Acoustic Guitar from Summer NAMM

Comment

Comment by Tony Hogan on July 19, 2009 at 9:55pm

Teja, great looking forward to it

Comment by Teja Gerken, Senior Editor on July 19, 2009 at 9:33pm

OK, so last night it got too late to blog, and today was mostly a travel day. I promise to get a few more NAMM impression up tomorrow!

Comment by Tony Hogan on July 19, 2009 at 3:48am

Love the look of that Dana Bourgeois guitar, also the Wechter.

Comment by Teja Gerken, Senior Editor on July 18, 2009 at 5:08pm

Larry,
We did look at the BagAmp. It's impossible to really hear it here at the show though, because things are so loud all around. Hopefully we can report more at a later time!

Comment by Larry Pattis on July 18, 2009 at 9:48am

Gentlemen...we need info on the BagAmp!

Comment by Tony Hogan on July 18, 2009 at 5:53am

I noticed the Cole Clark with Jerry Douglas. I played a Cloe Clark about two weeks ago. An acoustic, not sure what model. It was very nice to play, it looked a little unusual because of the type of ionewoods, and the texture was very woody.

Thanks for the photos in this post, some great looking gear.

Comment by Scott Nygaard, Senior Editor on July 17, 2009 at 10:19pm

Jerry Douglas playing a Cole Clark Violap.

Comment by Teja Gerken, Senior Editor on July 17, 2009 at 10:18pm

OK, it’s 11PM here in Nashville, and we’re just back from hearing the fabulous John Jorgensen tear it up at a Saga Music and Shubb-sponsored show. My head’s still swirling a bit from everything I saw today, but here are a fw highlights:

Martin D-12 David Crosby
Martin has a long history of introducing special signature models at NAMM. This summer’s signature models include an MC-38 Steve Howe, an MC-18 Woody Mann, D-28 Dan Tyminski, and D-12 David Crosby. While all of these guitars offer unique qualities, this 12-string David Crosby model is perhaps the coolest of the bunch. A re-creation of a D-18 that Crosby had converted to a 12-string by Berkeley, California luthier John Lundberg in the 1960s, the guitar combines a standard D-18 body with a 12-fret, long-scale neck, which moves the bridge back into the lower bout of the guitar. The guitar also has a six-string style bridge, resulting in each pair of strings sharing a single bridge-pin. Tuned a whole-step below standard tuning—Crosby’s preferred 12-string tuning—the Martin D-12 David Crosby is not only a cool tribute and signature model, but also a unique guitar in Martin’s overall lineup.

Yamaha NX Series
Yamaha has introduced a new line of acoustic-electric nylon-strings. Developed with nylon-string shredders Rodrigo and Gabriela, the line’s top end is represented by the NCX2000, which is available with flamed maple or Indian rosewood back and sides. Outfitted with Yamaha’s A.R.T. pickups and onboard electronics, the guitars are ready for stage or studio. The entire NX series includes nine instruments at various price levels, 12 or 14-fret necks, and fretboards that range from almost standard classical width to thinner, steel-string like dimensions.

Wechter Nashville Special
In a fitting move for a NAMM show held in Nashville, Wechter Guitars has introduced a new model specially designed and set up for high-strung Nashville tuning. The Nashville Special has a parlor size body with a cutaway, a solid cedar top, and Fishman electronics.

Headway EDB-1
British amplification experts Headway have introduced a new preamp/DI box. The EDB-1 is a two-channel design that either uses one 1/4-inch and one XLR input, or a single TRS stereo input. Individual gain for each channel, three-band EQ, a mute function, notch filter, and phantom-power round out the compact package.

Olympus LS-11
Olympus has come out with the second generation of its LS-series digital recorder. The LS-11 has 8 GB of built-in memory, on-board speakers, built-in stereo mics, and recording at up to 24-bit/96 kHz.

Other highlights include Dana Bourgeois’s 5,000th guitar (I’ll try to post more on this one tomorrow) and Santa Cruz’s 1929 series of 12-fret 00 and 000 guitars.

Comment by Scott Nygaard, Senior Editor on July 17, 2009 at 10:11pm

Here are just a few things I saw and did today at NAMM:

I checked out Paige Musical Products’ new Clik capo, which has a two-stage adjustment process, starting with a push button ratcheting mechanism and then a final adjustment screw to tighten the capo to the exact pressure needed.
http://www.paigemusical.com/

I’d been hearing about the Santa Cruz 1929 all-mahogany guitar for a little while now, and it was a treat to play and hear the real thing, or things, as the vintage-style tribute to affordable Depression-era guitars is available in both 12-fret 00 and 12-fret 000 sizes.
http://www.santacruzguitar.com/

I also marveled at Sony’s new PCM-M10 Linear PCM Recorder, a 96kHz/24 bit digital recorder the size of an iPhone with 4 GB built-in flash memory, pitch control, and included Sound Forge software.
http://www.sony.com/proaudio

And I ended my day on the NAMM floor by watching Jerry Douglas demo a Cole Clark Violap, sort of an acoustic-electric Weissenborn, and then walked with Jerry over to the Martin booth to meet up with Alison Krauss and Union Station bandmate, Dan Tyminski, who was there to unveil his new Martin signature model. Jerry mentioned that in addition to starting a new AKUS album within the next few days, he was finishing up work on a new movie soundtrack, and was going to be touring with Elvis Costello later in the summer.
http://www.coleclarkguitars.com/

--Scott Nygaard