NAMM report - Acoustic Guitars

Mark Wein

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
I'm not the biggest acoustic guy but for me the highlight of what I did play happened to be made in China. :eek:

Recording King Guitars

"Best in Show" for me acoustically:

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Another great cheap guitar. I would have bought both of these instruments on sight if I had more than $40 in my wallet :embarrassed:

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Scott found his true calling:

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Another good dreadnought:

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As usual I hated everything at Martin.

My annual $30k guitar stinkface picture:

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The other guys stopped by Bourgeois and Collings and told me that they played some pretty nice guitars while I was doing my interview but I didn't have time to get back there...
 
those Recording King guitars are supposed to be really good. and not just "for the money". i'd like to try one.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
those Recording King guitars are supposed to be really good. and not just "for the money". i'd like to try one.
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I honestly thought they were the best acoustics I played all day. Not that I played a ton of other builders but I liked them enough to get a dealer app and both Scott and Martin (who both know what "good" sounds like) are buying them.

Kicked the shit out of any of the Martins for sure.
 
Martin = BLOW ME
Those Recording Kings were as good as you can get short of a Collings or Bourgeois.
The only question I have is: Are they ALL this good or just the ones on the wall at NAMM?
Next year I'm bringing $2000 cash to NAMM!
 
Prages said:
There's way too much fucking abalone in this thread. :mad:
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pretty much.



El Borrachito said:
Martin = BLOW ME
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yep. I haven't played an instrument worth the money from them in years.
El Borrachito said:
Those Recording Kings were as good as you can get short of a Collings or Bourgeois.
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I wish I had been with you guys when you went to Collings and Boureois :(
El Borrachito said:
The only question I have is: Are they ALL this good or just the ones on the wall at NAMM?
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I guess I'll be finding out. Hopefully they aren't the "good batch:" for the show.
El Borrachito said:
Next year I'm bringing $2000 cash to NAMM!
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I could have spent at least that at Performance Guitars and Radio King.
 
I have played probably a good hundred Martins over the years and they have ranged from nice but uninspiring to crap.

But - I have played a couple that were pure secks! One is a OM42 owned by a guy out here in Colorado who owns a bunch of very high end guitars (Collings, Goodall, Kinscherff, McCollum, etc). This particular Martin blows them all away. It is utterly unreal. The second was a Clapton Sig model I played at GC about 6 months ago. I've played several of those models and they were all pretty much 'meh'....but not this one. It just rang. It was unbelievable. But the are the exceptions. I don't get the Martin mystique at all.


And I agree with Prages about the abalone overload. Especially on that one Martin. Gawd that looks hideous!

Those Recording King guitars look a lot like the Blueridge line. I wonder if they have the same builder?
 
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What was it about Martin that bugged you, Mark?

(Not that I'm a fan, just curious).

I personally love my Larrivee acoustic. I find Larrivees a lot more balanced than Martins.
 
Puckman said:
What was it about Martin that bugged you, Mark?

(Not that I'm a fan, just curious).

I personally love my Larrivee acoustic. I find Larrivees a lot more balanced than Martins.
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None of the guitars ever sound worth the price tag. Mediocre guitars for custom instrument prices.
 
Mark Wein said:
It's become a tradition that every year I go play a guitar that is at least $30k to hear how lame it sounds.
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I've only played one guitar that cost near that much. It was a limited edition Lowden, I believe a 20th anniversary model or some such occasion. It had the wickedest Brazilian rosewood I have ever seen for the back and sides, and a very old piece or spruce for the top. It was flat out gorgeous and sounded like heaven on six strings. I believe they were asking about $18,000.00 for it. I was afraid to touch it.
 
Denverdave said:
I've only played one guitar that cost near that much. It was a limited edition Lowden, I believe a 20th anniversary model or some such occasion. It had the wickedest Brazilian rosewood I have ever seen for the back and sides, and a very old piece or spruce for the top. It was flat out gorgeous and sounded like heaven on six strings. I believe they were asking about $18,000.00 for it. I was afraid to touch it.
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I don't think any new guitar is worth that much.

I have no problem at NAMM grabbing those things but they keeypthe $100k guitar out of reach :embarrassed:
 
Not that I have a lot of experience, but I LOVE my Martin JM. I have played other, more expensive models but none have made me think I was missing anything with my budget model.

My younger brother who was heavily into bluegrass for a long time had a Collings for a while (and loved it) but has gone back to a Martin HD-18 which he insists blows it away.
 
Recording King makes good banjos as well. Was Greg Rich there? Even if you don't know the face the loud clothes usually give him away. He and David Lindley share the same wardrobe. :grin:

That silverflake Martin was just :facepalm:. :eek:
 
There's a guy in the bluegrass jam that has a Recording King. He and I joke that we don't quite belong since I use an old Gibson J-45 and he uses his Recording King. Everyone else uses Martins. That Recording King is nice as hell. It's not meant to compete with the few vintage Martins there but I'll put it up against any of the new ones. Heck, one old guy showed up with an old Yamaha acoustic one Sunday and he kicked ass. It takes a while to find a good acoustic but when you do it's a thing of beauty....and it may not be made by one of the big names either.
 
I love the brand name snobbery, and it does seem to be strong in the bluegrass community. Martin guitars and Gibson banjos and mandolins. And God help you if you have an oval-hole mandolin, or an open-back banjo, or a 12-string guitar. :facepalm: (Guilty on all three counts. :grin:)
 
Yeah I don't get it. Some of the best players I know don't use the big name stuff. To each their own I guess. I can't afford stuff like that anymore.
 
*puts Recording King on list*

I love acoustics... if I could only have one guitar it would be a cedar dreadnought. :love:
 
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