Martin Retro Series

[jeffhigh]

Now here's an idea
Don't bother making your guitars sound better, just use them to trigger an electronic model based on recordings of 30's guitars recorded with vintage microphones......
Seems like cheating to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoFj3ZpT95Q

[Nick]

Agree with you Jeff, instead of making the acoustics sound better they're jumping on the modelling bandwagon.They'll be making solely solidbody's & modelling amp heads next.

[Tod Gilding]

Yeah , Also agreed. I can see this type of thing coming back to bite them. I have a line 6 POD and I'm confident that with it I could make a $50 guitar sound like anything you want. Why bother buying a Martin. Trouble is with this modelling technology,it could also bite the hard working hand builders,trying to make a dollar and producing a worthwhile Instrument in it's own right.

[charangohabsburg]

Sounds to me as if they would neither remember nor be interested in recovering how to build acoustic guitars as they did in the "golden area" . This is at least the message that I pick up. On the other hand I don't think that reproducing or trying to reproduce a specific acoustic guitar sound with electronic support would be a bad thing, and I think there is a place for such product on the market. Those (most probably the majority) who still will want an acoustic guitar that sounds good on its own will know that they'll have to look for it somewhere else.

[Kim]

Trouble is with this modelling technology,it could also bite the hard working hand builders,trying to make a dollar and producing a worthwhile Instrument in it's own right.

I can't see it being too much of an issue Todd. The kind of people who buy custom built instruments are generally a few guitars down the road as a player. By that time they've usually come to appreciate the fact that skill, passion, understanding and time can produce something special which number crunching CNC factories with a handful of people feeding the machines, a 1/2 dozen or so counting beans and insisting that "to avoid impact upon productivity and reputation, warranty returns must be minimised by investment of tonal potential into structural integrity" and a hundred or so in marketing department who are all addicted to 'the bright side', ever could.

Yes there have been many exceptional sounding guitars produced by CF Martin, but in recent history, more specifically from Frank Herbert Martin's turn at the helm during the 1970's and his disastrous one eyed accountant's stumble into corporate styled management and the many blundered acquisitions, I think most of those guitars were from a meeting of chance when all the right bits just happened to come together on the same guitar.....and just the luck few kept the legend alive.

One things for certain, as far as CF Martin and tone are concerned its always been a bit of a hit and miss relationship. You certainly do get ur good'ns, but then ya get ur not so good'ns as well and the only thing that has changed over time has been the ratio...and I bet that was the case even in the so called "Golden Era". In fact it was most likely that inconsistency which provided an Achilles heel to Bob Taylor and allowed him into what had once been considered CF Martin and Co's 'owned by tradition' private blue chip market.

Taylor guitars focused upon uniformity with a tightly controlled systematic approach to their building process. This meant that a customer could walk into any guitar shop in the world, pull a 810 down from the wall and it would sound pretty good, like most 810's do..not stellar, but pretty bloody good all the same. That's a two edged sword because it has led to many labelling Taylor guitars as sounding "homogenised", but, if they sound consistently 'quite good'...that is going to win over any ex Martin fan who kept picking the not so good'ns and decided its time for a change.

So where am I going with this? Well lets get back to the video...With only the digital signal of a tube clip to go by its difficult to say if anything at all has been achieved by CF Martin in this latest tac. The tone if you ask me sounds heavily flavoured with gimmicky hyperbole, after all, what guitar doesn't sound pretty bloody good when its hooked up to an amp and the EQ's been tweaked just how you like it?

I think what we are seeing here is an attempt by CF Martin to win back some of that other big chunk of market share that went to Taylor guitars when they trumped CF Martin again by releasing their quite well regarded "Expressions" pickup and EQ system around a decade ago. I just don't see anything new in this 'Golden Era' gimmick at all, Japanese keyboard makers have been hanging Steinways by cables in specially built sampling rooms for years trying to capture that gold...but not many good players are buying it unless its just for the convenience of mobility in the boot of the Camry.

As far as that tonal gold being sampled into an acoustic guitar...well you can already fit the real deal in the boot anyhow, and further more, what is it anyhow?? You plug it in to an amp and it allegedly sounds just like a 1932 D18 that has been recorded through a 1968 Neumann condenser mic?? I bet it don't, well at least to most anyhow..this is of course if we could ever actually hear that happen.

On a long drive south to Albany a wise man once explained how each builder is destined to develop his instruments toward a specific tonality that will eventually become their own signature sound. He further explained that this is because there is only one 'right' sound to an individuals ear. When do you stop carving the wood that is not guitar from the braces?? When it sound 'right' to 'your' ear...When does a sound engineer recording a 1930's Martin on a 1960's Neumann stop tweaking the bass?? When it sounds right to 'his' ear..So for those interested in either factory made guitar it will probably come down to who's ear that theirs are most in sync with, the sound engineers at CF Martin, or the sound engineers at Taylor Guitars..either way, if they were ever going to, my guess is that they will still come knock'in once the novelty has worn off and they realise their <5K> dream was just one of the many soulless thousands on the pathway to the 'right' one.

Cheers

Kim

[Tod Gilding]

You raise some very good points Kim, and I can only hope that you are right.
However when it comes to marketing a Quality handmade Instrument, I am glad in a way that I am just an Amateur who doesn’t get involved in that.
I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for the Pro builder competing against the likes of Martin, Taylor or here in Australia, the Matons and Cole Clarkes with their massive advertising and marketing budgets.
I realise that a lot of luthiers don’t consider that they are competing against them and that they produce a different product, but there is only X amount of dollars spent each year on guitars, and whilst these large companies are taking the lion’s share of those dollars it can only leave a small share for the true craftsman
I still believe that there are a lot of experienced and great musicians that have never had the pleasure of picking up a fine handcrafted instrument. And therefore don’t consider them when purchasing.

[woodrat]

You raise some very good points Kim, and I can only hope that you are right.
However when it comes to marketing a Quality handmade Instrument, I am glad in a way that I am just an Amateur who doesn’t get involved in that.
I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for the Pro builder competing against the likes of Martin, Taylor or here in Australia, the Matons and Cole Clarkes with their massive advertising and marketing budgets.
I realise that a lot of luthiers don’t consider that they are competing against them and that they produce a different product, but there is only X amount of dollars spent each year on guitars, and whilst these large companies are taking the lion’s share of those dollars it can only leave a small share for the true craftsman
I still believe that there are a lot of experienced and great musicians that have never had the pleasure of picking up a fine handcrafted instrument. And therefore don’t consider them when purchasing.

...Quite So Mr Gilding!...