CD Review: Spencer Lewis and his new guitars

CD Review: Spencer Lewis and his new guitars
If you’ve been following the career of Bethel musician Spencer Lewis then you’ve watched this multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter build an impressive catalog of 18 CD albums over a career that spans 25 years. His recently released “The Highest” is an album that takes Lewis in a somewhat new direction. … – By Art Edelstein Arts Correspondent

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Taylor Guitars 110e, Dreadnought, Solid Sitka Spruce, Sapele Back/Sides, ES-T

Taylor Guitars 110e, Dreadnought, Solid Sitka Spruce, Sapele Back/Sides, ES-T

  • Solid Sitka Spruce Top
  • Sapele Back/Sides
  • Dreadnought
  • Gig Bag Included
  • ES-T Electronics

Product Description

Learn About the Taylor Guitars 110e Model

The Taylor 110 is a superb option for the budget-minded guitarist or an “extra” guitar for the seasoned player, the 110e has an extremely rich and versatile voice. This model of the Taylor 110e

The 110e’s full-voiced tone can now be amplified with the Taylor ES-T transducer pickup. This solid spruce top Dreadnought truly delivers the Taylor experience.


Dreadnought Guitars: A Taylor Tradition the Taylor 110e Continues

Bob Taylor launched his career crafting Dreadnoughts and Jumbos, working with shapes he inherited from Sam Radding, the owner of the American Dream guitar shop, where he and Taylor co-founder Kurt Listug got their start.

“Our dreadnought early on was pretty boxy, and the Jumbo was kind of a big square thing, too–kind of the American Dream take on the J200 or the big Guild stuff, back in the ’70s,” Bob recalls.

In 2003, the dreadnought underwent a major revoicing to give it a more competitive identity among flatpickers. A cannon, it boasted 50 percent more volume and a stronger bass response, and yielded a potent growl when players dug in without upsetting Taylor’s sonic balance.

The Taylor Dreadnought delivers a vintage dreadnought sound for the 21st Century.

More About the 100 Series of Taylor Guitars

Taylor’s 100 Series premium guitars will change your expectations about what a serious entry-level instrument can embody. Featuring solid Sitka spruce tops and either laminated sapeleback and sides, both series deliver the quality sound and feel you’d expect from a Taylor.

You don’t need to sacrifice great tone and playability when you’re looking for extra value. The sapele laminate 100 Series guitars are the real deal, crafted to deliver the complete Taylor experience, and, with laminate back and sides, are extra resilient.

You can feel good in knowing that when you buy a Taylor at any level, you get precision craftsmanship, and great tone.

Taylor 100 Series Guitars: A Rite of Passage

For some young adults, getting a driver’s license is a rite of passage. For others, getting their first Taylor is. The 100 Series Taylor guitars are perfect for young players who are ready to take things to the next level. With the easiest playability and best intonation in the industry, family porch jams never sounded so good.

Tone and Playability: Hallmarks of 100 Series Guitars

Tone and playability are hallmarks of Taylor guitars, and you’ll find the 100 Series delivers plenty of each. Sporting a solid Sitka spruce top and sapele laminate back and sides, the redesigned 100 Series cutaway and Taylor electronics options. Value, yes. Compromise, no.

About Taylor Guitars

Founded in 1974, Taylor Guitars has evolved into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of premium acoustic and electric guitars. Renowned for blending an innovative use of modern technology with a master craftsman’s attention to detail, Taylor guitars are widely considered the best sounding and easiest to play in the world. Many of today’s leading musicians make Taylor their guitar of choice, including Dave Matthews, Prince, Mick Jagger and Taylor Swift.Amazon.com Product Description
The 110e’s full-voiced tone can now be amplified with the Taylor ES-T transducer pickup. This solid spruce top Dreadnought truly delivers the Taylor experience.

Taylor 110e Specs

  • Type/Shape: 6-String Dreadnought
  • Back & Sides: Sapele Laminate
  • Top: Sitka Spruce
  • Soundhole Rosette: Plastic
  • Neck: Sapele
  • Fretboard: Ebony
  • Fretboard Inlay: Pearloid Dots
  • Headstock Overlay: Indian Rosewood
  • Binding: Black
  • Bridge: Ebony
  • Nut & Saddle: Tusq
  • Tuning Machines: Enclosed, Die-Cast Chrome Plated
  • Scale Length: 25 1/2 Inches
  • Truss Rod: Adjustable
  • Neck Width at Nut: 1 11/16 Inches
  • Number of Frets: 20
  • Fretboard Radius: 15 Inches
  • Bracing: X-Brace
  • Finish: Varnish
  • Color: Natural
  • Electronics: Taylor ES-T
  • Body Width: 16 Inches
  • Body Depth: 4 5/8 Inches
  • Body Length: 20 Inches
  • Overall Length: 41 Inches

Loud and robust Sapele Laminate back/sides.

Classic pearloid dot inlays.

ES-T pickup onboard.

The Taylor 100 Series
Tone and playability are hallmarks of Taylor guitars, and you’ll find the 100 Series delivers plenty of each. Sporting a solid Sitka spruce top and sapele laminate back and sides, the redesigned 100 Series now features both Dreadnought and Grand Auditorium shapes, along with cutaway and Taylor electronics options. Value, yes. Compromise, no.

Sitka Spruce Top
Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) grows in a coastal “pocket” from Northern California to Alaska. This dense, straight-grained wood has the highest strength and elasticity-to-weight ratio among available tonewoods, an attribute that makes it an ideal material not only for our soundboards, but for our internal bracing, as well. Sitka produces a slightly brighter tone than does Engelmann.

Sapele Laminate Back/Sides
This exceptional, mahogany-like wood grows throughout the tropical rain forests of Nigeria and the Ivory Coast of Africa. Ever since we introduced it in 1998, its legion of fans has grown exponentially. As a tonewood, it’s denser and harder than mahogany, so it has a crisper, clearer, brighter, “pop”-ier sound than its more familiar counterpart. Loud and robust, with a lovely ribboned grain, sapele has been used by Spanish guitar makers for many years.

Varnish Finish
A durable varnish finish offers protection, good looks, and a smooth feel to the touch. The spruce top’s beauty shines right through.

Dreadnought Body Shape
The original Dreadnought acoustic guitar appeared early in the 20th Century, and its no-frills, no-nonsense shape made it a logical namesake of the huge battleships of that day. Most subsequent Dreadnoughts, including Taylor’s, have been derivative of that early design. In 1997, however, Bob Taylor re-designed the Taylor Dreadnought by softening the curves at the top and bottom and generally refining its overall shape. In 2003, gloss-finish Dreadnoughts also underwent bracing refinements that substantially increased their overall volume and bass response, without sacrificing Taylor’s signature balance and clarity. Dreadnought six-strings shine as “plectrum” or “rhythm” guitars because they respond well to flatpicking or light-to-heavy strumming.

ES-T Pickup
Inspired by Taylor’s Expression System technology, the Expression System Transducer, or ES-T, is a single-source, under-saddle transducer with individual elements for each string. (The ES-T was originally called the ES Element, but the name was changed to avoid confusion with another product.) The ES-T has an onboard preamp and the same active controls found on the full Expression System. Featuring a custom-voiced EQ and dynamic response, the system is powered by a 9-volt battery, with a battery life LED power indicator (which is lit when the battery is being used). The pickup also has a Phase switch for feedback control, which is located on the preamp board inside the soundhole.

Chrome-Plate Tuners
Taylor Tuners continue the industry-leading 18:1 gear ratio that they’ve been using, yet yield even greater precision with the help of a manufacturing process that employs the same gear-cutting machines used by Swiss watchmakers. The more precisely-machined gears virtually eliminate the slight “slop”, or slack, typical among tuners, which makes it even easier for Taylor owners to get–and stay–in tune. Taylor Tuners also feature an elegant aesthetic touch, with the Taylor logo cleanly etched on the back.

Taylor Guitars 110e, Dreadnought, Solid Sitka Spruce, Sapele Back/Sides, ES-T

Taylor Guitars DMSM Dave Matthews Signature Model Grand Auditorium Acoustic Electric Guitar

Taylor Guitars DMSM Dave Matthews Signature Model Grand Auditorium Acoustic Electric Guitar

  • Grand Auditorium
  • Solid Sitka Spruce Top
  • Solid Indian Rosewood Back/Sides
  • Cutaway; ES
  • Hardshell Case Included

Product Description

Inspired by Dave Matthews’ 914ce, the DMSM is an Indian rosewood/Sitka spruce Grand Auditorium. A custom fretboard inlay blends elements of the popular “Cindy” inlay, which graces Matthews’ 914ce, with a design that pays tribute to the band’s longtime sax player, LeRoi Moore, who passed away in 2008. Based on a sketch that Matthews provided, a crown inlay between the 11th and 12th frets honors Moore, incorporating ball-tipped points with one ball partially missing in his memory. A nickname of Moore’s within the band, “Grux,” is inlaid between the 13th and 18th frets. The headstock inlay also was developed from a sketch by Matthews. The guitar top was shaded with an aged toner to approximate the patina Matthews has on his older 914ce. Each DMSM comes with a custom guitar label and a certificate of authenticity, both personally signed by Matthews.

Features:
  • 6-String Grand Auditorium
  • Sitka Spruce top
  • Indian rosewood back and sides
  • Abalone soundhole rosette
  • Dave Matthews signature overlay on headstock and custom inlay on fretboard
  • Ebony fretboard and bridge
  • Bone nut and saddle
  • Gotoh 510 tuners
  • Adjustable truss rode
  • Strung with Elixir Light Gauge Strings with NANOWEB coating


Features Taylor’s Grand Auditorium shape and an abalone soundhole rosette.

Taylor’s Grand Auditorium Shape
The Grand Auditorium was the first guitar shape designed from scratch by Bob Taylor. It was unveiled to commemorate the company’s 20th Anniversary in 1994, and since then it has more than lived up to its promise. Although the GA has the width and depth of a Dreadnought, its narrower waist gives it the appearance of a smaller instrument, adds treble “zing” across the guitars tonal spectrum, sharpens the definition of individual notes, and also enables it to rest comfortably in the lap. Because Taylor removed mass from the width of the GAs braces, the guitar top moves faster, resulting in a snappy, bell-like tone. The GA is designed to be a strong fingerpicking guitar that also can handle medium strumming, and is exceptionally versatile.

A Venitian cutaway in the Grand Auditorium body allows better access to the upper frets. In the past, many players moving to acoustic guitars grew accustomed to the cutaways on their electric guitars, while others simply like the freedom of movement into the upper register that a cutaway allows. Now, cutaways are favored as much for their decorative appeal as for their function.

Crisp and Bold Tone
The top is made from sitka spruce, a dense, straight-grained wood that has the highest strength and elasticity-to-weight ratio among available tonewoods. It’s these attributes that make sitka spruce an ideal material not only for soundboards, but also for internal bracing. The sitka top will produce a tone slightly brighter tone than engelmann spruce.

The back and sides are made from Indian rosewood, which is coveted by players and guitar builders alike for its dark, luxurious coloration that ranges from brown to purple to rose to black, and for tonal characteristics that include a strong bass response and long sustain. It remains the most popular tonewood used in the making of high-quality acoustic guitars.


Inspired by Dave Matthews’ 914ce.

Construction
Taylor takes pride in using the finest quality woods for their guitars, like ebony for every fretboard they make. The tone woods for the DMSM were quartersawn and carefully book-matched before being sorted, dried, and prepared by Bob Taylor and his experienced team of luthiers. The DMSM pearl and abalone inlay and binding work was also done by hand, providing care and “touch” that no machine can give. Taylor believes that precision matters, which is why they rely on laser cutters and computer-aided milling machines to consistently hit minute tolerances that were impossible a decade ago.

Balance and Bracing
A balanced tone is critical to a quality recorded sound. Guitars that are too heavily weighted towards a particular end of the tonal spectrum (too “bassy,” for example) tend to be tougher to record. While the Dreadnought shape has more volume or bass than other shapes, the overall balance on the DMSM is not compromised.


Headstock overlay developed from Dave Matthews’ sketch.

Features inlays that pay tribute to the band’s longtime sax player, LeRoi Moore, who passed away in 2008.

Straight Necks Matter
Don’t all guitars have straight necks? The answer is usually yes, but the real question is will they stay that way? Since its inception, the acoustic guitar had a major design flaw. The fretboard lacked sufficient support to remain truly straight because of top movement caused by changes in humidity. All guitars experience this phenomenon–often resulting in a slight bump at the 14th fret–but not all guitars respond to it in the same way.

Introduced in 1999 and a standard feature since 2001, the patented New Technology (NT) neck was designed by Bob Taylor and his team to accomplish the primary goal of building a straighter, more stable guitar neck. While some necks may bend in the face of humidity and other factors, the NT Neck stays stable and straight.

Adjustability is another major NT advantage. Since the NT Neck angle is created by spacers and requires no glue, adjustment simply requires a repair person with a new set of spacers and about five spare minutes. Altering the neck angle of a traditional neck assembly could require invasive surgery to remove wood and relocate the bridge.

The bottom line: The NT Neck on the DMSM means a stable, easy-to-adjust neck that stands up to the pressures all acoustic guitars face.

Tuners
Precise, gleaming tuners add appealing form to an important function, while the type of strings used can alter the feel and the tone of your guitar. Taylor pays careful attention to both, using tuners and strings that are optimized for the DMSM guitar. Together, they are among the keys to an easy-playing, incredible-sounding Taylor.

Taylor Guitars DMSM Dave Matthews Signature Model Grand Auditorium Acoustic Electric Guitar

Stagg Nylon Gig Bag for Full Size Classical Guitars

Stagg Nylon Gig Bag for Full Size Classical Guitars

  • Strong nylon construction
  • 2 additional accessory pockets
  • 2 shoulder straps
  • Ideal for full size classical guitars
  • Black color

Product Description
This durable nylon gig bag is ideal for classical style acoustic guitars. Whether you’re a musician on the go or want to protect your guitar when it’s not in use, this case is for you! Features 2 shoulder straps to evenly distribute the weight across your shoulders and back, and 2 additional pockets (1 large, 1 small) to store extra strings, a tuner, sheet music, or small tools. Elegant black color.

Stagg Nylon Gig Bag for Full Size Classical Guitars

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