I've never played a guitar this good

[Music] this guitar is amongst the best guitars I've ever played it's so good that I sold two guitars just to get this one it's also the first guitar that was especially built for me and for my wishes because everywhere I looked just couldn't find what I [Music] wanted [Music] so I wasn't planning on making a video about this instrument I care more what we play on it than the tools themselves but honestly I just got so many questions about it here on YouTube but also at Instagram so here we are but please know that it's just a guitar and 90% of the audience won't care and won't even hear the difference probably and it does not magically make me play any better sadly and then this happened last week and that really made me realize that a guitar is just a piece of wood but on the other hand guitars are awesome it's also about the tools we use to create music with so here's a brief overview and some completely overthe toop guitar idolizing that makes no sense at all it's going to be a bit weird here and there but uh well my apologies but this guitar it's truly something else so after playing hundreds if not thousands of Acoustics I learned a lot about my personal preferences but also how each element of the guitar influences the playability the sound and the loops of course on Acoustics I think everything matters I wanted a guitar that would last me a lifetime so I I just went all in uh and then when I'm 80 years old I want to give this to my kid and tell him that it was him who made the first dent on this guitar literally on day one by writing a train on it yes I cried at least I still have one picture without the dent and we immediately see that it's it's a rather small guitar and here it's actually hanging next to the couch it is the perfect couch guitar and maybe that's also the reason why I play this guitar almost every day since I got it because it's just always Within Reach so it's a single low that's the body size 12 fret model and this means that the neck meets the body at fret 12 so the whole neck and Bridge actually shifted a bit more towards the back which not only made makes the neck shorter basically it also means that the bridge is more in the center of the lower bout and that just resonates totally different than a for Fetter would do just listen to so to my ears the sound blooms a little bit more it's more round and mellow and it's less sharp I think one word that sums it up nicely is that it's just a little bit sweeter overall is it getting weird already too much idolizing going on anyway uh the body shape is a single o so from small to B if you got single o double O triple o or om that's the same body shape Grant Auditorium dreadn and then the jumbo so for more information on body shapes you can always check out this video I made where we compared all the body shapes directly back to back it's pretty awesome so but the single low body shape just it gets me every time maybe it's not for everyone it's definitely not as big and massive as the dread knot there's less Basse less loud but it fills the room beautifully with just a lots of clarity without being too loud I can still talk and play at the same time that's just great listen to this example how well balanced the single top notes are the melody combination with the base notes it's just it's just [Music] perfect [Music] and in particular this guitar does that exceptionally well and everyone who has played it in real life or heard it was just in awe by this guitar that's not a lie and I've been an awe before by callings guitars okay so this callings man something else sounds so good but with many guitars like this like lightweight traditional build I had a problem you often see a wider string spacing at the bridge so this is where the strings are just a little bit further apart so there's more room and that's how it was on vintage guitars back in the day and often Modern Builders respect these Traditions so back in 2014 when I bought a secondhand Martin tripo Golden Era well I was over the moon it sounded absolutely fantastic beautifully built after this 1937 spec and this also meant very wide string spacing I just could not get used to it so I ended up selling it the same happened with my coling C10 Deluxe you might remember the video again I sold it and just to keep you in the loop I also sold the Gibson SG I bought a I guess I'm not an SG guy after so about that white the string spacing so although it is great for fingerpicking for me it's not great for strumming and I want to do both on all guitars I [Music] have and besides that after playing it for a while I always felt clumsy going back to the electrics or acoustics with like smaller string spacing so I guess the choice was easy I wanted a traditional built guitar with a two 3/16 inches string spacing is that how you say inches I have no idea so after a few weeks of going back and forth we honed in on the details and settled on that they made the traditional neck garve that normally is only used with the wider string spacing they made it a little bit narrower were going up to accommodate for the smaller Bridge otherwise you would have like massive chunks of neck besides the strings right and when I unpack the guitar after waiting for 24 hours of course I knew I made the right choice it's one of the most comfortable necks I've ever played goes from a mild sea over here very nice and just not that slim but just perfect for my hands to a little bit more of a v over here so if grip is great it's just I don't know it's it's just perfect and I got to say the craftsmanship on this guitar is just unreal it's hard to put into words but just everywhere you look it's perfect and now I understand why it took so long for them to make this instrument uh luckily I asked them to take some pictures along the way by the way so I could clearly see what they all did and it's just very awesome to see it's great that they did that anyway the woods on this guitar are an Adon de Spruce top and Rosewood back and sides Adon deex Spruce is usually a little bit brighter and and louder with more dynamic range and it takes light picking great so it resonates just very easily listen to [Laughter] [Music] this picking very lightly but I feel the whole guitar shaking and [Music] resonating [Music] but then when you strum it doesn't there are still lots of room left for the sound to get [Music] louder and one thing that separates particularly this guitar from so many others I've played is that there is this balance that you would not expect between single note lines or just single notes and chords like the balance between those two things is just bizarre how well just one note compares to a whole chord listen to this in the [Music] mix [Music] [Music] that's just gorgeous so I am a bit superficial so I do care about the looks of guitar and sometimes a bit of blame works so well so this is a 42 style guitar and this means that we've got some fancy emone around the top around the sound hole and beautiful snowflake inlays on the fingerboard and this is definitely an owe to my Martin d42 I just love that guitar and it's a big part of who I am as a musician but as well as the start of this channel um so it just felt right and it works so well in combination with one of the most beautiful bursts I've ever seen so I never car for burst to be honest but then in 2015 I visited Rudy's in New York City it's a must SE if you're there I played this Santa Cruz Orchestra model I was in love with it it was highly Out Of Reach for me but anyway I dreamt about it a lot let's just put like that but now well this is the reason it's on here and it looks so well with the gold Hardware here on the slotted headstock we've got these gold Waverly tuners and yeah the combination is just fantastic the gorgeous torch in lay by the way in the solid headstock it's just it's a piece of art right so the solid headstock some say it affects the sound because of the bigger angle the strings make across the nut so it presses down harder on here so it does something to the sound I'm not sure I never AB it against like a flat hat sock um I think it just looks awesome yes I am so superficial but that makes this instrument in my eyes one of the prettiest Acoustics I've ever had the privilege of playing and that makes me just extremely happy not only because it is mine but also because all the things I considered and handpicked together with the lovely Folks at callings just came together so beautifully and it's honestly it just exceeds my expectations like by a long shot and this guitar is just is just brilliant but again it's just a guitar and this tune you've been hearing throughout this whole video amers and braids which is now available for streaming by the way if you want listen to it you might recognize it from the open D video I did a while back anyway I could have played this on on another guitar and probably 90% of the listeners wouldn't really have cared that much to be honest but the thing is I care very much show and that's also very important because I'm the one actually playing it so if that translates to me playing the music a little bit better well that's also something you might care about in the end so I'd love to hear from you what do you think about these smaller bed guitars is it something you'd be interested in is there too much bling on this for you am I too superficial is that it anyway thank you so much for watching I wish you a lovely day and yeah tag me on Instagram if you stream this song that would be awesome to see it's just a lovely piece to listen to at the end of the summer it's about the last moments of the summer when the Sun is setting you've got the Amber in the sky the amber color on this guitar as well by the way you want to embrace it just one last time before we say hi to AUM anyway cheers

Channel: Paul Davids

Views: 1,069,301

Keywords: paul davids, collings, acoustic, guitar, 12 fret, amber's embrace, video, body shape, small body shape, custom acoustic, martin, taylor, santa cruz, fingerpicking, fingerstyle

Id: 0o1rY2TbxGo

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2023