Post by Martin on Oct 4, 2016 8:38:31 GMT
Along with tom18960 from the forum, I went along to see Doyle Dykes playing at Maggie Mays in Glasgow last night.
It was the first part of a world-wide tour he is doing as part of his new endorsement deal with Godin, and last night was hosted by GuitarGuitar, with loads of staff in attendance.
My ticket arrived safely - and no wonder - this is the packaging GuitarGuitar chose to send it in
Arriving at the venue, and after a wee drinkie or two, we went down the stairs to the basement performance area - a decent sized place with separate bar, tables, chairs, couches and a small stage - quite impressive layout.
We spotted Doyle chatting to some punters in the corner, and there were Godin posters everywhere, as well as at least a dozen Godin guitars. If it wasn't obvious before what this was all about, it was smacking me in the face about now.
Doyle wasted no time in getting started, and he began with a blazing demonstration of speed, skill and dexterity on guitar - it had everything.....except tone. The sound quality was awful. Painfully loud quacking was how I would describe it.
The guitars were almost all Godin thin body 'semi-acoustic' models, but whether the setup or the pickups or the guitars as a whole, the sound from each one he played (and he played them all to demonstrate them) was terrible, sometimes just in a different way.
The only time he managed a decent sound was when he switched to a proper electric guitar for a couple of tunes. That's how bad it was.
No getting away from how good a player he is - he is astounding, and I did enjoy a few numbers where he really did show some fabulous skill and musicality. It was often just too hard to hear it and painful to listen to.
At one stage, Doyle played a quite lovely version of Little Drummer Boy. He then showed us how to get a realistic snare drum sound effect on his guitar. It was convincing. He mentioned how a drummer he was playing with once remarked that Doyle managed to get a better drum sound from his guitar than he could with his drums. I asked Tom if he thought the drummer got a better guitar sound than Doyle was managing. Funny if it wasn't true
When it all finished, and he had told us how each of the guitars he had on stage with him (most with price tags still attached) was amazing (ok, I'm exaggerating, but he was VERY enthusiastic), he kindly offered to chat to us and let us try the guitars. I shouldn't have bothered. The one I tried was a very handsome thin-bodied semi-acoustic with loads of EQ switches and buttons on it, and it had nylon strings. Felt nice. Couldn't hear it. At all. Strings felt like rubber bands and it was hopeless as an acoustic guitar. I was instantly approached by a GuitarGuitar salesman (a very nice chap as it happens) who asked me about the guitar. I said it would be as well being purely electric as it wasn't any use as an acoustic. He explained the features quite well, but at the price these instruments were going for, I expected a lot more. It must be said, all the GuitarGuitar representatives present were friendly and courteous at all times.
After a long-ish wait, Tom eventually managed to speak to Doyle and get his CD signed.
It was the first part of a world-wide tour he is doing as part of his new endorsement deal with Godin, and last night was hosted by GuitarGuitar, with loads of staff in attendance.
My ticket arrived safely - and no wonder - this is the packaging GuitarGuitar chose to send it in
Arriving at the venue, and after a wee drinkie or two, we went down the stairs to the basement performance area - a decent sized place with separate bar, tables, chairs, couches and a small stage - quite impressive layout.
We spotted Doyle chatting to some punters in the corner, and there were Godin posters everywhere, as well as at least a dozen Godin guitars. If it wasn't obvious before what this was all about, it was smacking me in the face about now.
Doyle wasted no time in getting started, and he began with a blazing demonstration of speed, skill and dexterity on guitar - it had everything.....except tone. The sound quality was awful. Painfully loud quacking was how I would describe it.
The guitars were almost all Godin thin body 'semi-acoustic' models, but whether the setup or the pickups or the guitars as a whole, the sound from each one he played (and he played them all to demonstrate them) was terrible, sometimes just in a different way.
The only time he managed a decent sound was when he switched to a proper electric guitar for a couple of tunes. That's how bad it was.
No getting away from how good a player he is - he is astounding, and I did enjoy a few numbers where he really did show some fabulous skill and musicality. It was often just too hard to hear it and painful to listen to.
At one stage, Doyle played a quite lovely version of Little Drummer Boy. He then showed us how to get a realistic snare drum sound effect on his guitar. It was convincing. He mentioned how a drummer he was playing with once remarked that Doyle managed to get a better drum sound from his guitar than he could with his drums. I asked Tom if he thought the drummer got a better guitar sound than Doyle was managing. Funny if it wasn't true
When it all finished, and he had told us how each of the guitars he had on stage with him (most with price tags still attached) was amazing (ok, I'm exaggerating, but he was VERY enthusiastic), he kindly offered to chat to us and let us try the guitars. I shouldn't have bothered. The one I tried was a very handsome thin-bodied semi-acoustic with loads of EQ switches and buttons on it, and it had nylon strings. Felt nice. Couldn't hear it. At all. Strings felt like rubber bands and it was hopeless as an acoustic guitar. I was instantly approached by a GuitarGuitar salesman (a very nice chap as it happens) who asked me about the guitar. I said it would be as well being purely electric as it wasn't any use as an acoustic. He explained the features quite well, but at the price these instruments were going for, I expected a lot more. It must be said, all the GuitarGuitar representatives present were friendly and courteous at all times.
After a long-ish wait, Tom eventually managed to speak to Doyle and get his CD signed.
).
!, a man really glad to be there and enthusiastic about the guitars he was promoting. But after the first 2 or 3 bars Martin and I turned to one another wondering if each other was hearing the same thing. Guitar sounded really unbalanced and to me at least it had no "tone" whatsoever and didn't really improve despite frequent guitar changes. I was thinking later maybe we had just been spoiled by the sheer quality of the instruments we had a chance to play and listen to in Halifax recently 
Jo whoever he is.
