andrewjw
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Post by andrewjw on Apr 27, 2016 18:10:03 GMT
A fine start ...lovely playing , wonderful sounding guitar....this is going to be fun!
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Post by Mike Floorstand on Apr 27, 2016 22:06:09 GMT
Thanks for all the kind comments!
Here's tonight's offering, no idea why I chose to play this it just started coming out a couple of days ago and, rarely for me, didn't take long to finish (standard tuning, key of C, no frills arrangement though with a bit of a stretchy D-shaped F chord):
Warts and all recording with a couple of false starts, at least one bad ending, and several points in between where I was tempted to give up and begin again. But since I think one of the objectives of this trip is for people to hear as much of the guitar as possible, even if the playing isn't perfect, I have resisted the urge to edit.
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davewhite
Luthier / Guitar Maker
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Post by davewhite on Apr 28, 2016 8:29:54 GMT
Joe, Nice to see an arrangement in progress and the start of the muscle memory process. Third time through you were getting there
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ocarolan
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CURMUDGEONLY OLD GIT (leader - to join, just ask!)
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Post by ocarolan on Apr 28, 2016 8:46:43 GMT
Brave move that Joe, and as Dave said, it's nearly there - sounding good too! Keith
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Post by Mike Floorstand on May 4, 2016 22:10:56 GMT
Sorry it's taken a few days to write down my thoughts, but here's my feedback/review of the guitar.
To be honest, I really wasn't expecting to like Samhradh as much as I did!
I think this was down to a couple of purely aesthetic considerations: firstly, I've never been a big fan of Florentine-style cutaways (nor do I spend much time at the "dusty end", so don't have much use for cutaways of any style); and secondly, I've never been particularly attracted, visually, to walnut as a b/s wood.
I'm pleased to report that in spite of this initial starting point, Samhradh completely won me over - I think simply because I found it such a hugely playable guitar. It felt immediately comfortable as soon as I picked it up, and didn't seem to need "warming up" or "playing in" to start producing with some very agreeable noises. The lightly-built soundboard makes it a very responsive guitar, and I especially liked the trebles which seemed to my ears to have a kind of "shimmering warmth". "Listening to sunshine" is the best metaphor I can think of (which I just realised is somewhat appropriate given that Samhradh is Gaelic for Summer!). For some reason I also had a sense that this would be a great songwriter's guitar - never getting in the way or demanding attention for itself, but always eager to assist with the creative processes. Owing to other commitments I didn't have a lot of time to spend with Samhradh, but this instant playability meant that picking up Samhradh was always instantly rewarding, whether playing for two minutes or two hours.
I did find one niggle in the form of an intermittent buzz. It took me a while to track it down but I believe what is happening sometimes is that when you strike an open string and leave it ringing, then fret some other string in certain positions, the sympathetic resonance of the fretted string can cause it to buzz against a fret. This might indicate insufficient neck relief which could fix itself or perhaps need a quarter turn of the truss rod at some point if it becomes a problem - it wasn't a big enough problem for me, on the tunes I wanted to play, to try to fix it.
To conclude, it's been a real pleasure to be Samhradh's custodian for a couple of weeks, so huge thanks to Dave for organising the roadtrip. For various reasons (e.g. Samhradh spent most of its time here in standard tuning; and as I don't have any cause to amplify I didn't try out the pickup), I feel that I've barely scratched the surface* of what this guitar is capable of, so I'll be following Samhradh's future progress very keenly indeed!
* Not literally!!!
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davewhite
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Luthier
Aemulor et ambitiosior
Posts: 3,544
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Post by davewhite on May 5, 2016 7:33:14 GMT
Joe, Thanks for your thoughts and most of all thanks for the music
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Post by Cams on May 5, 2016 8:32:55 GMT
I've never been a big fan of Florentine-style cutaways. I've always felt exactly like that, which is why Adrian Lucas's Pavilion Sweep didn't draw me in visually. That perspective quickly shifted when I played the guitar and, all of a sudden, the cutaway and sweep were things of curvaceous beauty! Interestingly, the way you describe the tone reminds me again of how I feel about the Pavilion. I'm looking forward to comparing them!
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