General Music Chat

​Drove to St. Louis yesterday to meet up w someone who was selling an '87 Guild D-15-12. Big dreadnaught​ all mahogany 12 string. As many of you know I'm a big time Guild guy so I was pretty excited to find a Westerly Rhode Island Guild from this era for a good price. ($550)

The guy didn't want to meet at his house since this was a c-list hookup. I suggested we meet at a Guitar Center because they had a used Breedlove CM-250/12 in stock w case for $450.

I got there first.....spent some time checking out the Breedlove, a Taylor 150E/12, and a comparably priced Martin 12. Was real impressed w the playability and tones (acoustic and plugged in) from the Breedlove.

Then the guy showed up w his Guild and it didn't make the cut. He was pretty pissed and bitched about having to travel 45 min to get there...."yeah buddy? it took me TWO HRS to get here!" I'm still not sure why he had it in his head that i was automatically gonna buy his gtr....hey, if i liked it...well yeah, i would have bought it. Duh.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to doing some recording w this little guy. If i get anything good together I'll be sure to share.

In the mean time I did record some short phone video to share.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQNrn4h54O8&feature=youtu.be

coincidentally, I was shopping guitars at two different music stores in Springfield today, was getting low on foam peanuts for packaging so had to drive in to get 2 sacks of foam peanuts at Springfield Paper Co.. well I thought, since I am in town I might as well check out Hoover Music and was shopping for a C10 Cordoba but all they had at Hoover (near Mo. State) was a 279.00 $ Alvarex gut string, played nice but tone was less than stellar, so I drive on down to southside and check out a Cordoba JET 12 and a Cordoba C5.. the Cordoba JET 12 was decent but internet reviews telling me lot more bang for the buck with a C10, liked the JET12 but at 500.00? and harder to reach 14th fret notes no cutaway, but dealer said hard to stock guitars over 500,00 because any thing higher priced is slow movers.. probably should have went on down to Guitar Center but time was getting away from me..

do you mind if I ask, why the Guild did not make the cut? was the neck crooked? was the tone tinny?

the Guild had no structural issues that i was able to discern. it simply came up short in the two most important areas that i measure an instrument by....tone and playability.

after playing the other instr i mentioned above, the Guild had a very "blah" and boxy tone. it also had a huge baseball bat of a neck. great for standing up to all that tension of 12 strings...but not so great from a playability standpoint.

that all mahogany Guild D-15-12 was one of their "lesser models" that they only made for a few yrs. it really had a very cheap look to it.....the sides and back are laminated but i suspect the top might be as well....the fact that there was almost no grain pattern to it gave it a very cheap look too.

don't get me wrong, i have nothing against all mahogany gtrs....i LOVE my '36 MARTIN 0-17...but that Guild was just lifeless.