Vintage Guitar Tone Tasting (feat. Wayne Henderson)

[majorminor]

It's an hour long but worth it if you have some time

[Russell Letson]

Only listened to the first pair so far, but the voices of the Martin and Gibson are certainly distinct--what I hear from the Gibson is "growl" (and a strong bottom) and from the Martin a bit of "clang" (prominent treble). While the players' hands might have something to do with that, I think I heard those qualities from both players.

[TKennedy]

One of the guys mentioned how the bridge is relocated more towards the center of the lower bout on a 12 fret instrument but interestingly when Martin introduced the OM they just shortened the upper bout to allow 14 frets so the bridge is in the same place. Both had the 25.4 scale.

I found that out when I built my first 000 12 fret from the Martin plans. It didn’t sound like an OM I think mainly because there was more volume in the body from the elongated upper bout.

[John B]

Oct 10, 2022 21:40:45 GMT -5 TKennedy said:

One of the guys mentioned how the bridge is relocated more towards the center of the lower bout on a 12 fret instrument but interestingly when Martin introduced the OM they just shortened the upper bout to allow 14 frets so the bridge is in the same place. Both had the 25.4 scale.

I found that out when I built my first 000 12 fret from the Martin plans. It didn’t sound like an OM I think mainly because there was more volume in the body from the elongated upper bout.

Norman Blake's signature Martin was an OM body with a 12-th fret join, similar to the 00-18G and 00-28G. The guys at Retrofret explain it much better than I could.

www.retrofret.com/product.asp?ProductID=10841&name=C-F-Martin-00028-Norman-Blake-Signature-Flat-Top-Acoustic-Guitar-2004

[TKennedy]

That is cool, I didn’t know the Blake model had a relocated bridge. Anyone here ever play one?

Here’s my copy of the Martin 000. You can see the elongated upper bout. It also has a 25.4” scale. Bill has one.