Smaller body sized acoustic guitars - any ideas?

[lfm]

To clarify, I'm not saying my Arts & Lutherie is in the same class as a solid wood Martin...my D-15 was well-built, sounded great and was the best-smelling guitar I've ever encountered. Just that the A&L met my needs for a go-anywhere guitar that's comfy, loud enough to be heard over hand drums & other acoustic instruments without an amp, and equally adept at finger/flatpicking and slide.

OK, got it, thank you.
Great to have a new brand up there to have a look at.

[lfm]

Got Recording King RP1-16C today and really, really nice sounding guitar.

But real issue is the fret dressing on it - really coarse surface like you do fret dressing and stop at 800 grit and never do polish, kind of surface. Even feel it with brushing a nail over fretwire.

When I refretted a guitar some years ago - new fretwires does not have this surface.
So must be something wrong with tools used to put fretwires in fingerboard or something.

But I fix this when I swap strings - it is fully playable and only felt if bending a bit.

I can also mention that soundhole is 92mm - so I had to take some material out in Seymour Duncan Woody Hum cancelling and very easy to do. For some reason dimension of soundhole was never specified anywhere.

[Hermetech Mastering]

I'm currently saving for a custom Brook (hoping to visit the workshop at some stage this summer), or a Lowden, but will be going for a bigger sized model. For smaller models on the cheap, check out the Faith range, they do an all solid parlour size guitar (the Mercury model) for under your budget. I've had their FKV Naked Venus model for a couple of years now and love it. You aren't gonna find any cheaper all solid body new acoustics under that price in the UK. Definitely check one out, I've been meaning to as a travel guitar:

https://www.faithguitars.com/guitars/by ... ed-mercury

As for dodgy fretwork, I always factor in an extra £150 or so on the price of any new acoustic guitar for a full luthier setup with fret dress, new bone nut and saddle etc., it makes a HUGE difference to playability.

[lfm]

I'm currently saving for a custom Brook (hoping to visit the workshop at some stage this summer), or a Lowden, but will be going for a bigger sized model. For smaller models on the cheap, check out the Faith range, they do an all solid parlour size guitar (the Mercury model) for under your budget. I've had their FKV Naked Venus model for a couple of years now and love it. You aren't gonna find any cheaper all solid body new acoustics under that price in the UK. Definitely check one out, I've been meaning to as a travel guitar:

https://www.faithguitars.com/guitars/by ... ed-mercury

As for dodgy fretwork, I always factor in an extra £150 or so on the price of any new acoustic guitar for a full luthier setup with fret dress, new bone nut and saddle etc., it makes a HUGE difference to playability.

Thanks for a really good tip.
I did come across the Faith Mercury searching YT for "best parlor" or similar. Definately up there as strong candidates and very affordable too. Found UK shops only - no local shops.

I'm just amazed over the amount of guitar brands out there.

I envie you getting a Brook. Never heard of that either until searching for Ian Anderson's parlor guitar - seems they took over all moulds from Andrew Manson(never heard of either) doing his very first custom made parlor.

I've heard many custom made used by wellknown singer songwriters - and one was made by a swedish guitarbuilder and a model that sounded a bit like bouzouki but shaped like smaller guitar. Really interesting. Don't know what is particular about bouzouki as construction goes - and a bit weird looking at a guitar and it sounds like something else.

I looked at bit at Line6 Variax (4-5 years ago)and if they extended range with more etnic kind of stuff - but it never happened. Nice with a different kind of strings.

[Bombadil]

I played a nice Eastman parlour a while back. Their prices have risen significantly in the last 4-5 years, though.

I've also had the good fortune to know a luthier who has done all my work, including fret dressings, nut filings, the usual. I once bought a Martin that hadn't had a proper fret polish. It was scratchy on the frets, but his work made it perfect. It is an 000-M, and if you see one of these around, you have to try it. I got a good price as it had just been discontinued, and thy can be had reasonably 2nd hand.

[lfm]

I looked at a couple of Eastman from £500 and up - but regular sized.

It's certainly a blessing when you find a luthier that think and reason like you do.

I have both experienced myself and saw load of YT vids that shows luthier work often very prejudiced on how a guitar should be set up. I remember one that had a semiacoustic like 335 on the table - and just stated that "this type of guitar should have at least 013 string set, that's why owner had buzz issues". I consider that BS myself.

I also seen locally luthier with pics of bone nuts they made - and clearly showed how different distance between strings(not same open space between) - so I cancelled my appointments with that guy. If they are sloppy with those kind of things - it's better to learn to be selfsufficient on as much as possible. So do everything up to refretting nowadays. Neck reset is where I send it away.

And experiment a lot is fun.

I read up a great deal on Leo Kottke lately, like his sound - and found that he run 013 and downtune guitar to C#(3 steps) and getting that almost a little wobbly tone, or how to discribe it. Really nice.

So I tested on my new RecordingKing RP1 - with 012 strings and just do one step to D#. And really liked how warm it became, and getting a little looser feel on strings since tension is lower. And if wanting regular tuning you just put a capo on first fret.

I will do a custom light 011-052 on this guitar(Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor bronze) and see what I prefer - to do regular tuning or use 012 downtuned a step.

Many open tunings for slide use a couple of downtuned strings two steps - so will see how it sounds and feels - with 011-052 - might be on the lite side.

So this new guitar is more for experimenting with tunings than the D16.

[JCJR]

I don't know a lot about guitars. Somewhat confused listening to the earlier small-body guitar examples, because there didn't seem any tonal similarity-- Some of them sounded full bodied, some light and transparent, some "rhythm guitar prominent midrange".

So I wonder if looking for a size spec or a tone spec?

A slightly reverse situation I noticed maybe 15 years ago shopping for good mid-price ac guitar-- Auditioned a lot of korean-manufacture ac guitars, different company names, different body styles, in the $500 price range. The strange thing at that time seemed "quality control run amuck". All the guitars played real well for the money and sounded good. But they all basically sounded the same regardless of body style. The Jumbos and dreadnaughts and cutaway styles, all about the same tone. You couild have stuck a good mic in front of any of them and got about the same results as any other model just with some minor tone knob tweaks.

I had a certain tone in mind, finally got a cedar-top steel string Canadian Seagull guitar with the "mellow balanced" tone was looking for.

While recording at that time, the guitarists had a high-end Takamine with bright sparkling tone, and an antique small body martin with a shimmering "transparent" tone. That Martin, you could bring it up loud in the mix without masking other instruments. You could "hear thru" the small body Martin tracks to the other instruments being played. So I had been looking for a tone "in the middle" between those, for multi-tracked ac guitar rhythms with good "texture". The Martin sounded beautiful but if you wanted a "midrange rhythm" or "steel brilliance wall of sound" then just EQ and Mic placement wouldn't (IMO) be sufficient to get that tone out of the small old Martin. It was beautiful for what it was beautiful at. Similarly, I doubt there would ever be a way to EQ that Takamine to sound anywhere in the same ballpark as the little Martin,.

Dunno if a "shimmering transparent" tone is what you always get with antique small body Martins, or whether people expect some other tone out of small body guitars.

Maybe pick the tone one wants then look for the guitar that expresses the tone? Given my old experience auditioning "quality control gone amok" Korean ac guitars where the jumbos sounded the same as small cutaway guitars, I'm wildly guessing that a "transparent" sound might come out of any size or shape guitar, depending on its materials and construction. And similarly a "steel brilliant" sound, or a "midrange rhythm" out of any size or shape guitar, depending on materials and construction? Dunno. Just wild ignorant guessing.

[lfm]

Thanks for an interesting read, JCJR.

I had my Martin D16GT for 12 years and it was close to needing neck reset, so I sent it to Martin Service Center. While having no acoustic here, I started to look for possible replacement of that if reset or work on it would cost more than I was prepared to pay.

So I spent a month looking for replacement first.

After getting the D16 back, and no charge, I continued to look for something to complement Martin, on the brighter side. I looked at Taylor, being more bright - all the way up to the $4000 range. Recorded same models from two shops locally that hade really large set of acoustics in shop. Brought my own mic and preamp with DPA mic as well as recording the internal in guitar - in stereo.

But same model of Taylor sounded so different - it was not a nuance, it was completely different. Always thought going up in price at least what you get is consistency - but that was not the case at all. I'm still thinking of one of them - but a bit back and forth. Should I spend what I did on a Gibson LP+335 together on an acoustic?

Then looking at Ian Anderson smaller size in a Jethro Tull concert dvd I listen to now and then - I felt this could be it. Absolutely lovely tone dispite being so small. But not being off the shelf - pricetag is a bit up there.

So started to go through these smaller size bodies. A little wider neck, more suited for fingerpicking, trying to get that up to par with rest of playing with pick. Different open tunings for slide etc.

Started to do photo/video and make music for that - very different approach compared to writing songs. So guess it all is a search and will take experimenting as well. This RecordingKing was in a price range that allow experimenting and see what it brings. A little less low end - and would nicely complement doubling with Martin as well in songs. But for video, less is more, kind of - you don't want to dominate with too big arrangements. More contemplating style, I guess. Mostly time lapses and nature stuff.

So ideas you have practising on various instruments a more suited for video and others for songs. So in general you look for tools, I think.

Ten years ago I said to myself - now I have everything I need in my studio - yeah right. There is always something to improve. And new tools let you go in different directions and see what that brings.

Right now it's a lot of fingerpicking and getting right hand fingers in better shape. And it will bring improvement for finger bass playing as well. And will be slide with open tunings as well.