De Faoite Samradh Road Trip - Through Dorset To Somerset
Jun 17, 2016 10:16:50 GMT
Martin, ocarolan, and 4 more like this
Post by scorpiodog on Jun 17, 2016 10:16:50 GMT
Two Fridays ago, I had a very welcome visitor. And the luthier who made it came too.
Dave drove Samradh all the way from High Wycombe to East Dorset amid bank holiday traffic to bring me Samradh for my leg of the road trip. It is lovely (as I'm sure, is Dave, but I'm not qualified to judge).
Dave said to me that he was interested in the guitar making as much music as possible, and I have done my best, but I now have to explain why my recorded output is not more prolific:
On the day Dave brought it down, after I had had an hour or so of playing, I had to butcher a pig. It was already dead, I hasten to add. I had bought it at The Royal Bath & West Show the day before. Actually, I exaggerate; it was half a pig.
During the process, I stabbed my left hand three times (not badly) and one of the cuts was on my thumb knuckle which wouldn't stop bleeding and I had to put a plaster on it. Now I don't know whether you've ever played a guitar with a plaster on your left thumb, but it leaves a norrible gluey residue all over the neck. So I don't mind doing that to one of my own guitars, but I'm not risking that or blood stains on one I've borrowed, so I had to leave it til I could remove the plaster (the following Wednesday)to play it again.
On the Thursday morning early, I got up and sorted out the Zoom H2 to do some recording. I was planning on knocking out a couple of songs, or maybe more. Red light on, about to play. A neighbour's alarm went off. After waiting 5 minutes it was obvious they weren't going to switch the damn thing off, so I thought, as they're always set to sound for 20 minutes, I'll get some breakfast, and sure enough, about a quarter of an hour later, it stopped. So I settle down again. Red light on. Alarm starts again. At this point I said "Oh, dear" (paraphrase) and stomped off to work with no recording done.
I got home, rushed up the stairs to change, got all the recording gear ready, red light. Next door neighbour starts mowing the lawn. He has a reasonably big lawn, and a noisy motor mower, and I knew I had no chance.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday was our local Folk Festival. We had four gigs over the course of the weekend, as well as some impromptu stuff to do, so that wrote the weekend off.
Monday morning I lost my voice completely. I don't do instrumentals, remember. It came back, after a fashion, on Wednesday, but I had no chance of recording anything remotely musical until last evening. I went home a bit early to start recording and, Yay! managed to get quite a lot done. It's full of flubs and the singing's still not terribly good.
I'm hoping to get a bit more done tonight, but I'll leave the topping and tailing and posting here until the weekend.
I have played Samradh quite a lot, though, and I have to say it's the nicest of Dave's guitars I've played. It's beautifully balanced and really versatile. For fingerpicking it's got a lovely complex, shimmery quality that I really like. It can also manage flatpicking pretty well, and though the sound can break up if you strum it really hard, it's great for a bit of light to medium strummage. Now I know that all guitars can be used for all things, but I think it undeniable that some guitars excel in one area more than others. My Martin Dreadnought, for instance is fab for flatpicking and heavy strummage, but takes a lot of force to get it going, so it's not as good for light fingerpicking, and my Brook is the opposite. It breaks up terribly if you take a plectrum to it (so I never do, and I have had, on more than one occasion threatened physical violence to anybody who even thinks about doing it to my baby).
But Samradh, well, that's a different thing altogether. It is amazing in its versatility and its balance, tone, sustain, playability. I love it. I think it looks pretty as well. If I had to have only one guitar, this would be my choice. Without a doubt, it is the most versatile guitar I have ever played.
I have to hand it over to ocarolan tomorrow. I am not looking forward to this. It is an absolute cracker.
I haven't attempted a proper review here, because I think earwighoney wrote the definitive review of this guitar. I agree with everything (well, the bits I understand anyway - I don't do technical) that he says, and he's said it much better than I could.
Dave, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this road trip. This guitar is an absolute revelation. I've probably played 9 or 10 of your guitars, and this is definitely the best one (and they're all pretty good!).
Dave drove Samradh all the way from High Wycombe to East Dorset amid bank holiday traffic to bring me Samradh for my leg of the road trip. It is lovely (as I'm sure, is Dave, but I'm not qualified to judge).
Dave said to me that he was interested in the guitar making as much music as possible, and I have done my best, but I now have to explain why my recorded output is not more prolific:
On the day Dave brought it down, after I had had an hour or so of playing, I had to butcher a pig. It was already dead, I hasten to add. I had bought it at The Royal Bath & West Show the day before. Actually, I exaggerate; it was half a pig.
During the process, I stabbed my left hand three times (not badly) and one of the cuts was on my thumb knuckle which wouldn't stop bleeding and I had to put a plaster on it. Now I don't know whether you've ever played a guitar with a plaster on your left thumb, but it leaves a norrible gluey residue all over the neck. So I don't mind doing that to one of my own guitars, but I'm not risking that or blood stains on one I've borrowed, so I had to leave it til I could remove the plaster (the following Wednesday)to play it again.
On the Thursday morning early, I got up and sorted out the Zoom H2 to do some recording. I was planning on knocking out a couple of songs, or maybe more. Red light on, about to play. A neighbour's alarm went off. After waiting 5 minutes it was obvious they weren't going to switch the damn thing off, so I thought, as they're always set to sound for 20 minutes, I'll get some breakfast, and sure enough, about a quarter of an hour later, it stopped. So I settle down again. Red light on. Alarm starts again. At this point I said "Oh, dear" (paraphrase) and stomped off to work with no recording done.
I got home, rushed up the stairs to change, got all the recording gear ready, red light. Next door neighbour starts mowing the lawn. He has a reasonably big lawn, and a noisy motor mower, and I knew I had no chance.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday was our local Folk Festival. We had four gigs over the course of the weekend, as well as some impromptu stuff to do, so that wrote the weekend off.
Monday morning I lost my voice completely. I don't do instrumentals, remember. It came back, after a fashion, on Wednesday, but I had no chance of recording anything remotely musical until last evening. I went home a bit early to start recording and, Yay! managed to get quite a lot done. It's full of flubs and the singing's still not terribly good.
I'm hoping to get a bit more done tonight, but I'll leave the topping and tailing and posting here until the weekend.
I have played Samradh quite a lot, though, and I have to say it's the nicest of Dave's guitars I've played. It's beautifully balanced and really versatile. For fingerpicking it's got a lovely complex, shimmery quality that I really like. It can also manage flatpicking pretty well, and though the sound can break up if you strum it really hard, it's great for a bit of light to medium strummage. Now I know that all guitars can be used for all things, but I think it undeniable that some guitars excel in one area more than others. My Martin Dreadnought, for instance is fab for flatpicking and heavy strummage, but takes a lot of force to get it going, so it's not as good for light fingerpicking, and my Brook is the opposite. It breaks up terribly if you take a plectrum to it (so I never do, and I have had, on more than one occasion threatened physical violence to anybody who even thinks about doing it to my baby).
But Samradh, well, that's a different thing altogether. It is amazing in its versatility and its balance, tone, sustain, playability. I love it. I think it looks pretty as well. If I had to have only one guitar, this would be my choice. Without a doubt, it is the most versatile guitar I have ever played.
I have to hand it over to ocarolan tomorrow. I am not looking forward to this. It is an absolute cracker.
I haven't attempted a proper review here, because I think earwighoney wrote the definitive review of this guitar. I agree with everything (well, the bits I understand anyway - I don't do technical) that he says, and he's said it much better than I could.
Dave, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this road trip. This guitar is an absolute revelation. I've probably played 9 or 10 of your guitars, and this is definitely the best one (and they're all pretty good!).