I'm about 3 weeks away from picking up my first custom built guitar! I've always viewed guitars as tools and have never felt the urge to have one built for me, but having recently passed the 50 milepost felt significant enough to mark it with a one-of-a-kind. It's the parlor style guitar seen on Eric DeVine's website - Eric came up with the design after we talked about what I was looking for two years ago. He threw together a prototype and sent me some audio files of how it sounded, I said "Yep that's it!" and then built one for himself with the similar woods to what I ordered - he loves it! Redwood top, rosewood back and sides, snakewood fingerboard, bridge and rosette and no bling - just the natural wood beauty speaking for itself. I'm getting a bit twitchy...
Yeah, the sound of it is what I'm really excited about. From the other two I'm expecting a tight, focused bass response, a lot of harmonic richness around our 1200 Hz audible sweet spot, and a nice balance across the frequency spectrum. The other two have been much louder than their size would suggest, and I'm cool with that too! I'm getting all twitchy again!
Yeah, that snakewood's a real treat - dense and super hard. I really liked the way it felt and played. The neck is made of Spanish cedar, the kind that's used in classicals - I'm getting getting a beefy neck on this one so the cedar, although lighter than mahogany, will take the tension of the steel strings. How many more sleeps?!?
More - Snakewood fingerboard Spanish cedar neck Redwood top Snakewood bridge Eric DeVine's logo and paper work.
And the sound! Goofy loud for a parlor, not bass forward like some dreadnoughts but beautifully balanced across the spectrum. Plays sweetly and the chubby neck profile I gave him (c-carve) fits just like I imagined. The snakewood feels really snappy and precise, that's a winner right there. I'll put together a clip after I've spent more time having fun with the guitar. Beauty, beauty, and as we say in Canada - beauty, eh! (<-- I'm a big fan of understatement...)
Thanks! (I guess someone should move this thread to the acoustic forum - I don't think it was up when the thread was started.)
Sorry for the excessive bumpage, but there's a couple of things I forgot... The guitar was about a month and a half late from the time I was expecting it, but as I wrote in another thread I was more concerned with the builder rushing the end process and compromising the result than getting it on the expected date. There were things put into the build that weren't part of the original discussion (like putting the guitar through an "aging" process) and outside of the builder's control (like getting hung up at the laquer shop close to a month) so in the end I'm really happy with the whole process. Eric is a great guy to deal with, and I would encourage anyone interested in his builds to get in touch with him. More about the aging process - the guitar was put through a vibration machine before the bridge was put on, where pink noise was pumped through the body for a few days to accelerate the time it takes an acoustic for the sound to smooth out and get clearer. I didn't hear the guitar before this was done but the guitar sounds mature and complex, and Eric said he was very pleased at how the process worked (this build was the first one he tried it on). Just tossing that out for consideration, so if any one else is interested in the idea feel free to get in touch with him. The other thing is the endpin preamp jack - it's one I haven't heard of beforefrom Mi-Si that kind of interesting. The preamp doesn't use a battery but is run by a supercapacitor that chages in 60 seconds from a wall charger or even a 9 volt battery, and runs about 10 hours playing time. Very cool that it doesn't have the battery and clip to mess with the way the side vibrates.
Congratulations on a beautiful and unique guitar! I was in Lahaina in March, nice place to have an acoustic made.
Thanks so much, I appreciate that! Perhaps we crossed paths? We were there the last week of March and the first week of April at Kahana Beach...
My wife and I were in Kihei from Mar 2 -12 then and over to Oahu for 4 days. My band played out at the 17 mile a few times last summer. We're booked there again on July 24th, nice little pub!
Cool! I'll mark that day on the calander. Two years ago we stayed at Kihei across from Kamaole Beach II, and I liked the vibe there a little better than all the development north of Lahaina where we were this time. The water was an underhand stone's throw away from our lanai at Kahana Beach though, so that's pretty tough to beat!
