it’s a strange feel when the strings are too loose, and I have a hard time controlling the intonation when one finger is working harder than the others. Maybe I’d get used to it; I wouldn’t mind trying to…

One of his other really interesting points was about the balance of string tensions - he’s engineered the Ellipse to have the same string tension across the bridge, esp. when using a brand of strings that I’ll have to e-mail him to get the name of. We were looking at the D’Addario packs of strings, and he was very unhappy at the differences between the highest and lowest tensions - the Hard tension classicals had 7.53 kg for the highest and 5.44 kg for the lowest. The Extra Hard tension classicals had 7.62 kg for the highest and 5.67 kg for the lowest. And the Phosphor Bronze Bluegrass pack that I use on the Seagull went from 16.69 kg at the highest to 10.57 for the lowest. I hadn’t considered what that kind of difference does to the bridge and neck, but 6.12 kg is quite a difference!

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What you are discussing with Cowboy Chording on a Seagull vs. that handmade Klein is at the heart of the Martin voice vs. Gibson voice that many acoustic players talk about.

  • A Martin voice is typically based on Rosewood* back and sides, which sustain more. So, as the saying goes, Martins sound like church choirs with a lot of sustain and lingering harmonics.

  • A Gibson voice is typically based on Mahogany* back and sides, which don’t sustain as much - they typically have a warm, woody “thunk” to the tone. As a result, each string’s note is more self contained (vs. more blended with a Martin) and the individual notes rub up against each other less. You can stack jazz chords very nicely - and you can strum a bit hard without pushing the guitar into harmonic overdrive. That is why Gibson J-45’s are called “The Workhorse” - i.e., basically the ultimate Cowboy Chord guitar…and Gibson are said to sound like close-in family harmonies vs. Martin’s choir. I get that. Both are wonderful.

All of that is a way of saying, yeah, your comment about the intro to Pinball Wizard is spot on. If Pete didn’t go with a dry, warm, Gibson tone, his aggressively strummed riff would’ve gotten too noisy and clashy.

*for a fascinating listen to how different tone woods sound, check out this threadfrom the Acoustic Guitar Forum - really cool.

As for Gypsy guitars and clean jazz players who get sustain - okay; that’s cool. If you are rockin’ a set of nylon strings (Gypsy playing a Selmer like Django Reinhardt did) or a set of flatwounds at, oh, .13 or even .15 gauge (taut for fast chord work), you can get the amp pretty driven to sustain while maintaining a clean tone - it will “get warmer” but stay in the “clean headroom” zone of the amp. In other words, kinda apples and oranges. ETA: Okay, upon reflection, Django didn’t use an amp, but sustain wasn’t a big part of his fast picking and chord-comping technique…

As for string tension - I get the concept of equal string tension but think I would also file under “apples and oranges”. A classical or traditional fingerstyle player is looking for evenness and balance - they don’t want to favor the bass strings so they don’t overshadow the treble strings; complex contrapuntal harmonic structures need to be heard. Equal tension kinda makes sense from that standpoint.

When I hybrid pick on my guitars, holding a flatpick but using my middle and ring to fingerpick too - I pluck and pop the strings. Then I do a mid-to-bass blues scale run and pull off the 3rd-fret G on the low E string and end on the open E. In other words, I am varying my riff in a way that takes advantage of the varying string tensions. I like the lighter tension of the high strings when I am playing triplets with the pick + fingers and I need extra resistance when I do a low, growly grab of a low E blues lick.

Apples and Oranges…