What is it?

We recently looked at Taylor’s revised and updated 324ce Grand Auditorium acoustic and heard how the company is continually reviewing and tweaking its instruments in the search for sonic nirvana.

We saw that designer-in-chief Andy Powers had taken his innovative V-Class concept a step further, instigating scalloped bracing to reduce mass, but maintain strength. Then there was a new neck-adjustment system that sees simple tweaks to the angle of the neck in order to maintain a comfortable playing action. And we were also introduced to a new acoustic guitar pickup system, the Claria, aimed at producing the best possible plugged-in tone for live use.

We were impressed, concluding that the changes to the 324ce’s manifest has “paid dividends” and nodded in agreement in the direction of Taylor’s claim that the instrument is “its most plug-in-and-play version” of that particular model.

Naturally, when you’re a fast-moving, upwards-spiralling manufacturer such as Taylor, a practically continuous programme of re-evaluation of the catalogue is going to be whirring away in the background. And so it is no surprise that the 324ce doesn’t stand alone when it comes to the production of new and exciting twists from the Californian maker.

Enter the 710e, a deep-bodied square-shouldered dreadnought, which Taylor claims “offers a playing experience that combines traditional acoustic sound with modern innovation”.

It’s part of Taylor’s Gold Label Series, introduced around a year ago, which draws inspiration from past eras of traditional, non-cutaway acoustic guitars; hence a ‘new’ body shape in the company’s range. And you can’t really get any more traditional than a dreadnought, can you?

But what’s all this ‘deep-bodied’ designation about? Obviously it’s there to add punch and heft to the guitar’s sound, but is it all that new? If you take Martin’s D-28 as an industry standard then we’d be looking at a body depth of 123mm, whereas the 710e comes in at a smidge under, at 122mm.

On the other hand, a D-28 has a lower bout of 397mm and the Taylor comes in at 403mm. So deep and wide seems to be the order of the day with the 710e, promising a robust volume level with good bass and singing mids.

But let’s not skip ahead too far; if the 710e is a nod of the head towards celebrated acoustic designs of yore, we’d better have a quick look in the builder’s yard to see exactly how traditional things are.

To begin with, we have a torrefied Sitka spruce top, backed with East Indian rosewood and so we are spot on, as far as tradition is concerned as this mimics, again, the D-28’s winning formula. While we’re here, it’s worth noting that the 710e’s top wood is very attractive with plenty of shimmering chatoyance that dances when the light hits it.

Currently, of course, the colour is a very pale amber, but is sure to darken to that more familiar hue as the years pass. The Indian rosewood is no slouch in the looks department, either, with a nice straight grain pattern and that distinctive chocolatey bloom.

The body is bound, front and back, in black and white, the pattern reflected in the rosette. The pickguard is a ‘firestripe’ pattern and the bridge and string pins are Honduran rosewood.

Moving on to the neck, we have tropical mahogany, with an incredibly subtle scarf joint below the headstock. Turning the guitar over, we find a West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard with what Taylor refers to as “cream dot” inlays in all the accustomed places.

The headstock has Taylor’s own tuners and the new-old Taylor logo – we’re used to seeing the distinctive ‘block’ logo from Taylor, but more recently we’re seeing this new cursive variation, which looks ‘old’ in the manner of Gibson’s earlier acoustics.

Other highlights include the aforementioned Action Control Neck mentioned earlier, whereby your action is kept stable via a simple adjustment through the guitar’s soundhole.

A simple bolt on the neck block will tilt the neck to compensate for climate irregularities – think Fender’s neck-tilt idea. Add to this another variation on Andy Powers’ V-Class bracing – here it’s fanned to “increase volume and sustain”.

The final piece of the puzzle is the LR Baggs VTC pickup and preamp system, with controls secreted within the upper arc of the guitar’s soundhole. So the guitar is all set and ready for the stage, but first we’d better explore its unplugged voice and find out how it handles.

Specs

• PRICE: $2,999 | £3,275 | €3,199 (inc hard case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• Type: Dreadnought
• Top: Torrefied Sitka spruce
• Back/Sides: Indian rosewood
• Max Rim Depth: 122mm
• Max Body Width: 403mm
• neck: Tropical mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5 inches)
• TUNERS: Taylor Nickel with nickel buttons
• NUT/WIDTH: White Tusq/44.5mm
• FINGERBOARD: West African Crelicam ebony
• FRETS: 20
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: Honduran rosewood with Micarta saddle/56mm
• ELECTRICS: LR Baggs Element VTC
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.08/4.6
• LEFT-HANDERS: Made to order only
• FINISHES: Gloss
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

Build quality, usability and sounds

We’ll never tire of saying how user-friendly Taylor acoustic necks are. It really is like shaking hands with an old friend every time. And it’s good to note that Taylor has decided not to go ‘full vintage’ and change the profile to one of the more vintage-inspired chunky variations. In any case, the neck here is that familiar C-shape, the satin finish adding that essential finishing touch for neck excursions.

We should mention the 45mm nut width, too, as just a couple of millimetres here makes an enormous difference to fingerstyle players. Needless to say, sitting down with a dreadnought is not to everyone’s taste as they do tend to be a bit of an armful, but we’re happy to report that the 710e is very well balanced and comfy either sitting or standing.

With everything shipshape in the feel department, it’s time for those first exploratory chords. Now, it’s very hard to sum up the sound of a dreadnought. We’d even question whether there is a definitive dreadnought sound. Is there that much of a similarity between Gibson’s J-45 and Martin’s D-28, for instance?

The characteristics they share would be a robust midrange with plenty of volume and a good amount of bass – and that’s virtually what we find here, give or take. If you take the aforementioned models as a reference, we’d say that the 710e lacks some of the ‘woodiness’ of the J-45 and leans more towards the sing-song musicality of the Martin.

There’s certainly a lot of volume to hand and without that dreadnought muddiness that you sometimes find in the lower midrange. Plenty of sparkle at the top end as well. We tried a range of campfire chords, a bit of fingerstyle, a smidge of blues and the only bluegrass licks we could remember and everything passed muster with panache.

Plugged into our Boss Katana-50 EX on the Acoustic setting, the 710e came to life. This writer’s acid test for plugged-in acoustics is the intro and verse to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. If that particular combo of plectrum-fuelled blues and lusty chords sounds stadium rock-worthy, then you’re on to a winner. And let’s just say the Taylor shone like a crazy diamond…

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Guitar World verdict: Naturally, this level of build quality and sound performance doesn’t come cheap and $2,999/£3.2k might be a determining factor in one’s prospective purchase stakes.

If you did decide to go down the deep-bodied Taylor dread route then you’d be getting a fine, gig-ready instrument with a very good array of sounds on tap as well as premium build quality. And you can’t really say fairer than that.

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• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

Having a small body acoustic guitar around the house can be a real boon to your guitar playing, particularly if you position it somewhere in sight of your sofa. The easy pick up and playability of these instruments has made them incredibly popular over the past few decades, with nearly every major acoustic guitar manufacturer offering one. The Taylor BT1 Baby Taylor was one of the originals, though, and has been popular for going on 30 years now.

Much like the early successes of guitars in the 50s and 60s, the recipe for the BT1e hasn’t changed at all in the three decades since it launched as one of the world’s first mass-produced travel guitars. It’s got the same arched back in lieu of back bracing, those unsightly screws in the fretboard at the 16th fret, and the same 3/4 acoustic guitar scale length that makes it cosily appointed. The only thing that’s changed really is the competition, with a huge number of guitars available in a similar format.

It’s a dreadnought body shape with layered walnut back and sides and a torrefied, solid spruce top with X-bracing underneath. The neck wood is tropical mahogany with an ebony (or eucalyptus, depending on availability) fretboard, and the fret markers are 4mm dots made composed of acrylic. It’s got a Tusq nut and micarta saddle material, and the bridge is made from ebony. Die-cast tuning machines and Taylor ES-B onboard electronics complete the specifications lineup.

Specs

• Launch price: $549 | £399 | €359
• Made: Mexico
• Body shape: Dreadnought
• Body top: Solid torrefied spruce
• Top bracing: X-bracing
• Back & sides: Layered walnut
• Neck/shape: Tropical mahogany
• Scale/length: 22.75" (577mm)
• Nut/width: TUSQ nut / 43mm
• String spacing at bridge: 52mm
• Fingerboard/Radius: Ebony
• Body depth: 85.7mm
• Finish: Natural, varnished
• Bridge/pins: Ebony, plastic
• Tuning Machines: Die-cast chrome
• Electronics: Taylor ES-B
• Weight: 1.5kg
• Case: Taylor structured gig bag, tan
• Left-handed options: Yes
• Contact: Taylor

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

The Taylor BT1e comes in a semi-solid gig bag similar to what you get with the GS Mini, which is a nice touch considering the price of the instrument. Pulling it out, I’m reminded of how absolutely tiny it is compared to a regular dreadnought. It’s super lightweight at just 1.5kg, and feels not that much heavier than the case it comes in.

Doing a close visual inspection of the body, I can find little out of place in terms of aesthetics. The solid top wood is well joined to the body with a clean line separating the two, and there’s also a lighter colored wood visible where the back meets the sides, showing what is presumably a poplar layer between the two pieces of layered walnut. The back is arched outwards, although it’s a very slight hump that’s not all that noticeable when playing.

Sitting the guitar on my lap, I can see gaps where the frets have been hammered in, which on more expensive models would usually be filled or covered with a binding. The frets themselves are very well installed, though, and everything is even up and down the dark wood of the fretboard.

The neck sits at an angle against the body near the soundhole, ever so slightly proud of the spruce top, so you can see a tiny sliver of the mahogany showing. This is part of the bolt-on neck design rather than a flaw, however, as this guitar can be easily shimmed instead of having to completely reset the neck as you would with a joint that’s glued in.

It’s that typical Taylor build quality I’ve experienced on basically every model I’ve played, and the tuners and bridge are similarly well-appointed. Interestingly, the finger joint that glues together the neck and headstock is quite visible, with the headstock wood being significantly darker than the one used for the neck, but the grain of the two woods is very well matched. The joint itself is very smoothly done, though, and when looking down at the neck side-on, you can barely see it.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★½

Sitting down in front of my TV with the BT1e on my lap, I proceed to start testing it with some gently fingerpicked melodies to get a feel for the fretboard. Despite the small dimensions, it doesn’t feel overtly cramped near the nut. Coming from a 3/4 classical guitar that I normally play in this position, it’s a very comfortable neck profile, and I’m able to play everything from melancholic Radiohead-inspired arpeggios to classical standards with ease.

Its neck-heavy nature does make itself immediately noticeable every time I sit up to pause playing, however, and the guitar naturally wants to fall out of my lap when I do this. With my right arm over the body in the typical playing position, it’s not all that noticeable, though, so just something to be mindful of if you decide to quickly reach for your phone or the TV remote.

An Eb major barre chord at the 11th fret is as comfortable as I can reach with my picking hand touching the body, but for single notes, I can get all the way to the 15th fret for some pentatonic scale runs. I can even hit the notes on the 16th fret above the screws for the neck joint, and they ring out just as clearly as those around it, but to be honest, I can’t see many players ever needing to go higher than this when playing this style of guitar.

Taylor doesn’t list the neck profile of this guitar on its official website, but to my hand it feels like a very soft ‘V’ profile. This is most likely due to the narrower-than-usual nut width, which means there’s less wood from which to carve a ‘C’ profile while still keeping the neck slim and playable. It’s noticeable coming from a guitar with a more usual ‘C’ profile, but it doesn’t stop it from feeling very comfortable with a variety of different playing styles.

Getting my ruler out and placing my finger on the 1st fret, I measure the action at 2mm at the 12th fret, and it certainly feels comfortable for the more fleet-fingered stuff. The short scale means it feels very quick, and full tone bends are nowhere near as difficult as they are on a full-size dreadnought. This is partially aided by the light, 12-gauge acoustic guitar strings that come with it from the factory.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

When played fingerstyle, the tone of the Taylor BT1e is absolutely gorgeous. It’s quite a bright-sounding guitar overall, so it responds really nicely to more gentle touch of fingerpicking. The notes sustain really well, ringing out with some lush overtones as I pick a mixture of chords with open drone notes.

Switching to a pick for some hard strumming, it’s pretty easy to get it to compress with a good whack of an open E major. My current strum tester track is the opening of ‘Master Exploder’ by Tenacious D, and when attacking the BT1e with a guitar pick, it’s a very bright sound, with heavy strumming leading to a slight harshness in the upper frequencies.

It’s not designed to be a hard strummer, of course, you’ll need a full-size dreadnought or jumbo acoustic for that, and with a more measured pick attack, it’s a lovely-sounding guitar. There’s not a huge amount of low end, but it’s balanced across the spectrum, with plenty of clarity across all the notes, whether I play barre chords, open chords, or single note licks.

Plugging it into my audio interface to test out the onboard pickup and electronics, I find a surprisingly lifelike sound. It’s not as good as it sounds in the room, and there’s that very present ‘plink’ sound you get from most acoustic guitar pickups, but overall, I’d be more than happy to put it into a PA system for live playing.

I did find it needed a significant gain boost even with the onboard electronics at max volume, adding around 15dB to get it peaking at -6dB in my DAW meters, so if you are planning on playing this guitar live, it’d definitely be worth adding an acoustic guitar pedal to help shape and boost the sound.

Verdict

Despite its toy-like dimensions, the Taylor BT1e Baby Taylor comes across as a very grown-up acoustic indeed. The unplugged sound is phenomenal for everything shy of the hardest strumming, and sitting on the sofa playing fingerstyle is a joyous experience with this excellent acoustic. With a surprisingly usable onboard electronics system, it can also do the job for live playing, should you wish to take it out of the house.

Those with very large dimensions might struggle at the upper registers, and it is very neck-heavy, but these are two flaws small enough to forgive when the overall playing experience is so comfortable and sounds this good. It doesn’t respond particularly well to really hard strumming, but then that is the nature of small body acoustics as they compress more easily due to their size.

Guitar World verdict: As far as 3/4 size acoustics go, there’s a reason the Taylor BT1e Baby Taylor has been at the top of the game for the past 30 years. The combination of excellent tone, fantastic playability, and rock-solid build quality makes it a brilliant addition for any player, whether you’re looking for your very first instrument or you’re an experienced guitarist who wants something comfortable for songwriting sessions and sofa noodling.

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As the CEO and president of Taylor Guitars, which has been in the upper echelon of acoustic guitar-making since 1974, Andy Powers has a lot on his plate. And while the business side of things is paramount, Powers’ passion is forever centered around the making of the instruments.

“It stems around trying to create an instrument that feels inspiring to a player,” Powers says. “It could be inspiring in familiar, fresh and new ways. But I want somebody to feel joy when they pick up the instrument.”

Taylor’s lines range from high-quality, budget-friendly instruments to ornate guitars that’ll make your jaw drop – but the approach never changes.

“The trick is to try and take that one individual instrument and then scale that up in a way where you don’t lose the magic of the first one,” Powers says.

“That’s difficult to do, so most of what we spend our time working on is eliminating the accidental customization that might happen on a shop floor. You’re trying to create a method where every single guitar you build comes out exactly the way you intended it to – even when your own hands weren’t the ones touching it.”

At over a half-century old, Taylor is still a new kid on the block, which means Taylor lives in a gray area, straddling the line between classic design and modern innovation. With this in mind, as far as Powers is concerned, the sky is the limit.

To that end, he says, “One of the things that makes us unique is that our history is defined by changing what we see fit to change.”

You come from a guitar-building background, so how would you describe your role at Taylor?

I come from a guitar-making and playing background, not really so much of a business background. But I started building and playing guitars from a young age, so all I’d ever really done was build. A lot of my focus was on actually building the instrument itself.

I still think about an instrument that might be interesting to a player – maybe an adaptation of a guitar we’re making now, maybe something totally new or something that might be an improvement to an existing guitar. I’ll go build those instruments by hand.

So you’ve still got a hand in that aspect of the company?

I maintain a shop here at our Taylor campus as well as a shop at my home. I’m working like Geppetto. [Laughs] It’s like a lot of old hand tools and a very traditional, craft-oriented kind of construction. That gives me a lot of flexibility to create what might be interesting for us to make next.

Is it a challenge to match and raise the bar on Taylor’s well-known standards?

It depends on which way we look at it. You’re right; Taylor, as a guitar manufacturer, is known for building a very consistent, high-quality guitar. Now, coming from the guitar-making world, that’s not really hard to achieve.

It would be expected for a high-end instrument to be built at a very high level – the fit and finish, the way the parts work, the way it feels. I’d expect it to be working at a high level. And really, a lot of the credit I would give to Bob Taylor, a designer who’s trying to design something for a manufacturing scale.

Of note with Taylor is that your budget models sometimes outpace other companies’ higher-end models.

A lot of it comes down to the process you use, the way you’re gonna build the instrument. So if we’re gonna build a high-end instrument, we’re going to create a process to result in a really great guitar every time. We’re gonna go through that same process, even for a more modest instrument where it might not have lavish trimmings, the rarest woods or something like that.

But that doesn’t simply mean we’re going to import loads of low-end guitars, slap our name on them and sell them. That’s not how we do it. We actually design a thing to go, “This guitar is for a musician of modest means, so we’re going to use more commonly available materials – but I want the musical experience to be a great one.”

What’s it been like trying to source materials these days, where tariffs have hampered companies and there are far more restrictions on the harvesting of certain woods?

It is a challenge. But I would say that at no point was it ever not a challenge, right? Let’s say I went back a couple of hundred years and worked in Stradivari’s day; it’d be a real challenge to get great material. [Laughs] Not so much because the materials aren’t there to be had, but just the logistics and transportation mean you’re gonna be working really close to home to get that piece of ebony for a fretboard.

Man, that is really gonna be hard. So there’s a challenge there as you come into a more modern era where you face depleting resources.

One of the challenges in procurement is actually sourcing the material and how it is harvested. So we’re working a lot closer, a lot deeper into the forest, and oftentimes looking at alternate structures for the future.

What do those alternate structures look like?

Whether that’s plantation-grown wood, whether that’s deliberately planting trees for future generations of instrument use, or whether it’s different forestry models altogether, like using reclaimed urban-harvested wood. There are all kinds of different ways we approach it, and they have their own unique challenges.

One of them is a design challenge, which is to work with what options you have available. As an example, we started pursuing what I describe as urban forest harvested wood – city trees, street trees – trees that cities plant to control soil erosion, create shade, wind barriers, noise barriers, things like that.

When those trees grow larger, because they’re in a more densely populated area, they become a liability. A storm might knock that tree over, and it could fall on buildings, cars or people. Those trees have a managed lifespan. We look at it and go, “Why are you chipping that up for mulch? There’s gotta be some end-of-life usage in that tree.”

With this, the age-old debate over tonewood arises, which is even more critical when discussing acoustic guitars. Do you think a street tree versus a forest-harvest tree would produce a very different-sounding guitar?

Oh, yeah – it’s been super-interesting. The most interesting part of it is that there are no direct comparisons. So what should I do with that to make an equally appealing sound musically on a guitar? It means you’ve gotta start changing the guitar a little bit.

You change your design, maybe you voice the bracing a little differently, you use it in a different spot, you cut it to a different thickness. There are all kinds of different things you could do as an instrument designer to create a musically appealing instrument.

It seems as if this particular challenge is an opportunity to unlock new tones and designs.

It absolutely is. It’s interesting to think about wood material over time and how the instrument world has constantly changed its appetite and developed new materials. It’s become common practice for guitar makers to like what we call Honduran mahogany for a neck, right? That’s pretty common. It’s been used for a lot over the last century.

Well, that was a substitute material for Spanish cedar. Spanish cedar was preferable for nylon-string or early classical guitars. A lot of classical makers still swear by it. But it was commonly used for necks well into the teens, Twenties and beyond.

But Honduran mahogany was more obtainable. It was easier to get in big pieces, and it had a similar enough character to Spanish cedar that it became popular. Instrument making is a slow evolution, influenced by the maker’s skill and the musician’s taste.

At NAMM 2024, Taylor launched the Action Control neck, which allows players to make micro-adjustments to string height without removing the neck.

One of the things we like to do is make a genuine improvement to the instruments we’re building when we can. I like to be able to work that idea into more places because what excites me as a builder and a player is having a wider variety of guitars. I like that we get to choose our voice.

We get to choose whether we wanna play a big-body strummer, powerhouse guitars, smaller finger-style instruments or more modern, heritage-based sounds. I like exploring different flavors. Now something like the Action Control neck is a feature or aspect I’d been working on for almost 10 years before those guitars came out – even before I was really happy with the design.

So we introduced that on the Gold Label guitars, and over the course of 2025, we introduced more iterations and variations of that into our Gold Label collection. We’ve added it to the Grand Pacific body shape guitars in that collection. We’ve done more Super Auditoriums and different wood combinations. That’s something I’ll start to spread into other models because of how well that serves the player.

What will you do to match that in the coming years?

There’s instrument development. It comes in kind of waves, but ideas come through different instruments so that all the different players can find what best suits their taste. There are going to be different voicings of the V-Class bracing architecture that we developed a number of years ago.

That’s a very adaptable kind of design that lets us manipulate the sound of the guitar in a lot of different ways. It brings out different nuances of the guitar’s voice, so you’ll see some different flavors there. And you’ll see some different amplification developments from us.

What’s on tap there?

As much as I love to play an acoustic guitar in front of a microphone, you’re gonna see that most players still take a guitar on a stage, grab a cord and plug it in.

We’ve used the Expression System, what we call the Expression System 2, for a number of years. That’s worked really well for a lot of players on a lot of stages. But our development didn’t stop there. So there are other developments coming into our amplification space that I think might serve players even better in an even wider variety of scenarios.

Taylor is as much about classic designs as it is innovation. How do you see the future shaking out?

We’re not afraid to change something. I like to think our best days are still ahead of us as guitar makers. We’re really not all that young anymore; five decades and counting is a pretty good run, and we’ve got a couple of miles on us. At the same time, amongst a lot of guitar makers, we’re still relatively young, so we have a lot of permission to continue developing our instruments.

I like to look ahead and go, “At this point, we have a history we can draw from as well as a still-unwritten future.” You can see designs that are influenced by our past designs, and we’ve got a library of things we’ve built and a body of work we can draw from, kind of a “greatest hits.” We have our modern benchmark guitars like the 814 Standard, the quintessential modern acoustic cutaway electric.

Then we have these other collections, and we’re still developing and pushing boundaries with our Builder’s Edition collection. We’re exploring ergonomics influenced by an electric guitar on an acoustic guitar.

Then we have our Gold Label collection that’s steeped in the tradition of instrument-making. There are all these varieties that we get to continue developing and exploring.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

A new initiative has been launched to help track down Brad Delp’s long-lost 1976 Taylor 885 12-string – the acoustic guitar cherished by the late Boston legend throughout his career.

The social media push, which has so far received support from Taylor Guitars and is on the radar of Norman’s Rare Guitars, has been inspired by the Lost Bass Project, which was responsible for tracking down Paul McCartney’s missing Höfner violin bass back in 2024.

The initiative will be leveraging Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X in a fresh effort to put the vintage acoustic firmly into the public consciousness, with the hope that someone out there will be able to help return the acoustic to Delp’s family.

Heading up the search is Timothy Dwelle, who is working with Micki Delp and the rest of the late guitarist’s family. In January, Micki issued a plea on Facebook, urging fans to check serial numbers and help track down Delp’s Taylor, which was stolen a few years after Brad passed away.

“This one-of-a-kind 1976 Taylor Custom 885 (12-string, Serial #20173) was built for Boston singer Brad Delp,” Micki wrote on Facebook. “It was stolen in Los Angeles, California in 2009. We have not given up hope yet that it will find its way home someday.

“As you can imagine, it's of great sentimental value to our family, Brad has a grandson now and it would mean so much just to see him holding Grampy's favorite guitar. He never got to meet his Grampy, but he is totally obsessed with music, writing, singing, producing and even making his own music videos. I would love for him to be able to play it. It may still be inside its black hard case!”

The Taylor 885 in question (Serial Number #20173) is an important piece of both Boston and Brad Delp's legacy. Custom-made for the Boston guitarist, it was one of Delp's go-to guitars in his collection.

Dwelle is optimistic that, with the right coverage, the guitar can be found. Given the miraculous recovery of McCartney’s Höfner – which was unearthed in the back of someone’s attic 50 years after it went missing – there’s still hope for Delp’s Taylor.

“Given Los Angeles’ dense network of recording studios, vintage instrument shops, and private collectors, there is a strong possibility the guitar is still in the area,” he says, “perhaps sitting unrecognized in someone's attic, a hallway closet, or tucked away in a storage unit.

“Much like the McCartney bass, it’s possible the current owner has no idea they are in possession of a unique piece of the Boston legacy.

“While it’s the voice behind More Than a Feeling that the world remembers, this guitar was Brad’s personal favorite - the instrument he played at home and carried with him throughout his career.”

Anyone with any information or potential leads is encouraged to email B.DelpGuitar@gmail.com.

As the CEO and president of Taylor Guitars, Andy Powers has seen his fair share of changes within the guitar manufacturing industry. As a guitar designer and life-long guitar aficionado, well, you could say Powers' life revolves around the instrument we all know and love – and that involves steering the Taylor ship into the future.

“I come from a guitar-making and playing background, not really so much of a business background,” Powers says in the new issue of Guitar World. “But I started building and playing guitars from a young age, so all I’d ever really done was build. A lot of my focus was on actually building the instrument itself.

“I still think about an instrument that might be interesting to a player – maybe an adaptation of a guitar we’re making now, maybe something totally new or something that might be an improvement to an existing guitar. I’ll go build those instruments by hand.”

Times have been challenging over the past year or so. The guitar and gear-making industry is not only grappling with global economic shifts, but also strained natural resources, the threats of full-blown trade wars, and an ever-changing tariff landscape.

As John Mlynczak, President and CEO of the National Association of Music Merchants [NAMM], told Guitar World last year, “these tariffs can be really devastating for our industry: it's not just the sudden costs that will have to be figured out by companies individually, but it's also the disruption of supply chains. It's the unpredictability, uncertainty, and the suddenness of the tariffs.”

So how have Powers and, in turn, Taylor Guitars, been navigating all this? “It is a challenge,” he admits. “But I would say that at no point was it ever not a challenge, right?

“Let’s say I went back a couple of hundred years and worked in Stradivari’s day; it’d be a real challenge to get great material,” he adds diplomatically. “Not so much because the materials aren’t there to be had, but just the logistics and transportation mean you’re gonna be working really close to home to get that piece of ebony for a fretboard. Man, that is really gonna be hard.

“So there’s a challenge there as you come into a more modern era where you face depleting resources. One of the challenges in procurement is actually sourcing the material and how it is harvested. So we’re working a lot closer, a lot deeper into the forest, and oftentimes looking at alternate structures for the future.”

As far as finding alternative, and perhaps, more eco-friendly structures, Powers asserts, “Whether that’s plantation-grown wood, whether that’s deliberately planting trees for future generations of instrument use, or whether it’s different forestry models altogether, like using reclaimed urban-harvested wood. There are all kinds of different ways we approach it, and they have their own unique challenges.”

For more from Powers and Taylor Guitars, pick up issue 601 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

Neil Diamond has gifted a signed acoustic guitar to Marvel star Hugh Jackman, who (sort of) plays the legendary songwriter in his new movie.

Song Sung Blue hit cinemas on Christmas Day and has been getting rave reviews. With plenty of Oscar buzz around it, the film tells the story of Diamond impersonator Mike Sardina, who is played by Jackman.

Given the Diamond connection, the legendary singer saw it fit to give Jackman, who plays Wolverine in the X-Men franchise, an appropriate music-themed gift.

The gift has come as a total surprise to the Aussie actor, who also won a Grammy for his starring role in The Greatest Showman. A video, posted to his Instagram, sees him opening a slightly tattered guitar case – signalling that it's had a busy past life – and letting out an audible gasp as he lays his eyes on the instrument.

“Oh my... that’s from Neil Diamond?” he says to the person holding the camera. He then proceeds to embrace the guitar, his heart practically bursting.

The video is accompanied by a photo of Neil with the Taylor guitar, showing the inscription on its body, which reads: “Hugh! Keep Rockin! Your friend Neil Diamond.”

The caption of the post, meanwhile, puts Jackman’s reaction into words: “One of the most awesome gifts I’ve ever received,” it reads, “I will cherish forever.”

According to Variety, Song Sung Blue grossed $12 million on its opening weekend, and has now comfortably turned a profit on its $30m production costs. And plenty more music biopics are set to follow in its wake as Hollywood continues to cash in on their popularity.

A B.B. King film has been announced, Lizzo is set to play Rosetta Thorpe in another feature film, and Paul Mescal, who is set to play Paul McCartney in a film about the Beatles, recently revealed he had to learn to play guitar left-handed and even jammed with Macca to be set ready.

Jacob Collier is fast becoming a guitar hero for the modern age. That’s not because he can shred faster than the speed of light, nor is it because he’s taking progressive techniques to new heights.

It is, quite simply, because he is inspiring players to approach the instrument in an entirely new way – and, when it comes to the future and longevity of the guitar, that is what matters. With his unique five-string guitars and carefully devised symmetrical open tuning – a symmetrical fourths/fifths tuning of D, A, E, A, D – Collier is unlocking an entirely new language on the instrument. And it’s making a mark.

It’s a language that opens all-new avenues for songwriting and creativity. One that’s making people rethink what they know about playing guitar. One that prompted his five-string Strandberg signature to sell out faster than his six-string.

When something so new comes along, it can be hard to fully grasp the concept. One of the perks of this job though is the opportunity to go straight to the source. Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Collier himself for an one-to-one lesson on how to use his new five-string Taylor signature guitar – alongside a chat about his new guitar-centric album, The Light For Days.

What followed was a mind-warping crash course in how to navigate Collier’s quirky tuning and anarchic approach to (guitar) string theory. It was also an eye-opening introduction to his philosophy as a guitarist that has given me new perspective on the instrument.

By the time our allotted time was up, it's fair to say I came away with much more than simply how to play a major chord on a five-string guitar…

Don’t worry about the rules, write your own

The guitar can be technically intimidating, but its always been intrinsically linked to the word ‘feel’ – and it can pay dividends to take that approach seriously.

Collier never learned on a six-string. Instead, he cut his teeth on a four-string tenor guitar. Then he had the audacity to imagine the existence of a five-string that could facilitate the sound he had in his head. Years later, he made it a reality.

He didn’t try to compromise with an orthodox guitar. Collier broke the ‘rules’ and came up with his own.

“For some reason, the six-string system never really hooked my brain,” he reflected. “With a six-string, you have to know the shapes to be able to access it. I was a bit averse to learning shapes that sound like things I’ve heard before. I wanted to immediately find something that was different.

“Starting with something as opaque as a six-string and trying to find the way is fine, but I always feel like I’m sounding like something else, [something] that’s familiar enough to not guide my ear into a new place.”

What does that mean for musical mortals? Well, the minor pentatonic might not be the best way to unlock that song you have in your head. Cycling around the same chord shapes with no end in sight isn't the most inspiring endeavor. Instead, in Collier’s own words, “forget everything you know” and take a few risks.

You don’t need to invent a new language – or a new instrument. But, you can still let your curiosity take your playing to new places if you let it, regardless of whether it’s the ‘right’ thing to do. Experiment with open tunings. Flatten a string to hit a unique inversion. See what happens.

Collier’s enthusiasm for playing guitar ‘differently’ is infectious. It’s not just the chords or theory, either. Even the way he strums is interesting to watch, up-close: one minute his hands are plucking like a bass guitar and feathering with each digit, the next he’s flapping his hand for a more percussive attack.

It's an approach no conventional tutor would recommend. It might not be ‘proper’, but it sure as hell works.

Let your ear do the work – and trust your instincts

Abandoning the rulebook comes with some occupational hazards. For instance, how do you know where to put your fingers if you’ve fudged the tuning and your safety net shapes are all jumbled? The short answer is: you don’t, and you just have to roll with it.

“The thing with the six-string guitar is, tab culture [is so rigid]. It's so, ‘Oh, G and then C and then E,’” Collier says. “The thing that's cool with this guitar is, none of the shapes work, so you have to think differently.

“I think that most people underestimate their ear – you usually have a relationship with things that you hear that is somewhat un-tapped into.”

Giving your ear the credit it deserves can genuinely level up your playing and Collier isn’t alone in thinking this. Tim Henson said his biggest piece of advice for beginners was to learn everything by ear. Steve Vai has a course for ear training. Rick Beato says it so much that it’s pretty much meme territory.

Sitting across from Collier, with his own five-string guitar in my arms, I found trying to keep up with new chord shapes certainly forced me to tune-in into my own ear. Training your ear to react in different contexts and relying on your instincts is a huge asset to have in your toolbox.

It doesn’t matter if you over- or under-reach. While Jacob was watching me as I tried to process moving around new shapes, I certainly tripped up a few times. I was overthinking it too much at the start. Once I started trusting my ear (somewhat hard to do in the circumstances) and got Jacob’s generous reassurance (he was a very patient teacher) I started to ‘get it’.

So, try to learn that song by ear. Have a favorite solo? Don’t rush to find tabs, see if you can decipher it yourself. If you have a melody in mind, sing it and let your ears do the work. That’s how Jacob writes, and he used just one guitar to write an entire album.

Finesse is overrated

Today, technique is all the rage. You need only open Instagram to see any number of players churning out a stomach-flipping flurry of notes. It creates a strange external pressure to prioritise things that, in reality, aren’t important.

It’s been said before many times, but technique is never the measure of a good guitar song. What really counts isn’t how much you’re playing, but what you’re playing. That’s at the heart of Collier’s guitar style.

Yes, his chops are impressive – and watching him rip through a kaleidoscope of notes was awe-inspiring as I fumbled around major and minor chord shapes – but it all comes from his head. It’s music first, then technique. Not the other way around.

“Having this new access point means that players have to forget technique and focus on the thing that's underneath the technique, which is always more interesting than the technique,” Collier muses.

“Technique doesn't really make anything. It doesn't. It's not real. It's a way of getting to the thing that's beneath it, which is your taste and your intuitions and all of that. I always enjoy ways of learning and then forgetting technique.”

His nonchalant approach to the guitar comes through in everything he plays. At times Collier would see-saw on a simple passing phrase, the early idea of a song already present. Sometimes the simplest things can be the most creatively inspiring. Don't rush to be the best or the fastest. Be sloppy. Play what's in your head.

You don't need a 5-string guitar

After our interview, I felt a bit disappointed that my time with the five-string – and playing with Jacob Collier – was up. It had been the first time in a while I'd felt like a complete novice on the guitar, like I was treading new ground. At times I felt like I had forgotten how to hold a guitar, how to strum. But I was actually happy about that.

As guitarists, sometimes we need to be jolted out of our comfort zones in order to get better. I came away from my lesson with Jacob with a new sense of appreciation and desire to veer off the beaten track.

It's encouraged me to think how I play a little differently. Of course, I did have my acoustic tuned to the Collier tuning for a while, but I was able to put the biggest takeaways into practice when I moved back to my six-string.

In the aftermath of the lesson, I spent some time going down the alternate tuning rabbit hole, though I did so through a slightly more experimental lens. I didn't quite have the vision Collier had for his symmetrical fourths/fifths language, but I found there was great merit in improvising as I went.

For example, as an extension of Collier's 'drone' philosophy – which is another reason he likes his particular tuning so much, as explored in the full video – I often found myself dropping a string (usually either the D or G strings) a note or two to unlock chord voices that I could intuitively write and improvise around.

From a practical perspective, I also spent time playing without a guitar pick – something I admit I've become far too reliant on. Sure, I can fingerpick, and I often cycle between the two, but never have I taken the time to truly explore what timbres and tones can be tapped into when 'proper' technique is shelved.

Strumming further up the fretboard, fanning the strings with the pads of my fingertips, using the length of one digit to produce cascading strums... all techniques and sounds I hadn't explored before.

So, I might not have a five-string, but I arguably have gained something more important: the desire to play differently, and be a bit more adventurous.

Jacob Collier’ ecosystem of five-string signature guitars has just grown with the arrival of two new Taylor acoustic guitars.

The new GS Mini and concert-sized acoustics expand Collier’s growing presence as a modern day guitar hero, further bringing his unique alternate tuning and boundary-pushing playing philosophy to the masses.

Collier started playing five-string prototypes as early as May 2023, when he was spotted recording Djesse Vol. 4 with an unorthodox Strandberg.

That set in motion something of a five-string revolution. A five-string Taylor soon followed, as did an official release of the Boden JC Djesse. Both were also rolled out as six-string options, but it was the five-string that proved to be the hit – the five-string Strandberg sold out faster than the six-string.

It shows there is clearly an appetite from players to embrace and explore Collier’s guitar playing school of thought – something that has now been furthered by the arrival of the Jacob Collier Academy 22e and GS Mini models.

Of course, they come with five strings, tuned to Collier’s tried-and-trusted DAEAD. The fourths-and-fifths tuning, Collier once told Guitar World, helps him cover more ground with fewer strings to cross, and helps facilitate his playing style with easy-access open chord shapes.

Playability is further supported by the fact both guitars – like his previous models – feature six-string dimensions. That means there is plenty of real estate to move around.

The GS Mini is headlined by a striking rosette design, which sits atop its torrefied Sitka spruce top. Layered sapele is used for the back and sides, while mahogany and West African ebony is used for the neck and fretboard. There are no electronics here, but X-Bracing is present for a rounded natural tone.

At $699, it becomes the most affordable Jacob Collier five-string signature guitar so far, with the previous Taylor weighing in at the $2,799 mark.

The Academy 22e, meanwhile, gets a bit jazzy. It has layered walnut back and sides, a solid walnut top and, rather unusually, a smoked eucalyptus bridge and fretboard. It has some subtle bevels for playing comfort, and comes loaded with Academy Series bracing and Fishman Presys VT electronics. This one is priced at $999.

As for what sets these two models apart, Collier tells Guitar World in a soon-to-be-published interview that each serves a subtle playing purpose.

“The main difference to me is that I can bend these strings [on the GS Mini],” he explains. “I can bend further. I find myself really enjoying that kind of stuff.

“On this one [the Academy 22e], I don't necessarily feel as inclined to do that. But this, you can get into the lower stuff. It’s different tools for different fools.”

"These new 5-string models are a total dream come true for me," Collier adds in a press release. "Each is so distinct in their own right. For them to be accessible to more people, while maintaining the same spirit that inspired the original designs, is a wonder.

“I'm so looking forward to more folks having the opportunity to discover this 5-string world and make their own magic with it."

Head over to Taylor Guitars to find out more.

What is it?

Taylor never stands still for long and the company’s ongoing mission to review, upgrade and remodel its inventory is typical of a brand that is intent on remaining at the cutting edge of acoustic guitar design and manufacture.

According to our records, the last time the 500 Series enjoyed a refresh was in 2022. Three years later and there’s movement within the line once again.

The 500 Series has proved to be a popular one among players internationally and so it’s really no surprise that change is afoot in this quarter. Furthermore, the Builder’s Edition we see here is a rather splendid-looking beast with considerable visual impact from the moment it’s drawn from its hard case.

We’ve seen plenty of Builder’s Edition instruments from Taylor pass through these pages before, celebrating models from the catalogue with upgraded features and constructional fillips such as bevelled arm rests and refreshed tonewood partnerships.

Of this particular 514ce, Taylor says: “The Builder’s Edition 514ce Kona Burst embodies Taylor’s commitment to innovative craftsmanship, player-friendly guitar designs and sustainable sourcing.” Interest piqued? So is ours.

First of all, though, and in order to appreciate the embellishments present in its slightly more lavish companion, we’ll just take a look at what the standard 514ce comprised in terms of its sum of parts, as it will then provide a context for the changes Taylor has made to the model’s spec.

Taylor has always held conservation close to its heart and painstakingly sought out woods from sustainable sources, and the outgoing 514ce’s back and sides tonewood is a great example of this.

Here, it was red ironbark, sourced from urban trees in California that were reaching the end of their city life. It’s a wood that, according to Taylor, has “the warmth and clarity of Indian rosewood”, and that “strummers will appreciate the volume and projection, while fingerpickers will enjoy the definition and dynamic range”.

Paired with torrified Sitka spruce for the top and master builder and company CEO Andy Powers’ revolutionary V-Class internal bracing, we found a real musical chameleon in our hands.

Its sound has warmth but with the necessary balance and brightness to cut through in a stage environment, a situation that is further enhanced by its Expression System 2 internal pickup and preamp. In truth, the Builder’s Edition is going to have to take some long strides, sonically speaking, to beat what we’ve heard so far.

It’s a very easy guitar to play, too. We’ve often waxed lyrical about how Taylor’s neck profiles make a player – who is perhaps more used to playing electric guitar then they are acoustic – feel immediately at home and such is the case here. Good looks, good sounds and an easy ride. We really couldn’t ask for much more.

So let’s see what’s cooking with the Builder’s Edition. Obviously, the actual Grand Auditorium body profile is consistent between the two models, but otherwise the changes come thick and fast.

For starters, there’s the warm look to the Tobacco Kona Sunburst, which gives the guitar a sort of Gibson J-45 kerb appeal, although the sunburst here is perhaps a little more reddish-brown than on a J-45. It’s a good look, but if a sunburst finish is a total dealbreaker for you, then there is a natural finish Builder’s Edition on offer, too.

The top is, as with its sibling, Sitka spruce, but the spec we have available doesn’t disclose if it has been subjected to the torrification process – and it’s darned hard to tell from just the appearance of the wood itself. For the back and sides, Taylor has gone for Shamel ash, another urban timber from trees that are needing removal owing to age or safety concerns.

This particular timber is sourced from West Coast Arborists, a company that specialises in tree maintenance in cities across California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas. Taylor tells us that Shamel ash “produces midrange power and balance comparable to Honduran mahogany”, a bold claim, seeing that Honduran mahogany is hailed as a prince among tonewoods.

If it can live up to the claim, this is timber recycling at its finest hour. Under close inspection, the timber has a lively grain pattern similar to that of figured maple, but it’s all but hidden by the dark finish, which, to be honest, is really a bit of a shame.

The Builder’s Edition appointments are more pronounced at the guitar’s body end with chamfered edges, plus mahogany forearm and cutaway bevels, and so playing comfort has been optimised.

The mahogany neck and West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard and bridge are common to this model and its 514ce sidekick, but tuners here have been upscaled to Gotoh 510 Antique Chrome, which offers a little vintage chic to the overall picture.

Onstage duties are managed by Taylor’s proven Expression System 2, but first things first: it’s time to listen to what the upgraded 514ce has to offer acoustically.

Specs

• Price: $3,499/£4,019 (inc case)
• Origin: USA
• Type: Grand Auditorium
• Top: Sitka spruce
• Back/Sides: Shamel ash
• Max Rim Depth: 112mm
• Max Body Width: 402mm
• Neck: Tropical mahogany
• Scale Length: 648mm (25.5”)
• Tuners: Gotoh 510 Antique Chrome with antique chrome buttons
• Nut/Width: Graph Tech Tusq/
  44mm
• Fingerboard: West African Crelicam ebony
• Frets: 20, medium
• Bridge/Spacing: Ebony/56mm
• Electrics: Expression System 2
• Weight (kg/lb): 2.13/4.7 
• Options: Builder’s Edition 514ce in Natural costs £3,899
• Range Options: The Legacy 514ce (£3,899) combines Western red cedar with neo-tropical mahogany, X-bracing and LR Baggs Element VTC electronics
• Left-Handers: No
• Finish: Tobacco Kona Burst gloss 
• Contact: Taylor Guitars

Playability and sounds

Once again, Taylor’s super-friendly neck profile offers us a warm welcome on freeing the guitar from its case, the matt finish to the back of the neck aiding smooth sailing up and down the fretboard.

Initial strums reveal a surprise in that Shamel ash does indeed seem to inhabit the same sonic space as a good mahogany; there’s that distinctive dry, woody flavour to open chords.

There’s plenty of midrange punch, too, with volume to spare. Everything from gentle fingerpicking to abandoned chordal strumming is ably catered for, with a bass response that sits in between a dreadnought’s bloom and an OM’s slightly more compressed output.

Generally speaking, the Builder’s Edition is extremely well balanced with no evident peaks or troughs detected during our play test.

The Expression System 2 proves its worth once again when we plugged the guitar into our trusty AER Compact 60 acoustic guitar amp. Despite what might appear to be only scant control over the sound with volume, treble and bass rotaries, everything we needed was there.

With only a very slight amount of tweaking, we were able to conjure up everything from good ol’ rock ’n’ roll to sensitive fingerstyle with no trouble at all.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Okay, so at a price tag that clocks in at just over £4k, this isn’t a purchase that you’d enter into without giving it a lot of thought and a long audition beforehand.

But real quality of this nature rarely comes cheap, and when you consider that you’re getting something that runs the gamut of acoustic styles as well as a strum ’n’ go no-fuss pickup system, it’s definitely worth some serious thought.

Guitar World verdict: The red ironbark variation is still out there for as long as stock lasts, and if the frills like a bevelled armrest and chamfered edges don’t bother you, there are probably bargains to be had. It might be a slightly different hue, sonically speaking, but the build and sound quality is all there.

Hands-on videos

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• Best high-end acoustic guitars 2025: 10 of the most lust-worthy instruments for guitarists
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Taylor Guitars has just unveiled its Action Control Neck – a patented new neck joint that allows the acoustic guitar’s string height to be micro-adjusted in seconds, all without removing the neck or the strings.

The new feature was first rolled out with Taylor’s Gold Label Collection earlier this year and continues to build on the brand’s knack for neck innovations, following the likes of the “NT” neck, introduced back in 1999.

“With this new neck design, you're getting the most precisely built, easily adjustable guitar we've ever made,” says Taylor Guitars CEO and master builder Andy Powers, the designer behind the neck.

“I love the idea that a player can simply pick up and play one of these guitars and be inspired by the way it sounds and feels. And, while you're at it, you happen to benefit from an accurate and adaptable neck that can be easily adjusted to suit your particular playing preferences.”

So how does the Action Control Neck differ from your standard guitar neck? The new design features a long tenon that extends deeper into the body’s neck block – and, with no shims, enables players to adjust their action on the fly with a quarter-inch nut driver through the soundhole.

The result, according to Taylor Guitars, is “more low-end resonance and a deeper, warmer, more open sound in the Gold Label guitars.”

The firm goes on to note that this “breakthrough” will be especially useful for touring musicians, whose instruments travel through different climates, environments, and conditions.

For studio musicians in particular, it enables a “quick transition between playing styles – from fingerstyle to slide,” without the need for a whole separate guitar or a setup. And for the recreational guitarist, it allows for hassle-free adjustments over time, counteracting environmental or seasonal changes that “impact the neck angle geometry.”

The Action Control Neck is currently exclusive to Taylor’s Gold Label Collection – which the brand released this January in time for NAMM – and features a ’30s- and ’40s-inspired Super Auditorium design that builds on the company’s Grand Auditorium body shape.

Judging from this recent PR blast, however, we wonder how long it will be before the design trickles down to other Taylor releases…

NAMM 2025: Taylor is a brand that always goes big for NAMM, and this year has proven to be no exception.

The company chose the occasion to unveil its new Gold Label Collection, a line of acoustic guitars that it says possess “a sound and visual aesthetic unlike anything Taylor has ever offered.”

Featuring four models in total – one with Honduran rosewood back and sides, and one with Hawaiian koa back and sides; each available in either a natural or sunburst finish – the collection most notably features the debut of an entirely new body shape, the Super Auditorium.

The '30s and '40s-inspired Super Auditorium body design is said to build on the company's Grand Auditorium body shape, but features a slightly longer body and wider lower bout.

Sonically, it aims to deliver room-filling resonance with even a light attack, while rewarding more spirited playing with a booming sound.

“The harder you play, the louder the guitar gets,” explains Taylor's Master Guitar Designer, President, and CEO, Andy Powers.

“But, it naturally starts to compress the sound into a more controlled, focused tone rather than becoming mushy. Yet these guitars also respond to delicate articulation with a broadly rich voice. When you play a simple note softly, the guitar naturally amplifies it with surprising warmth and volume.”

Whether you choose the Honduran Rosewood back and sides or Hawaiian Koa back and sides option, you get a torrefied Sitka spruce top and a neo-tropical mahogany neck – attached via Taylor's own long-tenon neck joint – with a West African Crelicam Ebony fretboard sporting mother-of-pearl continental inlays.

Chrome Gotoh 510 tuners with ebony buttons and a distinctive, new-for-this-model pickguard design add to the visual flair.

Modern elements that balance out the guitar's vintage inspiration include LR Baggs Element VTC electronics with soundhole-mounted controls, and a fanned variation of Powers' trademark V-Class bracing system.

We're eager to see if the Gold Label design – particularly that new body shape – eventually makes its way down Taylor's price range, but for now, it sits at just about the tip top.

The natural-topped Gold Label 814es are priced at $4,499 and $4,799 (for the Koa model), while the sunburst examples ring up at $4,699 and $4,999 (for the Koa model). Each guitar comes with a deluxe hardshell case with a British Cocoa exterior.

For more info on the guitars, visit Taylor.

It’s often been said that guitarists are resistant to change in guitar design. I think perhaps that’s overstated, as our 40th Anniversary Reader Survey found that, on the whole, Guitarist readers were fairly open to new advances in gear, with 38 per cent of respondents identifying most with the statement “I love innovation in guitars, amps and effects,” while the largest group – 51 per cent – agreed with the statement “Now and again an innovation grabs my imagination.”

Only 11 per cent of respondents said they had little or no interest in innovation in guitar gear.

So much for the infamous conservatism of guitarists. The nearest it gets to being true is when it comes to styling. We may like to have all the performance advantages of modern guitar making, but we don’t necessarily want it to show on the outside.

By and large, we still like the body shape of a guitar to be iconic, any tech to be discreetly hidden away, and the finish to be one of a relatively small range of established colours.

Yes, there are always outliers and players who like to be flamboyantly different, but I’d bet the most popular guitar finish in the world is still tobacco sunburst and, if so, that says it all, really.

Guitar designers are wise to this, of course, and the days of flagship guitars sporting ostentatious tech are long gone – Gibson’s ill-fated dalliance with robot tuners a decade ago was the final nail in that utopian coffin.

Guitar makers now tend to hide their innovations under the surface, so you can feel the improvements when you play but not be aware of them with the naked eye.

One has only to look how many high-end acoustic guitar makers now favour some kind of non-traditional neck joint for an example of this.

Some of these, such as the CNR System employed by Czech guitar maker Furch, are so finely engineered – using high-precision metal fittings and composite materials – that the once derogatory term ‘bolt-on neck’ simply doesn’t do justice to what is simply a more precise, adjustable and stable way to attach a guitar neck to the body than a traditional glued-in neck joint.

From the outside, the guitars look contemporary but still classic; inside, they’re a clean break with much of the 19th century roots of modern acoustic making.

Furch has perhaps taken some inspiration from Taylor in that respect. The forward-thinking California firm was one of the first really major acoustic makers to champion a laser-precise bolt-on system with its NT Neck, introduced over 20 years ago, and in more recent years has dispensed with the previously almost universal X-bracing system developed by Martin in 1843 in favour of the Andy Powers-designed V-Class bracing (and some variations for smaller guitars), which Taylor says enhances volume, sustain and even intonation higher up the neck.

But even at Martin, where the firm’s long heritage underpins its huge cachet as a brand, the design team has been able to bring in seriously progressive elements to its Modern Deluxe range, such as composite bridge plates, Liquidmetal bridge pins, and highly evolved torrification for the soundboard, without offending purists simply by hiding it all under a beautiful, classic exterior with only the subtlest visual cues that the guitar is a next-gen hot-rod.

So if you seek enhanced performance today, you can expect it to be invisible to the naked eye but to feel and hear it when you play. I had a similar experience recently, playing the Bare Knuckle PolyPaf humbucker set.

The design brief was to take a classic vintage P.A.F. sound but make it more widely usable for a range of modern applications from hot blues to moderate-gain metal playing.

To achieve this, Tim Mills and producer/engineer Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood used traditional materials in innovative configurations including “a custom wind offset of 42 AWG plain enamel wire, unoriented Alnico V rough-cast magnets and a unique combination of high carbon steel slugs under the wound strings”. Having played a set at length in a PRS Modern Eagle II, I can confirm their performance is eye-opening.

The classic sounds are there but without any wooliness, honk or quack, plus a more finely graduated response to touch sensitivity: dig in and you’ll reliably find pinched harmonics exactly where you’d want them to leap out; back off and they behave like almost like fat, plummy single coils. Overall, they just feel more poised and more accessibly expressive than many previous PAF-style humbuckers we’ve tried.

And that is what progress looks like in 2024. It looks traditional and sounds classic yet you can feel and hear refinements in all the ways a piece of gear performs. It’s almost the opposite of the old cliché – innovation, today, is very much velvet beneath the iron glove.

Rosé is best known as one-fourth of one of the world's biggest girl groups – Blackpink.

She recently stepped out on her own with her first full-length album, rosie, which departs from her group's flamboyant, EDM- and hip-hop-influenced brand of K-pop in favor of a collection of tender, acoustic guitar-backed songs inspired by her own love for and history with the instrument.

In a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Rosé shared how she started learning guitar by watching YouTube videos, stating, “All these YouTubers online, they looked really cool. And so I was like, ‘I want to be like them.’”

Her first guitar quickly followed. “It was blue,” she recalls fondly. “It was $70 and my dad bought it for me. I remember it was a cheap one, so my fingers hurt so much.

“I remember I got together all of my pocket money that I had saved up my whole life – I was probably 14 by then – and I still have it [and it's] still my favorite guitar – a Taylor GS Mini.”

The guitar turned out to be crucial for an audition that would change Rosé's career trajectory – the opportunity to join what was then an unnamed K-pop girl group that would later become the phenomenon that is Blackpink.

“It was around the time Jason Mraz had released a song called I Won't Give Up, and I just learned it,” she recalls.

“I walked in... I thought it was a joke. I was like, ‘This is funny. I'm not gonna get it at all.’ My dad and I had flown all the way from Melbourne to Sydney for the auditions. I was like, ‘Might as well make some good memories.’ And so I kind of went, ‘Hi,’ I did it. And [then] I was like, ‘Bye.’”

Rosé's debut album, rosie, was released on December 6 through The Black Label and Atlantic Records. The first single, Apt., a collaboration with Bruno Mars, topped the Billboard Global 200 – and its music video featured the pair playing Fender Mustangs.

Jacob Collier has expanded his five-string guitar empire with the launch of his new Taylor signature guitar, which brings his custom-made five-string acoustic guitar to the masses for the first time.

The musical super-genius sparked much intrigue recently following the release of his five-string Strandberg guitar, which was officially unveiled in July. But five-string guitars have been part of Collier’s musical DNA – and tangible instrument collection – for quite some time now.

Before the Strandberg, there was the oddball five-string Taylor, which ultimately provided the genesis and inspiration for the headless electric guitar version. Now, the guitar that sparked Collier's five-string obsession and paved the way for his game-changing Strandberg, has been turned into a fully fledged signature model.

Like the Strandberg, the Taylor is tuned to an open tuning of D A E A D, which Collier believes makes it easier to “cover more ground with fewer strings to cross”.

As he explains in a new video with Taylor, “In around 2021 I began to have a feverish dream in my mind of a [four-string] tenor guitar but with an additional string.”

Indeed, as he once told Guitar World, Collier's first guitar was a four-string tenor acoustic tuned to fifths, and he's rarely strayed away from that principle. That more atypical path to playing the instrument has greatly influenced his perception of it, and he believes the new acoustic and its ergonomic electric equivalent can help guitarists rethink their approach to playing.

The Jacob Collier Signature Model (JCSM) – which is available in both five- and six-string variants – features a compact Grand Concert body style, with an all-koa build. Variegated ebony has been chosen for its bridge, fretboard, and peghead overlay, while Premium Gotoh tuners with antique chrome buttons have also been appointed. For tones, it offers LR Baggs Element VTC acoustic electronics.

Both versions also feature custom headstock covers, with Collier's logo laser-etched into it, a custom Jacob Collier signature guitar label inside the guitar, and a logo-adorned guitar strap.

The multi-instrumentalist calls his new signature a “guitar that anybody could pick up, play a chord on and it would sound immediately great. It will make you feel good about yourself, the guitar, and life in general”.

Recalling the moment he first played his custom Taylor, which he had only played in his imagination prior, Collier says: “I'd figured out shapes and language on it, but I've never played it before. It never existed before, at least to my knowledge. It was a real thrill.”

Now that thrill is being extended to acoustic lovers worldwide, making for one of the most left-field guitar releases we've come across in recent years.

In Collier's own words, he's “a genuine believer” that these instruments can help make guitar playing accessible to new learners who have struggled with traditional methods, and appeal to “seasoned guitar players looking for a change of scene”.

The Taylor Guitars Jacob Collier Signature Models are available now and cost $2,799 apiece.

Visit Taylor to learn more.

Back in 2020, Taylor Guitars collaborated with Naughty Dog, the developer behind the enormously popular video game The Last of Us Part II, on a replica of the acoustic guitar used in-game by its protagonist, Ellie. Now, in a full-circle moment, that very same model will appear in the second season of the TV adaptation.

In a new two-minute trailer for the forthcoming HBO season, the custom Taylor 314ce Grand Auditorium gets a surprising amount of screentime, appearing in the hands of stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, while there’s a closeup on the distinctive 3rd-fret moth inlay (thanks for the spot, MusicRadar).

On its launch, the 314ce was described as a “one-to-one recreation” of Ellie’s guitar, and featured a Sitka spruce tobacco sunburst top and solid sapele back and sides, teamed with Taylor’s V-Class bracing and ES2 electronics.

It’s not the only guitar that features in the trailer for the new season. Another scene shows – minor spoilers ahoy – Ellie sitting in an abandoned building with a natural-finished acoustic guitar, replicating the same moment that appears in the game. However, its headstock looks suspiciously square, indicating there may be a Martin dreadnought or two included in the show, too.

Pearl Jam deep cut Future Days soundtracks the trailer, following the inclusion of the band’s All or None in season one.

We’ll find out how big a role these guitars play when the new season drops sometime in 2025.

This isn’t the first time The Last of Us has crossed over into the guitar world. Gamers were using Part II’s in-game guitar to cover songs by the Beatles and Metallica, while percussive virtuoso Manuel Gardner Fernandes turned the TV theme into a jaw-dropping two-hand tapping workout.

Taylor has released a collection of limited-edition acoustics guitars, each of which have been inspired by a different Major League Baseball team.

The Taylor x MLB GS Mini Guitar Collection includes officially licensed team logos and colors from all 30 MLB teams, offering players a unique way to sport their team of choice.

Each guitar is adorned with a team-specific top finish, while the team logos can be found beneath the bridge. The Taylor GS Mini – one of the most popular acoustic guitars in the world – serves as the foundation of the project.

Each guitar is crafted with a solid torrefied Sitka spruce top and layered sapele back and sides. This choice pairing produces the “bold, warm, and resonant sound” that has made the GS Mini so revered. Its neck is tropical mahogany with a matte finish, and its fretboard is ebony.

A compact 23.5" scale length makes the guitars steely travel companions for away days and home fixtures alike.

Taylor says the instrument is ideal for players of all skill levels, but emphasizes its value as an easy-playing beginner guitar thanks to its “comfortable feel and rich acoustic voice”.

Former second baseman Derek Dietrich, who played for several teams – including two stints with the New York Yankees – has called the collection a “home run”.

"It's the perfect blend of my two passions,” he says. “Whether playing a smash hit or watching a crushed homer, this is the one guitar every guitar and baseball lover needs."

“We are incredibly excited about this collaboration," adds Tim O'Brien, VP of Marketing at Taylor. "Through this partnership, we're adding a new dimension of personal expression to our guitar lineup. Whether you're a collector or a player, there's something special about owning a guitar that embodies the spirit of your favorite baseball team."

Earlier this year, Taylor united with mountain lifestyle brand Stio for another unique collection of GS Mini colorways, while the new GS Mini-E Rosewood, according to a new Guitar World review, “has never looked – or sounded – better”.

The GS Mini Sapele has received equally impressive reviews with the high-end acoustic lauded for its accessible price.

Each new Taylor Guitars x MLB acoustic is priced at $799 and is available to order today.

Head over to Taylor Guitars for more information about the Taylor Guitars collection.

Taylor’s GS Mini is one of few guitars that can stake a claim as a modern classic. As of its 10th anniversary in 2020, it had sold over 350,000 units and has undoubtedly added significantly to that tally since then. With Taylor celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, it was a no-brainer that the GS Mini would get the gold treatment.

The GS Mini came about as an evolution of the Baby Taylor, which proved popular with guitar players thanks to its small size. Bob Taylor recognized the need for small but full-sounding acoustic guitars, so Taylor opted to shrink down their ultra-popular Grand Symphony format, whilst aiming to retain its tonality.

The size and scale length were made smaller, but the body depth stayed similar, and Taylor’s neck design and full-sized neck heel remained.

Pulling the 50th Anniversary GS Mini out of the box, we were immediately struck by the Vintage Sunburst finish. It’s very matte, and there’s an almost purple/pink hue to the colour gradient. It’s not what we were expecting, and although admittedly unsure at first, it ended up growing on us.

There are several 50th Anniversary-specific appointments, too, the most stunning of which is the ‘firestripe’ fretboard marked with diamond inlays. Gold tuning machines and ebony bridge pins with gold dots complete the rest of the GS Mini’s makeover.

Sitting down to play with it gives us an instant reminder of why this guitar is so popular. It sounds exquisite, and the balance across the tonal spectrum is superb. Whether striking chords or picking arpeggios, every note rings out true with no single string dominating the sound.

That balance will make it a brilliant recording guitar, and from the softest pluck to the hardest strum, the GS Mini never loses its cool.

Out of the box, the setup is fantastic as you’d expect from Taylor, but it is a rather cramped feeling on the fretboard. We’d consider ourselves to have average-sized hands, but still found certain chord shapes higher up the neck a touch difficult, requiring an adjustment from our usual playing style.

The 23.5” scale length is certainly comfortable for bigger stretches, but if you’re the kind of player with spades for hands, you’re going to find it tough in places.

Showing they know how to celebrate in style, the 50th Anniversary GS Mini is Taylor’s party piece. A ravishing instrument, it’s an all-round honouring of the GS Mini from the unique visual touches to the core of this guitar’s ultimate appeal in its super-balanced sound. We can see little reason the GS Mini won’t be around to add to the next 50 years of Taylor’s history.

Specs

• PRICE: $899 / £1,079
• BODY: Layered Indian rosewood back and sides, torrefied Spruce top
• NECK: Neo-tropical mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 23.5”
• NECK SHAPE: Taylor Standard Carve
• NUT WIDTH: 1.6875”
• FINGERBOARD: West African Crelicam ebony, 50th Anniversary diamond inlays, 15” radius
• FRETS: 20
• BRIDGE: West African Crelicam ebony
• TUNING MACHINES: Taylor Standard
• ELECTRONICS: Taylor ES-2
• FINISH: Vintage Sunburst, Matte
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

Koa is a very attractive-looking tonewood that is commonly associated with high-end models or expensive custom or boutique instruments.

Because of its higher cost, many guitarists haven’t experienced koa’s distinctive tonal qualities, which are sort of a “goldilocks” combo of the powerful bass of rosewood, sweet, warm mids of mahogany and brilliance of maple.

Taylor, which offers more koa models than any of the other major acoustic guitar companies, is now making full-size guitars with tops, backs and sides made of Hawaiian koa more accessible to the masses with the introduction of two new 200 series guitars – the 222ce-K DLX Grand Concert and 224ce-K DLX Grand Auditorium – that cost almost half the price of their 700 series koa instruments, which previously were Taylor’s lowest priced full-size koa guitars.

We looked at the 222ce-K DLX, which is basically identical to the 224ce-K DLX with the exception of its smaller Grand Concert body dimensions and shorter scale length.

In addition to its attractively striped Hawaiian solid koa top and layered koa back and sides with a shaded edgeburst gloss finish, the 222ce-K DLX features a neo-tropical mahogany neck with a matte finish, West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard, 24 7/8-inch scale length and 20 medium-tall frets that are all easily accessible thanks to the Venetian cutaway.

The “DLX” means the guitar is adorned with deluxe appointments that include a gloss body finish, faux pearl Sentinel fretboard inlays and single-ring rosette, black top and back binding and gold hardware.

It’s also equipped with Taylor’s acclaimed Expression System 2 electronics with side-mounted volume, treble and bass controls and behind-the-saddle pickup with three sensors. And this DLX model arrives in a Taylor deluxe hardshell guitar case.

With its compact Grand Concert body that measures about 15 inches across the lower bout and X bracing, the 222ce-K DLX provides a well-balanced overall tone that is particularly well-suited for fingerstyle playing.

The treble has a sweet, alluring chime that accentuates upper spectrum harmonics but never sounds thin – a quality that also comes through quite nicely via the Expression System 2 electronics when amplified.

The warm, full midrange and focused bass will certainly please traditionalists, and thanks to the aging characteristics of koa the sound will continue to become sweeter and warmer the more it’s played over the years.

The neck’s shallow C-shaped profile is ideally comfortable for fingerstyle players, particularly those who anchor their thumbs in the center of the neck. Thanks to the 1.6875-inch nut width, the strings are comfortably placed far enough apart for clean fretting yet close enough to facilitate fast chord changes without too much stretching. 

Typical of all Taylor guitars from the entry-level Baby and GS Mini models through their high-end Builder’s Edition models, the construction and attention to detail is immaculate.

Although the 222ce-K DLX may cost twice as much as its Sitka spruce/walnut counterpart, the 212ce, the koa version’s beauty is much more than skin deep. The upgrade is worth the price if you’re a discriminating fingerstyle player who can appreciate its more intriguing and sonically complex character.

Specs

• PRICE: $1,999 / £1,599 street
• TYPE: Grand concert cutaway acoustic electric guitar
• TOP: Solid Hawaiian koa
• BACK AND SIDES: Layered Hawaiian Koa
• BODY STYLE: Grand Concert 
• BODY WIDTH: 15 inches 
• BODY DEPTH: 4-3/8 inches
• NECK: Neo-tropical mahogany
• FINGERBOARD: West African Crelicam ebony
• SCALE LENGTH: 24 7/8-inch
• FRETS: 20 medium tall
• NUT: NuBone
• NUT WIDTH: 1.6875-inch
• TUNERS: Taylor Standard gold-plated
• BRIDGE: West African Crelicam ebony
• SADDLE: NuBone
• PICKGUARD: Yes
• ELECTRONICS: Expression System 2
• CONTROLS: Volume, Treble, Bass
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

“When I was a young teenager, I loved the idea of playing guitar. At the same time, I was learning how to make things in school shop classes…” says Bob Taylor, co-founder of Taylor Guitars. “In my 11th grade high school woodshop class, I made my first guitar as a solo project. I was hooked and never thought again what I’d do with my life. It was settled in my mind.” 

And so it was that the seed was sown and a life in guitar making was set. It all began in 1973 when Bob took a job at the American Dream music shop in San Diego, owned by Sam Radding. One year later, Sam was set to sell the business and Bob grouped together with his co-workers Kurt Listug and Steve Schemmer to buy the business. 

Initially, they renamed it the Westland Music Company, changing to Taylor Guitars two years later. Since then, Taylor guitars have found their way into the hands of some of the world’s finest players and the brand has become synonymous with the highest-quality instruments available today.

In 2011, Andy Powers joined the company as master guitar builder, introducing new body shapes and, most importantly, the revolutionary V-Class bracing in 2018.

“Growing up as a guitar enthusiast in San Diego, it would be impossible for me not to feel admiration for Taylor guitars,” Andy, now CEO of the company, tells us. “Initially, like many other players, I appreciated the slimmer neck-carve style and low string height, as those fit my then-small kid hands. I was playing a lot of electric guitar then, so a Taylor neck and setup felt like familiar territory.”

To celebrate the 50th anniversary, Taylor has released a number of special models, including the 814ce Builder’s Edition. Here, we sit down with Bob and Andy to talk about the changes both the company and the industry have seen over the past half‑century.

Most contemporary guitar manufacturers employ some elements of automation in production today. What benefits do you think are passed on to guitar players by this ‘new’ technology?

Andy Powers: “From a broader perspective, the accuracy, consistency, dependability, and relative affordability of an instrument made with these modern tools is undeniable. Sure, as both a musician and a builder, coming to the craft of guitar-making from a traditional handcraft approach, it pleases me to sharpen my chisels and set them to a piece of wood. While great instruments can be made using traditional tools, the scale they can be made at is very small. 

“The scale at which great guitars built with extraordinary accuracy can be made using modern tools is astounding, and musicians benefit from that. If that sounds like making good guitars has become easy because we have great tools; I can assure you, it’s not. It’s a huge challenge to design and implement machines, tools, and processes to create instruments. But what a fun challenge!” 

Bob Taylor: “I love factories. And in the same way good cars come from factories, so do bad cars. It isn’t the idea of whether or not a factory is a legitimate way to make something or not – it all boils down to what kind of factory it is. We’ve built a good factory to make good guitars. I’m constantly defending the idea that guitars don’t have to be ‘handmade’ on a bench to be good.” 

Which parts of the building process are still done by hand at Taylor?

Powers: “Much of the work that goes into a guitar is still done by hand. There are a lot of aspects in instrument making that are subjective and need a decision. From where in a board should a guitar back be cut? What sides best match this back? What is the best way to stain this sunburst? 

“Any task requiring a judgement call inherently is handled by a person trained in that area. Other tasks requiring a combination of finesse, judgement and complex motion are handled by hands: applying binding and purfling work, installing rosettes, sanding, finish, shaping…”

Taylor: “All these things that Andy cites are accurate. Again, I will make the analogy of a car factory. If you visit the BMW factory in Munich, you’ll see almost nobody in the area where they stamp body parts. And the closer the car gets to completion the more people you’ll see. In the end, you’ll decide on your own that the cars are handmade. 

“There’s an ocean of people making the car, even though there’s some crazy automated operations along the way. The Taylor factory is that way. It’s only natural. Probably 80 percent of the guitar is done by a person. The other 20 percent is done by a person using a fancy machine.” 

You’ve championed the use of ‘new’ tonewoods in your guitars – like Urban Ash, for instance. How hard has it been to draw guitarists away from the mindset that only the traditional woods are good enough in their instruments?

Powers: “Any time a person sees something different from what they’re used to, it’ll be met with some level of skepticism. That can be a little bit of a challenge, in the same way that convincing a child to try an unfamiliar food can take some time.

“Often, the experience of playing the instrument and auditioning it on its own merit is all that it takes to change the mind of a player. That tends to happen one player at a time, and therefore requires a lot of building, playing, and time to gain broad acceptance in the music community.”

Taylor: “I like Andy’s analogy of teaching a child to try something different. To add to that, if it’s 100 kids, some of them will like it without question. Since we’re not making every guitar using Urban Ash, we don’t have to work too hard to convince everyone. Just offer it and there will be those who love it. 

“In the case of Urban Ash, we’ve had pretty good success. On the other hand, maple has been used for centuries and is one of our favorite woods, yet we have to put a lot of effort into helping people give it a fair chance. It’s a wonderful wood, it sounds great, it’s available, it has a rich history, and we work hard to tell this story. Go figure.” 

Taylor’s ecological awareness has resulted in its own supply of ebony. How did this come about?

Taylor: “Ebony came about when the Lacey Act made it clear that we had to really know how our wood was sourced. Two colleagues at our Spanish tonewood supply partner, Madinter – Vidal de Teresa and Luisa Willsher – presented to me an idea to partner up and buy an existing ebony sawmill in Cameroon. I said yes. 

“We jumped off that cliff together and, boy, has it been a ride! We’ve learned so much. It even led to the launch of The Ebony Project, which is a non-profit managed by UCLA. We’re learning all the scientific data about ebony’s ecology as well as how to plant and grow it. I’m proud to say that it’s going well.” 

Then there’s Taylor’s koa plantation, too.

Taylor: “One day, Chris Cosgrove, who purchases Taylor’s wood around the world, sent me a real estate ad for a large property in Hawaii advertising ownership of a koa forest. He said, ‘Maybe we should buy a forest!’ 

“I forwarded that to my friend Steve McMinn at Pacific Rim Tonewoods and posed the same question. Steve said, ‘I’ll find out.’ A month later he said, ‘Yes, good idea – but not that forest.’ And Paniolo Tonewoods was born. It’s a partnership between PRT and Taylor; we’ve since renamed it Siglo Tonewoods. We’re doing fine work there in Hawaii and planting a lot of koa trees.” 

Possibly the most radical change in acoustic guitar design is your V-Class bracing, Andy. 

Powers: “This idea arrived shortly after introducing our redesigned 800 Series in the winter of 2014. We’d nearly turned our factory upside-down in order to wring every bit of tone from the flagship guitar designs and finally got them into the hands of players. It occurred to me that we couldn’t go any further down the same development path without achieving only diminishing returns for our effort and therefore needed a totally different approach if we wanted to continue pursuing an ever-better guitar. 

“Against that backdrop, I took some inspiration from a series of experiences around that time and applied those into what became the V-Class design, which in hindsight, isn’t hard to recognize as a synthesis of flat-top, archtop, mandolin, and classical guitar designs.”

Finishing has always been a controversial subject among luthiers, with nitro, acrylic, French polish, poly, and so on, all featuring in the debate. What are your feelings about the best finish for an acoustic?

Powers: “One common theme among all styles of finish material is that as the finish is made thinner, the differences between finish materials are less significant. If a finish is very thick, the difference between materials is even more apparent, and the damping factor is very high, to the potential detriment of the guitar. 

“As the finish becomes thinner, you won’t hear as much difference between materials – simply because there’s less of it – and the damping the finish imparts is lower. Interestingly, low or no damping isn’t the greatest thing, either.

“An interesting experience is to hear a guitar with no finish on it whatsoever. That typically will have a brash, harsh sound as the inharmonious parts of a guitar’s vibration are not dampened away. Some vibration damping is welcome, even necessary, similar to the way a sensitive microphone needs a shock mount to isolate it from the vibration traveling through the floor or stand. Too much vibration isn’t good. Harmonic, musical vibration is.”

Taylor: “When every guitar maker used nitrocellulose lacquer, there was no controversy. When every guitar neck had a dovetail joint, there was no controversy. That joint only became argued to be the best when I bolted on a neck. Same with finish. Controversy started when Taylor dropped using nitrocellulose lacquer. My bottom line is, as Andy says, thin is best. Some is better than none. The rest is opinion, not fact.”

How do you feel about the practice of pre-worn or ‘relic’ finishes on acoustics? 

Powers: “Aesthetically and philosophically, I tend to like what I describe as honest wear on a guitar, resulting from a musician’s use. I’ve seen some great examples of pre-distressed finishes, finishes intended to show wear quickly, but I most appreciate when a player takes the instrument, plays it all the time, and appreciates the story it tells as it ages.”

Taylor: “I’ve seen some great relic jobs on electric guitars. To me, it’s an art form. More power to them. To do it well is hard. To appreciate it is legit. It’s an art form that I’m not interested in doing on Taylors.” 

Did the success of the American Dream Series come as a surprise? And are there plans to enhance the range still further?

Powers: “The success of the spartan American Dream guitars didn’t come as a surprise to me – musical inspiration has never been reserved exclusively for the luxurious instrument. Sure, a beautiful guitar with exquisite details is nice. Who wouldn’t love something lavish for a personal instrument to hold and play? But a great-sounding/feeling instrument is something that can transport a player into a dynamic experience, regardless of the sophistication of its ornamentation and trimmings.”

Taylor: “The timing was right. They came when our Tecate [Baja California, Mexico] factory was closed for Covid. We wanted people to have a guitar to buy in a price range they could afford. The design was very good. Thank you, Andy!” 

There’s no doubt that the development of pickup systems for acoustic guitars revolutionised their use on stage, as it was pretty much a hit and miss affair previously. Taylor’s Expression System 2 differs from the typical under-saddle variety – could you talk us through that?

Powers: “The basis for this design was to use piezoelectric crystals to gather vibrational energy from the saddle and convert it to an electrical signal, but to do it within the natural dynamic range of piezo crystal. As piezo material is compressed, it becomes more polarised, and variations in the pressure will result in more or less polarisation. The material has an upper limit to how much pressure it can respond to, and downward string tension is commonly higher than this limit, overloading the potential dynamic output of the piezo. 

“By placing the piezo behind the saddle and controlling the pressure, the piezo material can respond within its natural dynamic range for great detail in its output.”

Taylor: “Taylor designer Dave Hosler, now retired, conceived this design to do what Andy just described. It wasn’t easy to build. But we made a small factory to do it. I love the sound. Some people think of the saddle as bouncing up and down, but it really rocks forward and backward. 

“This pickup senses that direction of motion, thus the tone is different from an under-saddle pickup. Imagine this: tie a rope to a wall. Stand back and stretch it tight with your hands holding on for dear life. Make it as tight as you can. Now have your friend pull the middle of the rope to the side. What happens to you? When he pulls, you move forward. When he relaxes, you move back. It’s how a string pulls on a saddle.”

With a notable resurgence in acoustic guitar music via folk, blues, Americana and so on, what plans does Taylor have for the future?

Powers: “Our plan is to continue doing what we’ve always done – build great instruments that fit the needs of musicians so they can continue to create music they and their audiences enjoy. It’s always a thrill to see musicians continue to evolve and develop their styles and repertoires, and we love building instruments to meet them along their musical journey.”

Taylor: “Our goal is to make guitars that are a pleasure to own and play. Guitars that come in different shapes, sizes and tonal flavors. Guitars that have good intonation and can play with modern instruments like electric keyboards with pure, accurate notes and also blend with all its normal stringed brethren. 

“Guitars that can be adjusted and repaired since we already know they can have 100 birthdays and will need some love along the way. Guitars that can be your friend, whether you’re a Nashville cat, a Brit, or Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City, we want that guitar to hold up and help you tell your unique story.”  

• For more info and the new collection commemorating the 50th anniversary of Taylor Guitars, see the company's official website.

The mountain lifestyle brand Stio has just announced a limited-edition acoustic guitar collaboration with Taylor Guitars in the form of vibrant, nature-inspired custom designs for the Taylor GS Mini.

While the guitar line, the Stio x Taylor Mountain Series, is brand new, the partnership has been brewing for over a decade.

“I bought my first Taylor guitar about 15 years ago on the advice of a friend and absolutely fell in love,” says Stio Founder and CEO, Stephen Sullivan.

“I loved how it played, how easy it was to adjust the action, and how it fit my playing style. As I learned more about the company, I also came to really respect the Taylor story and brand ethos.

“Later on, as we began opening our Mountain Studios [Stio store], I made a dedicated spot for a Taylor guitar within each store and encouraged people to play by offering discounts of 5% off for one song, 10% off for two, and 15% off for playing a short set.”

The designs come by way of nine artists with ties to each of the Stio store locations. Themes including the brand's ethos, the local landscape, and mountain town culture inspired the unique guitar art pieces. Furthermore, the artwork was custom-created to fit the guitar, with the Taylor GS Mini's body as the canvas.

According to Stio, each guitar was chosen for “its rich, resonant voice, impeccable quality standards, and compact proportions” that fit the traveling lifestyle. 

Construction-wise, the Stio x Taylor Mountain Series guitars feature a solid Sitka spruce top, layered sapele back and sides, a mahogany neck, and an ebony fretboard. They come equipped with die-cast chrome tuning machines and medium gauge D'Addario XS Phosphor Bronze strings.

Priced at $699, the designs are available to purchase online and at all Stio Mountain Studios. For more information, head to Stio.

We’ve often said how the early to mid-1970s seemed to be a breeding ground for some very innovative ideas in the music world.

Those years saw the rise of progressive rock from bands like Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Genesis, after all. But there were shake-ups in the manufacturing industry, too. How about the first Boss chorus pedal and Marshall’s Master Volume guitar amplifiers, for instance?

But while all this was going on, a music store in San Diego saw the fusion of two minds that gave rise to a global acoustic guitar brand – Taylor Guitars. Bob Taylor and co-founder Kurt Listug were working in what has been described as a “hippie guitar store” called American Dream, owned by Sam Radding; when Sam decided to sell up, the pair teamed up and bought the business.

Fuelled by a mutual love for guitar building, Bob and Kurt began the transformation from local music store to what was to become one of the world’s best‑loved acoustic guitar manufacturers.

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since those days – and some of that water was to yield timber for acoustic guitar tops, but more of that in a moment – and Taylor is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year in style. 

Throughout the year the company will release what it describes as “a curated collection of limited-edition guitars celebrating the diversity of the Taylor line”, and the fun has already started with the guitar before us now. 

Limited to 1,974 apiece, the anniversary instruments so far include the sitka/walnut American Dream AD14ce-SB LTD right up to the flagship PS24ce LTD, which features some exquisite highly figured master-grade koa for its top, back and sides. 

Our Builder’s Edition 814ce sits in the midrange, as far as pricing is concerned, but is nonetheless turned out in sinker redwood and Indian rosewood and includes what Taylor tells us is “an ultra-premium twist on our player‑favourite BE 814ce…”

If you find yourself wondering what on earth ‘sinker redwood’ can be, it’s basically thanks to the US logging industry of yore. Around 100 years or so ago, the industry took advantage of the rivers in Northern California to float tree trunks downstream to the saw mills.

It was a cheap form of transport, but there were casualties in that some of the logs sank to the bottom of the river and were considered gone and beyond reach. Fast forward to the technological future we now enjoy and this submerged timber is not only salvageable but is highly prized as a guitar-making wood.

Why? Well, we’re not biochemists, but our understanding is that the minerals in the riverbed transforms the timber, lending it, says Taylor, “a rich spectrum of variegation, the result of colours uniquely imparted from silt and the mineral-rich water”, and that it produces “a tight grain with nice cross-grain stiffness, so it will tend to have a fairly bold response, with a brilliance complemented by warm overtones similar to cedar”. To put it plainly, tonally speaking, sinker redwood is like “cedar on steroids”.

In order to see exactly what effect being submerged for a century or so has had on the top wood for this 814ce, we’d better, erm, dive in and take a closer look…

First of all, let’s take a quick tour around the rest of the components that go to make up this very special 814ce. We’ve already discussed the redwood top, which is a ruddy brown in colour with darker seams streaking its surface.

The pickguard is fashioned from nicely figured rosewood, which adds a touch of luxury to the guitar’s top, as does the rosette, which comprises a single ring of green abalone inlays bound with rosewood, maple and black purfling.

A closer look at the soundhole itself reveals a ring of dark rosewood lining the inner surface of its circumference. And the classy appointments don’t end there. The edges of the guitar’s top have been ‘chamfered’ (rounded over would be a better description), and both the cutaway and armrest are bevelled to enhance player comfort. No sharp edges to dig into your arm in this vicinity!

Looking through the soundhole, there’s a reminder that this is a 50th anniversary model by virtue of a sticker on the edge of the label inside – and while we’re here it’s worth mentioning that the 814ce benefits from Taylor’s innovative V-Class bracing system.

This particular bracing pattern, the brainchild of Taylor’s current CEO and chief designer Andy Powers, enhances tone and sustain and has proven itself in the past on the many Taylors that have passed through our hands.

Turning our attention to the back and sides of the guitar, we find Indian rosewood as a foil to that redwood top. Indian rosewood needs no introduction because its reputation as a superb tonewood is well known. Here, its presence is enhanced by a sort of darkburst effect to the back, adding yet another touch of grandeur to the anniversary proceedings.

The 814’s neck is neo tropical mahogany and the fretboard is Crelicam ebony from West Africa with Taylor’s ‘Element’ fingerboard inlays. Whereas you might expect the ebony here to be jet black, it has a brownish hue to it instead.

This might come as a surprise to hardcore traditionalists, but not all ebony is black and a lot of fine timber has been discarded in the past because guitar manufacturers have insisted on using the black variety, but ecological concerns – something very close to Taylor’s core beliefs – mean that the equally fine brownish variety is now in full use.

Another surprise in the same region is that the neck is scarf-jointed below the headstock. Some purists believe this to be a mark of cost-cutting and, well, cheapness. But not only has scarf-jointing been proven to add strength to this very vulnerable area, it’s also another sound ecological process as, simply put, it conserves wood.

The 44.4mm wide Tusq nut sits under the headstock and antique-looking brass coloured Gotoh tuners, the 20 medium frets are finely finished and smooth as silk to the touch, and everything here yells class and quality. The 814ce certainly looks the business – let’s hear how it sounds.

Feel & Sounds

It’s safe to say that every Taylor that has come our way has shared one characteristic in that the feel of the necks and general setup are always spot on fresh out of the box, and that’s certainly the case here.

The neck profile is a comfortable wide-ish shallow C that sits in the hand perfectly and the satin finish feels superb and enhances smooth movement of the hand up and down the playing area. It’s a nicely balanced guitar, too, with no hint of neck heaviness when played sitting down.

Tonally speaking, everything you need is here. There is a richness and warmth to the entire tonal spectrum and it’s easy to hear the influence that the sinker redwood top has had in this department.

As we’ve said, Taylor describes it as a sort of turbo-charged cedar and we’d agree. Whereas cedar is suited to a light touch – and as such is known to be a fingerstylist’s favourite in this respect – the redwood brings an additional shimmering edge to the sound.

Played gently it responds well, producing a very melodic subtlety without a trace of wimping out. But switching over to bashing out some campfire chords you get the impression that there’s still a reserve of toneful power waiting to be tapped into.

It can be loud but never brash and shrieky. It’s quite likely that the years will favour the tone even more as the timbers wake up and align themselves, but what’s here already is pretty impressive.

The 814ce comes equipped with Taylor’s Expression System 2, which we’ve always found to be one of the easiest pickup/preamp combos to use. True to form, when we put the 814 through our trusty AER Compact 60 we kept the preamp controls on both the guitar and the amp completely flat and the sound was perfectly usable as it was. 

In other words, there was plenty of room for individual tweaking to taste. The electric sound represented what we had previously heard acoustically very well, meaning that you’re ready to take to the stage with the guitar pretty much straight out of the case and with the absolute minimum of fuss.

Verdict

Needless to say, we are very impressed with this special anniversary Builder’s Edition. From its good looks and thoughtful features (you never know you need a bevelled armrest until you’ve tried a guitar that has one), to its ability to suit everything from gentle fingerstyle to vigorous strumming means that it would be a welcome addition to any guitar collection.

Specs

• PRICE: $4,999 / £5,939
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Grand Auditorium 
• TOP: Sinker redwood
• BACK/SIDES: Indian rosewood
• MAX RIM DEPTH: 117.5mm
• MAX BODY DEPTH: 406mm
• NECK: Neo-tropical mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 648mm
• TUNERS: Gotoh
• NUT/WIDTH: Tusq/44.4mm
• FINGERBOARD: West African Crelicam ebony
• FRETS: 20
• BRIDGE/SPACING: Ebony (Micarta saddle)/54mm
• ELECTRICS: Taylor Expression System 2
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 2.13/4.7
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISH: Gloss
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

Wood is one of the Earth’s most precious natural resources, and over 309 species have been used to build some of the best-sounding – and looking – instruments over centuries of guitar-building. Millions of guitars have been produced during that time – so it’s no surprise that Mother Nature’s natural resources are dwindling while manufacturing carbon footprints rise.

Take Brazilian rosewood. Many builders in the instrument and furniture manufacturing industries relied on this wood because of its dense, warm tone, finish, and beauty.

Companies like Martin Guitars used it until the 1950s, when the Brazilian government implemented regulations to cut back on how many trees were imported.

“Everyone worships Brazilian rosewood because of its distinct tone. Martin built guitars with it until the late ‘50s when the Brazilian government concluded that too many trees were being cut down,” says C.F. Martin IV, Executive Chairman for Martin Guitars.

“They put an embargo on the species, and many companies struggled with transitioning to using new species of wood that would give the same warm tone, but we were able to pivot to Indian rosewood rather quickly.”

Indian rosewood remains a popular wood to build with because of its versatility and expansive frequency range at both ends of the tone spectrum. While this precious wood is native to India and Indonesia, it is also grown in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and the Philippines – and this is the beginning of the environmental and societal impact of guitar building.

Be aware of your impact

The history of sourcing from international communities often leaves a narrative of gaps in marginalized people's economic, societal, and relational presence – large corporations buy land and resources, leaving native communities with environmental implications.

But with the world entering the next “green movement” wave, how can instrument manufacturing companies build reciprocal relationships with marginalized communities and Mother Nature?

Every cog in the wheel is necessary to work towards the big picture. That’s why accountable relationship-building is vital to companies such as Taylor Guitars, who recruited Director of Natural Resource Sustainability, Scott Paul, in 2016.

Co-founder Bob Taylor created this new position to tackle the intersections of manufacturing and sustainability. With a long career in conservation, Paul has been at the helm of Taylor’s innovative sustainability initiatives.

“The average acoustic guitar comprises four or five different species; some tropical, some temperate, each selected to perform a specific mechanical function as a part,” explains Paul.

“We buy from sources worldwide, often from small companies or communities far from a country’s capital city. We regularly visit these places to establish direct, long-term relationships that last many decades.

“We work to establish business relationships with the understanding that a supplier’s prosperity is important to us, as their strength offers holistic benefit to them, their communities, and the resources under their care as much as the relationship benefits our employees and direct communities.”

“At Taylor Guitars, we are guided by the saying, 'Sustainability is a journey, not a destination,' he concludes. “It conveys that there’s always more to do.

“If someone thinks they are a 'sustainable company' or that they have a 'sustainable product' then I have a lot of questions. I suspect any such statement originated in their marketing department and not from anyone who works on, or fully understands, sustainability issues.”

Where do we go from here?

So, how can companies build more awareness, community relationships, and innovative methods to cultivate the next generation of sustainable tone?

Over recent decades, brands have begun answering these questions by implementing sustainable practices and community relationships.

“Ibanez prioritizes using abundant wood species such as nyatoh, American basswood and jatoba because they are environmentally friendly and allow us to maintain a large selection of affordable, high-quality instruments,” says Scott Miller, Communications and Marketing Specialist for Hoshino Brands (home to Ibanez and Tama).

“These sustainable woods are essential to our mission of making quality guitars available to every player.”

It’s not just guitar builders that are taking strides in sustainability. Pickup manufacturers are playing their part, too.

“Products in the music industry don’t always lend themselves to sustainability, but EMG has found innovative ways to reduce waste,” explains Allison Turner, VP of North American Sales at EMG Pickups.

“We can reuse materials other manufacturers typically scrap by doing our own bobbins and plastic cover caps injection moldings. We grind down leftover plastics and reuse the material. We also recycle copper and other metals at a local recycling facility.”

Raising awareness

These sustainability efforts contribute to the protection of our planet. But finding ways to build community partnerships is essential to educate the next generation of guitar builders on why building green is important.

Lindsay Love-Bivens, Taylor Guitars’ Artist and Community Relations Manager, works on initiatives that spread the message of guitar playing far and wide – and that includes awareness of sustainable initiatives.

“The guitar is a diverse instrument. It has a prominent place in most styles of music, and because of that, our customer demographic is extremely diverse,” she explains. “So, we are very intentional about having a variety of genres, ethnicities, and genders represented in our marketing.

“One of the things we do is work with local high schools by bringing in our guitar-building program, Keep WoodShop Alive, a program Bob Taylor started over 20 years ago with nearby schools to find ways to make wood shopping exciting and appealing to students.

“20 years later, we are still going strong. Throughout the year, we donate over 50 guitars to music and arts nonprofits and organizations nationwide. Most of those organizations heavily emphasize providing music and arts access to underserved communities.”

Taylor Guitars has added to this charge by opening honest and clear channels of communication with their customers. The company magazine Wood&Steel regularly showcases initiatives like upcycling and wood sourcing to produce the final products that guitarists enjoy.

“The pursuit of sustainability is important to our company, says Scott Paul. “We take it seriously. So, we talk about it. Some people care. Some people might not as much. But we must use every opportunity we have to try to explain why we do what we do.”

Community partnerships

Community partnerships with countries that supply wood for guitar-building are another integral step on the sustainability ladder. Martin Guitars has a full-circle approach to sustainability programs.

“Along the way, we've helped invest in the international communities we work with. One of the ways we reinvest is by sponsoring greenhouse programs where saplings are planted to replenish what is being sourced,” C.F. Martin IV shares.

“These plants are often fruit and nut trees that produce food and a source of income while native communities wait for the trees to mature. Programs like this provide short and longterm solutions to reducing carbon footprints, harvesting food, and establishing relationships – creating a full circle.” 

Community relationships can be supported in other ways, too. PRS Guitars’ approach is rooted in dedicating portions of its profit to providing the next generation of guitar builders and players with the tools they need to advance the evolution of tone, playability, and beauty.

The firm supports “on the ground” entities that educate, train and inspire youth and adults to think big. Their support uplifts organizations such as The National Black Musicians Coalition, The International Music Summit and The Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center.

Through it all, education, community, and the environment are at the crux of a sustainable future. Necessity breeds innovation, and innovation is necessary for the future of building green.

Taylor has already dropped its NAMM 2024 trump card with the unveiling of its all-new Circa ‘74 acoustic guitar amp brand. The latest card to be pulled from its sleeve, however, is a little closer to home, as Taylor has now launched a trio of 50th anniversary acoustic guitars.  

The special 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Series, which will roll out throughout 2024, is made up of commemorative versions of different bestsellers from across the brand's half-century existence. 

Together, the collection will reflect the changing tastes, styles and wants of Taylor guitar players over the years.

To signify the collection’s celebratory aspect, each guitar will share a design theme marked by gold tuners and ebony bridge pins with gold acrylic dots. A commemorative 50th anniversary label can also be found inside each guitar.

First out the traps is the 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD, which is a tribute to Taylor’s quintessential modern acoustic guitar model. It features the popular grand auditorium body shape that Taylor originally introduced for its 20th anniversary celebrations three decades ago. Since then, it has become the company's flagship body shape.

This anniversary model pairs Indian rosewood for its back and sides with a sinker redwood top made from reclaimed logs plucked from the rivers of northern California. That wood blend, alongside Taylor’s V-class bracing, is said to bring rich lows and sparkling highs to whatever chords it strums.

The 814ce also features Taylor's intuitive Expressions System 2 (ES2) – a pickup system found nestled behind, rather than under, the saddle of the guitar. The revised positioning of the system's three individually calibrated sensors enables for dynamic acoustic amplification.

This anniversary build draws from the ergonomic contouring and performances of its Builder’s Edition line, with chambered, unbound body edges and a bevelled mahogany armrest. It ships in a Taylor deluxe hardshell case.

Next up is a re-imagined 314ce, which sports a torrefied Sitka spruce top. For context, torrefaction is a roasting-like process used to remove all moisture and impurities from the wood. For its back and sides, an African sapele has been chosen, stylized with a vintage-inspired shaded edgeburst.

It’s a pure-at-heart build that blends a vintage, time-worn look with modern freshness. The wood pairing, according to Taylor, delivers “balance and clarity with pleasing warmth, projection and sustain”.

Completing the trio is the AD14ce-SB, an alternative take on Taylor’s recently launched American Dream Series collection. Talking recently to Guitarist, Andy Powers revealed how the pandemic inspired him to venture down a minimalist route with this new series, which debuted in 2020 and continued to roll out exquisite builds throughout last year.  

The range channels the resilient spirit of Taylor’s earliest years from the original American Dream guitar shop in Lemon Grove, California, which was the setting for when co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug first crossed paths. This anniversary model is a fitting tribute to that heritage.

The spruce-topped cutaway grand auditorium unites walnut back and sides with a hand-sprayed tobacco sunburst top. Adding to its neo-vintage chic are clean Italian acrylic dots and a firestripe pickguard.

Tonally, it evokes a strong midrange presence and balanced warmth. It’s a guitar that Taylor is calling “a spectacular workhorse player guitar for all genres”.

“Here we are at 50 years, and not only am I delighted with our progress but humbled by the success of Taylor Guitars,” says Taylor co-founder Bob Taylor of the 50th Anniversary Collection. “These special 50th anniversary guitars are a tribute to all the players who have made Taylor a part of their musical journey over the past half-century.”

Hype and history aside, how much will one of these guitars set you back? Well, a fair amount, it has to be said.

The AD14ce-SB is the most affordable at $1,999, with the 314ce rising to $2,799. King of Price Mountain, however, is the 814ce, which costs $4,999. Its ES2 pickups are partly responsible for the bump.

For more information about the Taylor 50th Anniversary Collection, head to Taylor.

Keep up to date with all gear releases ahead of NAMM 2024, head over to our guide to the latest NAMM 2024 news.

Taylor is looking to take the headstock crown with its new Beacon. More than just a guitar tuner, this little multi-mode device has got a metronome, countdown timer, stopwatch and flashlight built in, as well as an internal rechargeable battery and a full-colour LCD display. At just shy of $/£50, it’s up there with TC Electronic’s PolyTune Clip price-wise, but with an entirely different approach.

Getting started needs no explanation. The sprung clip and multi-axis, rotatable screen angle means you clip it on, angle it how you like and you’re ready. There are multiple buttons on the Beacon – on the side there’s the home button, which also fires it up; on the other side there’s a ‘Confirm’ switch, while on the top we have up and down cursors and a Select button. 

First thing’s first: we have to comment on that screen. Visually, it’s like having the sharp display of a smartwatch strapped to your headstock: crisp, bright and very easy to read. 

You cycle through each of the Beacon’s modes using the Home, Select and Confirm button, which takes a bit of getting used to as you might want to use the arrows to move up and down through the list of options, but you can’t! The tuner has chromatic, guitar, bass, ukulele and violin modes, and it’s a doddle to use once you’ve got your button-pressing sequence in order.

Everything reacts at speed to the pitch of your notes and the colour display really makes a difference. The metronome can pulse at tempos between 30-208 BPM, in 11 different time signatures, and you get an audible ‘bleep’ with a visual representation, too.

The bleep can be set to three volume increments, but there are no selectable sounds, so you’ll have to stick with the bleep. Likewise, it will only produce a quarter-note pulse with no facility for subdivisions. 

The timer modes will come in handy if you’re timing a song, set or practice session, and the flashlight is engaged by pressing the two cursor arrows. The resulting light is similar to the flash on your phone, only less bright.

So, a bit of a jack-of-all-trades? We’d certainly recommend the tuner and metronome modes. The others are useful, but ultimately already taken care of by the phones we carry everywhere, so we’d see them as bonus features rather than reasons to buy. Overall, it’s all about the tuning, display and time-keeping.

Specs

• PRICE: $49 / £47
• FEATURES: Headstock tuner, metronome, countdown/stopwatch timer (90 mins), flashlight
• TUNING MODES: Chromatic, Guitar, Bass, Ukulele, Violin
• METRONOME: 30-208 BPM; one tone, three volume levels
• DISPLAY: Colour LCD
• POWER: USB-rechargeable battery
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

The Taylor 110e occupies an interesting niche in the acoustic guitar world. Too expensive to be a true beginner acoustic guitar, but not premium enough to tempt an experienced player with cash to burn, it could risk becoming a victim of its makers’ own illustrious name. Yet after spending some time with one, the benefits of choosing a ‘cheaper’ guitar from a big name - over a top-tier model from a less-respected brand - became abundantly clear. 

Taylor, as we know, is acoustic guitar royalty and has the reputation it does for good reason. The 110e has all the hallmarks of a high quality instrument, from the finish and general levels of craftsmanship, through to a relatively high-spec electronic system. There were multiple occasions on testing the guitar when, compared to others in my collection, these little details became apparent. The feel of the body and neck woods, and the extra projection aided by Taylor’s bracing system in the body, for example. 

It’s also, as a predominantly electric player, a neck that felt immediately comfortable; I never felt I was wrestling the 110e as I have at times with other acoustics.

After a quick setup - which is advised, especially post-purchase - I could immediately see, feel and hear this quality. The neck, for example, very quickly established itself as one of my favorite parts of this guitar. Its satin finish lent itself perfectly to playing up and down the fretboard with ease, while I found the overall finish and stylings of the body to be elegant and understated. 

It’s also a versatile guitar, comfortable lending its voice to a variety of styles and genres. I had as much fun playing delicate fingerstyle numbers as I did thrashing out big open chords, and it responds well to both extremes. 

The Sitka spruce dreadnought body provides plenty of projection, with a naturally balanced tonality throughout. Thicker string gauges can help bolster the low-end, as you’d expect, but I never felt it was lacking when using medium gauges. Regardless, there’s plenty of sparkle to be found when you’re playing more intricate picking parts without it ever becoming shrill or overbearing. 

Plugged in, the 110e shows itself to be a highly capable guitar for live performance too. Three small rotary controls allow adjustment over bass, treble and volume, with a small bump at the center point of each to aid tweaks on darkened stages. At the same time, I found Taylor’s Expression System 2 electronics to offer enough tonally to be suitable for performance and recording. A quick close-mic recording session allowed the 110e’s natural sound to shine, requiring very little post-production.

Conclusion

So how has Taylor managed to produce what is, essentially, a high-end acoustic guitar for under $1k? The answer to this, aside from the fact it was made in Mexico unlike its higher-priced brothers, comes in the levels of opulence on offer. 

Typically, elite acoustic guitars - like many others in the Taylor stable - will feature rare tonewoods or have pearlescent headstock markings and fret inlays, but there’s very little of that on display here. 

Don’t let appearances fool you though. While the 110e has a decidedly no-frills appearance, this is a proper grown-up guitar; what you lose in ornate soundhole etchings and garish headstock designs, you gain in the areas that matter. Playability. Build quality. Sound. And that, for us, makes the Taylor 110e something of a bargain in 2024.

Specifications

• String Type: Steel
• Number of Strings: 6
• Body Shape: Dreadnought
• Back & Sides Wood: Walnut
• Top Wood: Sitka Spruce
• Finish: Satin Varnish
• Binding: Black
• Neck Wood: Maple
• Radius: 15"
• Fingerboard Material: West African Ebony
• Number of Frets: 20
• Scale Length: 25.5"
• Nut Width: 1.6875"
• Tuning Machines: Die-cast
• Electronics: ES-2
• Contact: Taylor Guitars

Taylor Swift has revealed that the sparkling recreation of her famed Fearless acoustic guitar she's using on her ongoing Eras stadium tour was decorated by her parents the day before the tour started.

The songwriter and performer shared a clip on Instagram Stories on Thursday (March 16), ahead of the tour's first date in Arizona, with the text:

“Was my Eras tour Crystallized Fearless guitar made by: A) Artisans and finely trained craftsmen B) A professional musical instrument manufacturer C) My parents with super glue and a free afternoon”

The next image displayed in the post shows her parents hands laying out a ‘13’ in rhinestones and the text, “It's not not C”. The 13 is a reference to Swift’s lucky number.

The instrument recreates a Taylor acoustic guitar used by the singer-songwriter during her 2009 tour in support of Fearless. Her current run, the Eras tour, revisits each album in Swift’s catalogue, including Fearless.

The tour was initially devised as a way to perform the three albums that Swift released and promoted across a period that largely coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic – Lover, Folklore and Evermore. The scope was then expanded to encompass all of her recording eras, including last year’s Midnights.

Swift’s Eras run includes 52 sold-out US dates – its first show featured a mammoth three hour set, including 44 songs performed across 10 ‘acts’, each one channeling a different record.

While Swift doesn’t appear to have the original Fearless acoustic (or if she does, she’s not taking it out), she did pull out an old favorite in the shape of her custom Taylor Presentation Series acoustic.

That one features a Grand Auditorium body with a cutaway, alongside an AA-grade Hawaiian Koa top and custom ‘Taylor’ inlay artwork on the fretboard.

NAMM 2023: Taylor has announced a number of updates to its 400 series of acoustic guitars for 2023.

The tweaks are mainly visual, but the update also sees the 400 line getting bolstered with a new dreadnought model.

“The 400 Series has always represented everyday musical utility and craftsmanship without being too precious for the working musician, but it’s time to give the guitar more of the spotlight,” Taylor’s Chief Guitar Designer, President, and CEO, Andy Powers, said in a press release. 

“This new format elevates the visual character of the series to better match its stage-worthy sound.”

We'll take you through each of the newly-updated models below.

417e

The 417e brings, for the first time, Taylor's Grand Pacific round-shoulder dreadnought body shape to the company's 400 series. 

It features an Indian Rosewood body with a Solid Sitka spruce top and Taylor's patented V-Class bracing. The guitar's Neo-Tropical Mahogany neck is highlighted by a 25-1/2" West African Crelicam Ebony fretboard with new-for-2023 Finial inlays.

The guitar is also armed with Expression System 2 electronics, and Taylor nickel tuners, and comes with a deluxe hardshell case.

414ce

Like the 417e, the single-cut 414ce features an Indian Rosewood body with a Solid Sitka spruce top, and a Neo-Tropical Mahogany neck with a 25-1/2" West African Crelicam ebony fretboard highlighted by Finial inlays.

Expression System 2 electronics and V-Class bracing help shape the six-string's sound, with a tortoise pickguard, black Tusq nut and micarta saddle also appearing on the spec sheet.

The 417e also comes with a Taylor Deluxe hardshell-Western Floral case.

412ce

The smallest model of the bunch, the 412ce is spec'd similarly to its 400 series siblings, with an Indian Rosewood body, Solid Sitka spruce top, and Neo-Tropical Mahogany neck. Its West African Crelicam ebony fretboard, however, is only 24-7/8".

Expression System 2 electronics, V-Class bracing, a tortoise pickguard, and a black Tusq nut and micarta saddle also come standard.

The 2023 Taylor 417e, 414ce and 412ce are all available now for $2,999. Each guitar is graced with a lush Tobacco Sunburst finish (another new addition).

For more info on all three guitars, visit Taylor's website.

Taylor has revamped its 500 Series of acoustic guitars, outfitting two models with an all-new tonewood: Urban Ironbark.

Two guitars – the Grand Concert 512ce and Grand Auditorium 514ce – now boast the responsibly sourced wood, which Taylor says brings an “entirely new flavor of acoustic tone, and a bold, rich and sweet sound with remarkable balance and clarity."

Both guitars feature Urban Ironbark backs and sides, paired with torrefied spruce tops and a new voicing recipe – which uses Taylor’s patented V-Class bracing – for a “highly dynamic” tone and “piano-like fidelity."

Urban Ironbark – a name given by Taylor to red ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), a member of the eucalyptus family – is the second tonewood utilized by Taylor and sourced in collaboration with Southern California-based tree management organization West Coast Arborists.

The collaboration sees Taylor looking to source wood from trees located in urban environments that need to be removed – either because they are at the end of their natural lifecycle or for safety reasons.

The first material used by Taylor as part of the partnership was Shamel ash, a mahogany-like wood that debuted on Taylor’s Builders Edition 324ce. The second, red ironbark, proved to have excellent qualities for acoustic guitar-building, as Taylor CEO, President and Chief Guitar Designer Andy Powers explains.

“Red ironbark has a tone-shaping quality where it produces the deep, clear sound of rosewood but with just enough of the damping effect of ebony or mahogany that helps smooth out the sharp edges of the sound,” he says.

“The voice is bold, rich and sweet. It has that bell-like amplifying response of a dense wood – it’s vibrant and dynamic. Imagine if you could take the traditional sound of a rosewood guitar, while filling and warming the midrange. It has a very piano-like character."

As Powers explains, he became pleasantly surprised by red ironbark’s workability, despite it being a harder tonewood.

“Usually, denser woods are hard to dry and prone to distortion, which needs to be carefully controlled to yield a stable guitar part – like ebony,” he says. “With red ironbark, we were surprised to find we could dry it consistently well the way we might dry East Indian rosewood. This ironbark has similar characteristics in that regard. It’s very stable.”

“On top of all of this,” he adds, “it has one of the smoothest and most uniform textures of any dense wood I’ve ever seen."

In terms of other appointments, both the revamped 512ce and 514ce aim to preserve the traditional aesthetic of Taylor’s 500 Series, with understated visual touches to bring out the aesthetic of the new red ironbark tonewood.

The guitars also feature new Aerial inlays in Italian acrylic and faux pearl, faux tortoiseshell bindings and pickguards, single-ring abalone rosettes with maple and black purfling, and Taylor-made nickel tuning machines. Both guitars also feature Venetian cutaways and ES2 electronics.

For more information on Urban Ironbark and the newly revamped 500 Series acoustics, head to Taylor Guitars.

Taylor Guitars Master Builder and partner Andy Powers has been promoted to Chief Guitar Designer, President and CEO of the company.

While the move means co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug will step back from their roles as President and CEO, respectively, the pair will remain with Taylor as senior advisers and will be co-chairs on the company's board of directors.

Taylor and Listug – who have been in charge for the last 48 years – announced the news of Powers' promotion to the company's employee-owners on Monday (May 30).

“When Bob and I started thinking about our succession many years ago, Bob was very clear that we needed a guitar maker at the helm of the company,” Listug said during the announcement.

“He was adamant he didn't want to leave the leadership of the company in the hands of people who didn't know how to design and make guitars.”

“It’s been amazing – but not surprising – to see how the guitar world has embraced Andy as a guitar designer,” Bob Taylor said. “People love the guitars he’s putting out into the world.”

A press release accompanying the announcement says since joining the company in 2011, Powers has “steadily advanced the state of guitar making at Taylor”, crediting him with “revoicing virtually the entire Taylor line and expanding the sonic palette of Taylor's guitar offerings”.

“Andy has the vision and the talent to continue to take guitar making forward at Taylor,” Taylor added. “He's vital to the company's future.”

Another factor in the decision to promote Powers to CEO, President and Chief Guitar Designer was that he's been “immersed” in other non-guitar-making aspects of Taylor's business operations and executive management during his tenure.

“Andy has worked closely with sales, marketing, finance, human resources – all the departments under my leadership – since he joined us in 2011, and he unerstands their functions deeply,” Lustig continued during the announcement.

“Additionally, I've spent the past several years mentoring Andy on financial budgeting, reviewing financial statements and other aspects of our business management, and he has a thorough understanding of the company's finances.”

“Kurt and I love being here, and we love this transition,” Bob Taylor added. “It's a beautiful time for us, and it helps everybody easy into the future. Andy has our full support, and we've got a great executive team and an incredible group of employee-owners working with him.”

“It's an honor to step into this new role,” Powers says. “It's been a real thrill to be part of this amazing company, now fully employee-owned, and continues advancing according to our original purpose – which is building great guitars, putting them into the hands of musicians and offering something of value to them.”

Since joining Taylor in 2011, Andy Powers has been responsible for many of the company's designs, including its V-Class bracing architecture and new body styles including the Grand Pacific and Grand Theater.

He became an ownership partner in 2018, after which he worked with Bob Taylor and Kurt Lustig to transition the company to a 100-percent employee-ownership model in 2021.

Keeping your acoustic guitar sounding and looking its best requires periodic maintenance. Learn the basics, from polishing your guitar to tightening the tuning nuts, in this video from the Taylor Guitars repair facility. 

Proper care of your guitar would not be complete without restringing. Since 1999, Taylor has been factory-fitting its steel-string models with Elixir® Strings. Check out Part 2 of the maintenance video for tips on restringing the Taylor way.

Not sure what strings are recommended for your Taylor guitar? See the list by body shape.

Elixir Strings provides three string types in its acoustic line, all with the same longest-lasting tone. Learn more about Elixir Acoustic Strings.

Introducing the AD22e, a new Grand Concert acoustic-electric that offers the rich, seasoned tone and exceptional value of the American Dream Series in a compact, accommodating body. Featuring all-solid woods and our tone-enhancing V-Class bracing, this new model’s mahogany top pairs with sapele back and sides for a punchy response with a warm, woody midrange character and clear articulation.

The latest addition to Taylor's American Dream Series, the AD22e is a Grand Concert acoustic-electric guitar made with solid sapele back and sides, a mahogany top, and V-Class bracing, all available at an exceptional value for everyday musicians. Blending rich projection and sustain with a warm, punchy midrange response, this model draws out mahogany's woody character with strong definition that will especially appeal to fingerstyle players. The AD22e's workhorse aesthetic and restrained appointments help keep the price reasonable for working musicians, making it Taylor's most inexpensive solid-wood guitar. Chamfered body and fretboard edges add to the overall playing comfort, and the included ES2 pickup provides faithful plugged-in tone. This model ships with a super-lightweight, durable AeroCase.

Remember when all you had to do to protect and store your favorite Taylor acoustic guitar was insert a soundhole humidifier or humidity-maintenance system in the case and think, “That’ll do, right?” Oh, [Chuckle] that’s so 2019. 

Sure, you’ll still have to do those things, but Taylor Guitars – no stranger to modernity – has taken the process of activity tracking and hygrometer monitoring for your Taylor acoustic a level up with the introduction of the TaylorSense Guitar Health Monitoring System. 

“What kind of sorcery is this!?” you hiss. No wizardry involved here (well, maybe some), but if you own a Taylor acoustic with an Expression System 1 or 2, ES-T or ES-N onboard pickups with a 9V battery, you can swap out that existing battery box for TaylorSense’s smart(er) battery box equipped with advanced sensing technology that monitors your Taylor acoustic’s current humidity and temperature, remaining battery life and, more astonishingly – physical impact incidents (no need to write another “United Breaks Guitars” song ever, Dave Carroll). 

And combined with the free companion TaylorSense app (available for iOS and Android mobile devices), you’ll be able to track your acoustic’s vital signs and receive push notification alerts if your beloved Taylor starts to flatline from any form of hostile humidity level or temperature changes, battery drain or aggravated bonks.

Installation of the TaylorSense battery box is fairly simple but takes a little maneuvering (you’ll have to stick your hand in the soundhole to bend a clip), but outside of that, it’s an easy replacement. From there, you’ll need to register your Taylor from the app and pair your guitar via Bluetooth. 

Once completed, the TaylorSense Guitar Health Monitoring System uses low-energy Bluetooth to send your guitar’s data to the TaylorSense app so you can keep track of and address any number of humidity and temperature issues that can ruin your acoustic. 

You can see those figures in hourly, daily and monthly stats, and if you encounter any problems, a “Fix” button directs you toward a wealth of informative tutorials, guitar care solutions and helpful how-to videos to rectify a host of setbacks or answer concerns with your instrument.

The alert screen is essential (if you travel with your Taylor) for letting you know the time, date and measurement (in grams) of a potential drop or hit that occurred. Overall, the TaylorSense system is just a great monitoring tool to make you feel more at ease and connected to your acoustic.

For me, it’s fun to see how my Taylor is faring at all times. And if you’re a tech geek or numbers guy, you can’t beat the thrill of checking up on your Taylor or having the app alert you when it needs help.

• STREET PRICE: $79.99
• CONTACT: Taylor Guitars

Welcome to the American Dream, a trio of Grand Pacific guitars from Taylor featuring all-solid tonewoods and V-Class bracing at an exceptional value for musicians of all stripes. Choose from three distinct styles, each built to serve the needs of everyday guitar players at home, in studio or on stage.

With V-Class bracing inside, the American Dream Series trio of Grand Pacific dreadnought models represents the most affordable entry point to the sonic complexity of solid tonewoods in the Taylor line. 

From the ovangkol/spruce AD17e and its stylish blacktop twin to the mahogany-topped AD27e, the American Dream Series serves up a warm, seasoned tone reminiscent of classic acoustic recordings, with unique voicing touches that generate clear low-end power and a punchy midrange. All models are made in the U.S. and ship with a lightweight, super-sturdy AeroCase, and ES2 electronics are optional.

Find the full American Dream series and more, at Taylor Guitars. 

Taylor introduced the Builder’s Edition 816ce in 2020, and the premium acoustic continues to dazzle with its unmatched tone and playability. Just ask Guitar World’s resident ace, Paul Riario, who takes the instrument, which he calls a “top-of-the-line crafted acoustic,” for a spin in this new demo video. 

The Builder’s Edition 816ce, he says, “features a newly redesigned Grand Symphony body shape. And as part of Taylor’s premium 800 Series, it features Indian rosewood back and sides, which is one of my favorite tonewoods for warmth in an acoustic.

The back and sides are paired with a Lutz spruce top, “which adds brilliant sparkle as a classic rosewood-spruce combination.”

Perhaps the most eye-catching feature, however, is the innovative soundport cutaway. Crafted to resemble a partial Florentine cutaway, the design keeps the guitar’s full back intact while still allowing easy access to the high-register frets. And the additional sound hole creates a wide-angle sound that would fit as well in a classical orchestra as it would a rock band or a fingerstyle solo act.

“What I love is the additional sound hole as a new sonic avenue of sound dispersion,” Paul says, “where you get more of this wide, dimensional and immersive sound without comprising the overall warmth and rich tone of this acoustic.”

What else do you get with the 816ce? Taylor’s V-Class bracing, “which offers impeccable intonation and increased volume and sustain,” as well as a Tropical mahogany neck, West African Crelicam ebony fretboard, curved-wing bridge and pickguard, Silent Satin finish, a single ring rosette in green abalone, “windandsea” fretboard inlays in shell and mother of pearl and “precise” Gotoh 510 tuners in antique gold.

And that’s not all: The package also includes Taylor’s dynamic Expression System 2 (ES-2) electronics and a deluxe hardshell case.

Simply put, “The Builder’s Edition 816ce is a top-of-the-line masterpiece that does it all and so much more,” Paul says. “With expansively rich acoustic tones and player focused enhancements I find it to be a lively and responsive instrument that will appeal to strummers and fingerstyle players alike.

To finds out more, head to Taylor Guitars.

Created at the intersection of world-class craftsmanship and player-focused design, the Builder's Edition collection from Taylor Guitars offers a wide range of acoustic flavors for guitarists of all styles.

With nine guitars boasting premium tonewoods and an array of comfort-enhancing design touches, the collection also features V-Class bracing, a revolutionary interior architecture developed by master guitar designer Andy Powers that delivers more volume, longer sustain and a more in-tune sound all the way down the fretboard.

For a glimpse into Powers' motivation in creating the Builder's Edition collection, check out the video above.

From the all-Hawaiian-koa Builder's Edition K24ce to the maple/spruce Builder's Edition 614ce, these guitars are made with Taylor's finest tonewoods in both sound and appearance.

The collection also includes the Builder's Edition 816ce, which sports a soundport cutaway that helps generate an immersive, high-fidelity rosewood musical character, as well as a 12-string model in the comfortable, lush-sounding Builder's Edition 652ce.

Whatever your style of play or preference of tone, Taylor's Builder's Edition collection serves up a truly elevated acoustic playing experience.

"The Builder's Edition collection is meant to be a limitless expression of our instrument-building imagination," Powers says. 

To check it out for yourself, head to Taylor Guitars.



At this point, the Taylor GS Mini could be considered a modern classic. It has been a little over a decade since its debut, and it's fair to say that this tiny Taylor has transcended the classification of a travel guitar to become a well-respected acoustic in its own right. With more and more players turning to smaller guitars in recent years, it's no surprise that the GS Mini would become so popular. This pint-sized guitar promises to not only deliver the impeccable build quality Taylor is famous for but also the bright articulate tone that makes them so beloved - but does the GS Mini make good on these bold claims? 

This petite acoustic guitar has had many guises since it was released in 2010, from a spruce top with rosewood back and sides to an all koa variation and many more limited edition guitars. For this review, we took a look at the Taylor GS Mini Mahogany. As the name suggests, this variant features a mahogany top, which is paired with layered sapele back and sides, as well as a sapele neck. It has to be said, just how good this guitar looks. The rich, deep hue of the mahogany top is quite striking and most definitely worthy of the Taylor name that graces the headstock. 

As with all Taylor guitars, we have the inclusion of an ebony fingerboard - sourced from Bob Taylor's very own ebony mill. There is no trickery being used to artificially darken the ebony, which in turn lets the natural stripes in the wood shine through, giving each guitar its own identity - something we absolutely love.

Okay, so it may look the part, but how does it feel? In a word, fantastic. Fans of Taylor guitars will know how particular the building process is, and that most definitely extends to the GS Mini range. As a result, this guitar feels like a Taylor - and a more expensive one, at that. Yes, you can feel that the back and sides are laminated and not solid, like the more premium options, but that doesn't detract from just how well this guitar is put together. We have no issues with sharp frets, the nut is cut correctly, and the action is just to our liking - unfortunately, that isn't always the case with guitars at this price point.

The neck itself feels very comfortable, and as it keeps the string spacing of the larger guitars, it doesn't feel too narrow. That said, the shorter scale of 17 5/8" - compared to 20" on the Grand Auditorium - does feel significantly shorter than the other guitars in the line-up, and this takes a little time to get used to, especially if you are used to the likes of a 314, for example.  Although the compact size does make it a fabulous beginner acoustic guitar for youngsters. It's also worth noting that the lack of cutaway does make playing beyond the 14th fret practically impossible - not that there's money to be made from playing up that end of an acoustic guitar. 

We know this guitar is supposed to travel the world with you, but we believe it makes a perfect sofa companion as well. It's just so easy to pick up and play, and once you get used to it, the small stature is incredibly inviting. 

So, that brings us on to sound. Overall the GS Mini Mahogany sounds pretty good. Again it has that Taylor thing. It's very bright and clear- although the Mahogany version here seems a little more mellow compared to a spruce top. Okay, it may never be as mellow as a mahogany Martin, but there does appear to be a little more warmth here than the spruce variation. Unfortunately, this guitar does lack in the volume department. Now, this is most likely due to the small body size, but we can't help feel that it doesn't project as well as we'd expect. The volume produced is more than enough for sitting on the sofa, but outside sat around a campfire, it may get a little lost. 

Taylor GS Mini Mahogany review: Verdict 

We have to say we are very impressed with the Taylor GS Mini Mahogany. It's impeccably built and looks fantastic. This mini guitar probably won't replace the workhorse dreadnought for many players, but it's not trying to. At the end of the day, this is a travel guitar, and despite its tiny size, it has a tone some larger guitars could only dream of. 

Taylor GS Mini Mahogany review: Specs

• Top: Tropical Mahogany 
• Back: Layered Sapele 
• Sides: Layered Sapele 
• Neck: Tropical Mahogany 
• Fretboard Wood: Ebony 
• Nut & Saddle: Nubone 
• Headstock Overlay: Indian Rosewood 
• Frets: 20 
• Scale Length: 23 1/2" 
• Body Length: 17 5/8" 
• Body Depth: 4 7/16" 
• Top Finish: Varnish 
• Contact: Taylor Guitars  

Named after the guitar shop where Taylor Guitars was founded in 1974, the American Dream Series embodies the principles of innovation and resourcefulness that have always helped Taylor get through tough times.

In the midst of the global pandemic, Taylor set out to pack all the ingredients of a great guitar into a more accessible package. Crafted in Taylor’s California factory, the American Dream Series delivers everything you’d expect from a premium Taylor experience. Solid wood construction. Tone-enhancing V-Class® bracing. And legendary Taylor playability. Designed for the times, these guitars have everything you need, and nothing you don’t.

Taylor Guitars

NAMM 2021 isn't taking place in the physical realm this year, but you'll find all the hottest January gear launches in our guide to the biggest guitar, amp and pedal releases of 2021 so far.

Taylor has expanded its line of Grand Theater acoustic guitar offerings with two new 800 and Koa series models, the GT 811e and the GT K21e.

Situated on the size scale somewhere between the GS Mini and the Grand Concert, the Grand Theater guitars boast modern proportions in both size and scale length to offer full-size, solid-wood acoustic tones in an easy-to-play package. 

Both guitars feature Taylor's all-new C-Class bracing architecture – a bracing pattern derived from the traditional V-Class bracing and seen on the previously announced GT Urban Ash model.

The unique C-Class design aims to accentuate the low-end in Grand Theater guitars in an effort to equip the smaller-body guitars with a powerfully warm bass response and a big sonic voice.

The GT811e sports solid Indian rosewood back and sides, a solid Sitka spruce top and a Crelicam smoky ebony fretboard. When paired with the unique Grand Theater proportions, the blend of woods promises a dazzling sparkle and pristine clarity.

Taylor's latest addition to the 800 series also flashes mother-of-pearl "Element" inlays, maple binding with rosewood top purfling, a rosewood pickguard and onboard Expression System 2 electronics.

Speaking of the GT 811e, Taylor master builder Andy Powers said: "With the GT's fresh form and structure, the listening and playing experiences deliver a distinctively new dimension."

A second GT offering  – the GT K21e – boasts solid, figured koa top, back and sides, and features a Crelicam ebony fretboard in an effort to strike a balance between "aesthetic beauty, playing comfort and sonic expression".

Other elegant appointments include maple binding, maple Spring Vine inlay pattern and Antique Gold Gotoh Mini 510 tuners.

Again, Taylor's ES2 appears, seeking to capture the guitar's dynamic properties using its behind-the-saddle design.

Powers notes that the GT K21e has a "vibrantly focussed sound, with a smooth rounded attack", and is tonally suitable as a rhythm instrument or fingerstyle guitar.

The GT 811e and GT K21e are available now for $2,999 and $4,699, respectively.

For more information head over to Taylor.

In other Taylor news, the company recently announced it is now 100% owned by its employees, via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

Let's face it: 2020 was pretty much a write-off. Fortunately, however, 2021 looks much more promising. Taylor Guitars has set out to embody this optimism in song by recruiting Zac Brown, Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall and more for one-time supergroup single, I Know What Love Is.

Featuring over 50 artists from Taylor's artist roster, the track – written by Keith Goodwin of Good Old War – aims to raise money for members of the music industry whose careers have been put on hold by the pandemic.

All proceeds from the project will go toward MusiCares, a charity set up by the Recording Academy (The Grammy Awards) which provides a support system of health and human services for musicians with a spectrum of needs, including COVID-19 relief.

In addition, several of the artists involved will premiere the track live at next week's NAMM Believe In Music Week.

"During lockdown, one of the most challenging things for me was trying to adapt to not having my friends around to play music with,” Goodwin says.

“This project really helped keep me focused on making music when everything else in life had changed so drastically. I’m grateful for this opportunity to connect and collaborate with such great artists and for a good cause. We are all lucky to be able to share our love of music together."

Adds KT Tunstall, “So many brilliantly talented crew, venue teams and artists have been financially crippled by the arrival of COVID-19, and hopefully we can ease some of that pain a little through MusiCares.”

I Know What Love Is will be available on all major music platforms to stream and download from January 21. For more information, head over to Taylor Guitars.

Taylor Guitars – celebrated manufacturer of some of the best acoustic guitars of the modern age – has announced that it has transferred ownership of the company to its employees via a newly formed ESOP.

An ESOP – Employee Stock Ownership Plan – is an ownership structure through which the company's independence, values, culture and employees are protected, and its commitment to providing the best quality guitars is maintained.

The transition sees Taylor employees receive a retirement benefit linked to Taylor Guitars' future equity value, and places the revered guitar manufacturer on a long list of ESOP success stories.

Of the news, co-founder and President of Taylor guitars Bob Taylor said, "We have delighted in giving people the joy of music and hope to do so for generations to come. Becoming 100% ESOP allows us to ensure our independence for the long-term future and continue to realize our vision for the company as an innovative guitar manufacturer.

As well as viewing the transition as a move to preserve the longevity of the company, co-founder and CEO Kurt Listug also sees it as an opportunity to provide a valuable financial benefit for the people who have contributed to its success over the years.

Although on paper it sounds like a major shake-up, the reality is not much will change. Instead, Bob Taylor, Kurt Listug, Andy Powers and other members of the Taylor leadership team will remain onboard, with no changes being made to the management structure, operation policies or practices.

Taylor Guitars vows to serve its customers, suppliers and broader community with the same passion and innovation it has shown throughout the years.

For more information, head over to Taylor Guitars.

Taylor has long been at the forefront of top-notch construction and innovation in the acoustic guitar world. But the company may have outdone itself with the new GT, which introduces an entirely new kind of acoustic guitar in size, feel and sound.

For starters, there’s the name itself: GT is short for Grand Theater, a brand-new body size that, as Nicholas Veinoglou says in the above demo video, offers “uniquely modern proportions both in body dimensions and scale length, and sits somewhere in between the size of a GS Mini and a Grand Concert.”

The result is a guitar that is “truly the best of both worlds,” he continues. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had a guitar feel so at home in my hands right out of the box.”

And the new body size is just the beginning. Features on the GT include a solid spruce top with back and sides made from responsibly-sourced Urban Ash. 

There’s also a mahogany neck and a eucalyptus fingerboard with Italian acrylic pinnacle inlays, as well as Taylor’s new C-Class bracing, which adapts the company’s tone-enhancing V-Class bracing to the GT's smaller footprint to specifically boosts the bass range.

Other touches include Taylor nickel tuners, a three-ring koa rosette and a eucalyptus bridge and headstock overlay. And it’s all tied together with a beautiful matte finish.

The result is a made-in-California all-solid acoustic that combines the inviting playability of a compact instrument with the rich voice of a full-size solid wood guitar.

“It makes for a really fun and easy playing machine with a massive sonic personality,” Veinoglou says.

And what more could you ask for in your acoustic?

For more information on the GT, which is also available in an acoustic-electric version with onboard ES2 electronics for quick plug-and-play functionality, head to Taylor Guitars.

Taylor Guitars officially started on 15 October 1974. Bob Taylor and his partners, Kurt Listug and Steve Schemmer, had purchased the store where they worked building guitars – the American Dream – from owner Sam Radding. 

They found they couldn’t actually use the name at the time because Sam’s brother who ran an American Dream retail outlet objected, so originally the venture ran under the title Westland Music Company. But they still needed a name for the guitars that they planned to make. 

“I can see the three of us sitting around in the shop,” remembers Bob today, “Kurt, Steve and myself. ‘What are we going to call the guitars?’ It was quite a discussion. See, Kurt and Steve grew up across the street from each other and they were planning to buy this American Dream company but Kurt’s dad wouldn’t loan him any money to do it unless he brought someone in that actually knew how to build a guitar,” laughs Bob. 

“So they said to me, ‘We can’t get the money to buy unless we have you as a partner so we want you in – but we don’t really want you in. So we’re going have 35 per cent each and you get 30 per cent. That way we have control over you.’ Those words were said. I simply said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine!’ I mean I was 19, they were 21. 

“Kurt thought a family name was good: ‘Taylor is good but we’re not so sure because we’re afraid of ego problems down the road.’ Kurt finally said, ‘Martin is good family name and Taylor is a good strong name.’ I mean, we said, ‘Listug might be good if we were making drums – no-one can say ‘Lustig’ as it’s pronounced, they always say ‘Listug’, how it’s spelt. And Schemmer, well, I mean…’

“So it was agreed that Taylor was a good name and although it could develop into a ‘problem’ we were going to take a chance on it. Kurt and Steve kind of acquiesced on it. Kurt did see the light though and I think it was one of the first signals that Kurt and I could arrive at a conclusion in agreement on something. 

“And as the years went on, the three of us just noticed that Kurt and I would see eye to eye. Steve, well, you’d have to drag him into it. It’s just personality, chemistry. Kurt and I have good chemistry and that’s not anything you can design.”

Fast-forward nearly 46 years and Taylor sits at the forefront of acoustic guitar making. But like everyone else, the recent pandemic turned everything on its head.

“We went from making 700 guitars a day to making no guitars a day,” states Bob somberly. “There was really no end in sight. Tecate [the location of Taylor’s Mexican factory] was closed – we didn’t know for how long. Our factory here in El Cajon was closed, although our engineers were working and we were shipping guitars we had built for stock.

“Let’s imagine that Tecate doesn’t open for a long time, what if we have to replace some of the price range we make in Mexico with the price range here in the USA? How in the world are we going to do that? How are we going to offer a guitar made in the USA that gets at least into the 200 Series Mexican-made price range?”

At some speed a plan formed to create a stop-gap mini range, made in the USA, as Bob explains: “We started to think of a way to make a guitar with the method that had really started with the Baby Taylor 25 years ago, the GS Mini, and the Academy series that’s worked its way up into Andy Power’s Builder’s Editions where the treatment might all be about the soft edges.

“The purflings are on the top and the top is very precisely located, which allows us to make these guitars without the binding step. Then there are the satin finishes, too.

“But there was another component: in El Cajon we have an incredible build-up of… let’s take necks, for example. We cut our neck shafts and here’s one with the smallest cosmetic defect in it. Set it aside, don’t use it. I’d been on a warehouse clear-up for a really long time and there is a lot of wood we weren’t currently using.

“Andy had started thinking about how we make this guitar and I said, ‘What about if we have, how would you say, built-in ‘American character’ right from the start, you know?’ Some of this wood we’d set aside because of a raw flaw here and there. Or maybe it’s a species we’re no longer using, like ovangkol – I think we had 6,000 to 7,000 guitars’ worth of back and sides of that.

“So, we thought, maybe we could harness the power of all that material and the power of our factory that is always eager and we could design this guitar. “And then we thought, ‘What are going to call it?’ That’s when we went back to our original name where we’d started, American Dream. We’ve actually kept that trademark alive for the past 45 years.

To do that, once every 10 years we have to sell an American Dream guitar. So we’d find a dealer, make two guitars, an American Dream model with a label in it, and that meant we could still maintain our trademark. So we had the name there, all ready to go.” Ironically – and we’ve had similar reports from numerous large-scale guitar makers – the lockdown created quite a spike in sales.

“The orders came in like there’s no tomorrow,” exclaims Bob. “We’ve never seen anything like it. You know, we have 95,000 guitars on order right now. We usually keep around 30,000 guitars in stock, which allows us to fulfil our promise of restocking your store.

“But we took that stock down to the walls. Someone would come into your office, point at a guitar and say, ‘You playing that thing? If not, we could sell it.’” A commercial tie-up with PlayStation and The Last of Us Part II game hasn’t hindered demand, either.

“I don’t play videogames,” says Bob, “but I understand this is the most popular one in the world. So, yes, we did do a tie-up and they prominently displayed our guitar – we ended up making a GS-Mini and that had trade dress from that game, and also a 314. Those were used in the game and people bought them. Sony sold them direct; we sold them to Sony. We sold a lot of them!

“It’s amazing to see how our guitars get into current culture that way. I’m still stunned that our guitars get used in so many places like that – they’ve just wiggled their way into everyday life.” 

And despite the reasons for their creation, Bob is confident that the American Dream guitars will still be offered when the pandemic subsides.

“I think we will because one thing that I’m delighted about is the American Dream concept is a way that we can use more materials. As guitar players, we’ve been systematically taught to look at near-perfect pieces of wood. The American Dream concept is a way to, let’s say, cook with what we have in the refrigerator.

“It’s like one of those TV shows where a top chef knocks on your door to cook you great meal and you go, ‘But I haven’t got any ingredients in the refrigerator.’ He goes, ‘You’ve got plenty: just sit down and I’ll do it.’ Half an hour later you go, ‘Holy smokes! You made that from what I had in my refrigerator? I didn’t think I had anything.’

“So American Dream also fits my environmental work because one of the first things about this journey of sustainability is not to waste anything. It’s like using ebony with some colour and stripes in it. People go, ‘What are you doing?’ You have to go on tour and tell people about it.

“I’m knee-deep in the water and have paid the dues, so to speak, so I think I’m able to talk about making good guitars out of – I’m going to say – more humble materials, or materials that don’t make the cut for what we normally do. I think American Dream will serve to do that. It’s just a way for a top chef to cook from the refrigerator.”

For more historical detail and plenty of cracking stories, Bob Taylor’s Guitar Lessons: A Life's Journey Turning Passion into Business is recommended reading.

Taylor has unveiled the GT acoustic guitar, which introduces a new body size and scale length that sits between the company’s compact GS Mini and Grand Concert, the smallest of its full-size body shapes.

The result, according to Taylor, “combines the playability of a compact instrument with the rich voice of a full-size, solid-wood guitar”.

The new GT, which is short for “Grand Theater,” features a non-cutaway body that borrows the basic curves of Taylor’s Grand Orchestra model. The width at the lower bout (15 inches) is nearly the same as the Taylor Grand Concert, but with a shorter length.

The guitar’s scale length is 24 1/8 inches, while the nut width is 1 23/32 inches.

The guitar also boasts Taylor’s new C-Class bracing architecture, with a cantilevered, asymmetrical design that accentuates the lower frequencies for a warm bass response.

The GT features a solid spruce top and back and sides of solid urban ash, a tonewood sourced from Shamel ash trees scheduled for removal from municipal areas in Southern California and first introduced on Taylor’s Builder’s Edition 324ce.

There’s also a Eucalyptus fingerboard with Italian acrylic “Pinnacle” inlays, a Eucalyptus bridge and peghead overlay and Taylor nickel mini tuners.

Aesthetic touches include a three-ring koa rosette, a faux tortoise pickguard, a 2mm matte finish on the top and an Urban Sienna stain on the back and sides.

The Taylor GT Urban Ash is available for $1,399, or with an ES2 electronic system (the Taylor GTe Urban Ash) for $1,599. Both models come in a brown AeroCase.

For more information, head to Taylor.

Taylor recently unveiled the all-new American Dream Series, the company’s most affordable line of US-built all solid-wood instruments to date. 

Named after the guitar shop where Taylor was founded in 1974, the American Dream Series launched with three models in the Grand Pacific body style - the spruce-topped AD17 and AD17 Blacktop and the mahogany-topped AD27, all available with and without electronics.

Here at Guitar World we couldn’t wait to get our hands on one of these new models, and thankfully, gear editor Paul Riario managed to procure the impressively-outfitted AD17e Blacktop and take it for a spin.

As is clear in the above demo, the first thing you’ll notice about the round-shouldered, dreadnought-sized Blacktop is its sleek and stylish matte black finish, which is paired with a matching black pickguard and single-ring black/maple/black sound hole rosette.

Tone-wise, the Blacktop is clear and balanced with incredible warmth and presence, courtesy of the combination of a spruce top and ovangkol back and sides. The V-Class bracing, meanwhile, delivers plenty of power and sustain.

And the guitar sounds just as impressive plugged in, thanks to Taylor’s onboard Expression System 2, which features the company’s patented behind-the-saddle pickup for a more dynamic range of tones, as well as a custom-designed audio-grade preamp.

But the Blacktop doesn’t just sound and look great - it also plays like a dream. The body’s chamfered edges provide a more comfortable feel against your picking arm, and there’s also an easy-playing mahogany neck topped with a eucalyptus fingerboard.

Other features include Taylor nickel tuners, a black TUSQ nut and Micarta saddle and a lightweight Taylor AeroCase for a premium package. 

The result is a pro-level instrument that delivers classic Taylor tone, playability and construction with unprecedented affordability - a true player’s acoustic.

For more info on the Taylor AD17e, head to Taylor Guitars.

Named after the guitar shop where Taylor Guitars was founded in 1974, the American Dream Series embodies the principles of innovation and resourcefulness that have always helped Taylor get through tough times. 

In the midst of the global pandemic, Taylor set out to pack all the ingredients of a great guitar into a more accessible package.

Crafted in Taylor’s California factory, the American Dream Series delivers everything you’d expect from a premium Taylor experience. Solid wood construction. Tone-enhancing V-Class bracing. And legendary Taylor playability.

Designed for the times, these guitars have everything you need, and nothing you don’t.

Taylor Guitars

Blending high-fidelity, shimmering 12-string tone with a comfortable frame and ergonomic enhancements, the Builder's Edition 652ce adds an entirely new acoustic flavor to the Taylor Guitars family. Featuring a compact Grand Concert body style with maple back and sides paired with a torrefied spruce top, this 12-string is outfitted with V-Class bracing, which ensures near-perfect intonation down the neck along with greater volume and longer sustain. Player-focused design elements include a beveled armrest and cutaway, along with a body finished in Silent Satin for reduced incidental noise. But the most notable feature of the Builder's Edition 652ce may be its reverse-strung setup, in which the fundamental string is placed above the octave string—similar to some electric 12-string guitars. This change produces a heftier, warmer acoustic tone. Each pair of strings is anchored by one bridge pin, limited tonal interference with the soundboard.

Demoing the Taylor Guitars Builder's Edition 652ce 12-string, solo player Nathaniel Murphy was struck by the power coming from its smaller frame, along with the tunefulness fostered by V-Class bracing. "The smaller body packs a huge 12-string sound," Nathaniel says. "And it stays in tune! Highly recommended."

The Builder's Edition collection from Taylor Guitars embodies all the ideal qualities of an acoustic guitar, built to the exacting specifications of a master guitar designer.

Made with the highest-grade tonewoods, each Builder's Edition model features the game-changing V-Class bracing system for increased volume, improved intonation and notes that sustain beautifully as you play.

You'll find a variety of acoustic guitar body shapes in the Builder's Edition family, from the compact Grand Concert to the versatile Grand Auditorium and the vintage tones of the Grand Pacific.

Along with a refined musical response, the Builder's Edition collection is crafted with the ideal playing experience in mind.

An array of player-friendly curves and thoughtful design elements, including armrests, rolled body edges, and beveled cutaways, make these guitars among the most comfortable Taylor has ever created.

From the warm, textured sound of the reverse-strung 12-string Builder's Edition 652ce to the electric feel of the Builder's Edition 912ce, Taylor Guitars has created an inspiring instrument for every kind of guitar player.

For more information, head over to Taylor Guitars.

The Last of Us Part II, the long-awaited follow up to the insanely popular 2013 PlayStation game, was released today, and included in the new line of merch alongside the standard t-shirts and coffee mugs are two genuine Taylor acoustic guitars – a special edition 314ce and a GS Mini.

Both models were designed in conjunction with game developer Naughty Dog. 

The Taylor 314ce Grand Auditorium is a direct replica of the guitar used by the main character, Ellie, in the actual game.

The guitar boasts a Sitka spruce tobacco sunburst top and solid sapele back and sides, along with a Taylor neck, West African ebony fretboard, nickel tuners and a faux tortoiseshell pickguard.

Other features include a custom moth fretboard inlay in grained ivoroid, double-ring rosette, grained ivoroid binding, gloss-finish body and Expression System 2 electronics.

The scaled-down GS Mini, meanwhile, features a solid mahogany top and layered sapele back and sides, as well as a black finish and transparent black stain for the back, sides and neck.

There’s also plenty of game-associated design, including a replica of Ellie’s tattoo and “custom imagery that echoes the culmination of Ellie’s journey” on the guitar’s top, as well as a custom peghead decal and interior label.

As it turns out, The Last of Us Part 2 in-game guitars can actually be used to play music. You can hear a few renditions of real-world tunes below.

As it turns out, The Last of Us Part 2 in-game guitars can actually be used to play music. You can hear a few renditions of real-world tunes below.

Both Taylor guitars are currently available for pre-order, with shipping beginning on August 28.

The 314ce comes in a deluxe brown hardshell case for $2,299, while the GS Mini comes in a hardshell gig bag with backstraps for $699.

For more information, head to Taylor.

That's our second story on Sony consoles this week, after we reported on a guitarist recreating the opening music to every PlayStation console with air compressors, cello bows and more.

Brian Truesby knows his way around a dreadnought. The talented guitar player had a chance to take the Taylor Builder’s Edition 517 WHB through its paces, pushing this Grand Pacific model to keep up with his dynamic, pristine playing style.

This guitar, made with solid mahogany back and sides paired up with a torrefied Sitka spruce top, utilizes V-Class bracing and subtle design nuances in its body shape to produce a warm, rich tone that evokes memories of classic acoustic recordings.

An entirely new category of acoustic tone for Taylor Guitars, the Builder’s Edition 517 offers remarkable sustain, power and musicality, plus a body contoured to optimize the playing feel. Rounded fretboard and body edges provide a seamless experience whether you play seated or standing, while the compound carve neck smoothly accommodates your fretting hand no matter where on the fretboard you’re playing.

In Brian’s own words, the guitar was more than up to the task. “[The Builder’s Edition 517] is very responsive to so many different styles of play,” Brian said. “Fabulous note definition and sustain, too.” Watch Brian demo the Builder’s Edition 517 WHB and click to learn more about this exciting model.

For more information, visit Taylor Guitars.

Of all the acoustic guitars I’ve come across, one of my favorites is the Pallet Guitar. More than 20 years ago, Bob Taylor constructed this legendary acoustic entirely from oak pallets and scrap two-by-fours found at the back of his factory, and which still resides at Taylor Guitars. 

The impetus behind the guitar was to demonstrate that the builder’s craftsmanship is just as integral to a great sounding guitar as the wood used. Fast forward to the present, and it seems this notion has grown some “green” new legs. 

Bob Taylor, along with master builder Andy Powers, and director of natural resource sustainability, Scott Paul, decided to explore responsible wood sourcing from trees that were being removed in the asphalt jungles and suburbs of Southern California. 

After partnering with a company called West Coast Arborists, Inc., who provide tree maintenance and management for municipalities throughout California and Arizona, they stumbled upon a species of wood known as Shamel ash that met their demanding standards of a musical-grade tonewood. 

Dubbed “Urban Ash” to draw attention to the idea of using reclaimed and salvaged city trees, and for its characteristic tonal properties as a future tonewood, Powers created the Taylor Guitars Builder’s Edition 324ce, an inspired eco-conscious model that sounds as beautiful as it looks.

Features

The Builder’s Edition 324ce is a seductively fetching acoustic, mostly because its strikingly dark tobacco kona burst finish, as well as all the sleek contours of its chamfered body and fretboard edges, and beveled armrest and cutaway, are flatout captivating. 

What elevates the instrument is a new Silent Satin finish with a dark edgeburst treatment that removes any extraneous noises your forearms or hands might make, for a whisper-quiet performance. Most importantly, the guitar incorporates Taylor’s revolutionary V-Class bracing, which not only projects volume and enhances sustain, but also provides intonation so precise one can only marvel at how in-tune everything sounds across the fretboard. 

From there, just about everything else featured is first class, with a gorgeous tropical mahogany top paired with its new “Urban Ash” back and sides, West African ebony bridge and fretboard, Curve Wing bridge, graphite nut, Compass inlays, Gotoh 510 tuners and Taylor’s ES2 electronics.

Performance

This year, Taylor’s Builder’s Edition collection is comprised of four new guitars (324ce, 652ce, 816ce and 912ce), and has been affectionately nicknamed “director’s cut” models, the “crème de la crème,” if you will, because they really are considered the ultimate expression of Powers’ craftsmanship in combining luxurious feel and comfort with high-fidelity acoustic sound, and their prices certainly reflect this. 

What’s noteworthy here is the Builder’s Edition 324ce was designed for working-class musicians in mind, and while it’s not inexpensive, it’s what I’d like to consider the base model of a luxury vehicle that will last a lifetime.

For a guitar that exudes sheer elegance, there is a great deal of restraint involved here - in other words, Powers included all the bells and whistles of a premium guitar but made it appear tastefully traditional, and I love that. 

Its mid-sized and approachable Grand Auditorium Cutaway shape, coupled with all the beveled contouring and rolled edges, unquestionably heighten the overall comfort level and playability, and its unfettered access to the upper-note registers makes it a pleasure to play. Somewhat surprisingly, the guitar sports a more classic C-shape neck profile that will certainly thrill vintage purists.

I’ve said it before, but the V-Class architecture under the hood is the real game changer here. Whether it’s the impeccable intonation or the continuous sustain at play, the overall experience is transcendent. 

But you’re probably wondering what “Urban Ash” sounds like! Well, it’s reminiscent of good mahogany that radiates a crisp top end and a taut bass, but its sonic strength is that it dutifully serves up a warm, sweetened midrange with a clear, bell-like ring. 

Whether you strum hard or pick softly, it tends to stay within that middle register, and its euphonious voice is so detailed that I sometimes found myself leaning over the soundhole to listen from different angles because I couldn’t believe an acoustic could sound so three-dimensional and smoothly balanced here. It’s a genuinely studio-quality tone, which I’d venture to say even a cheap mic would have a hard time making sound bad.

It’s an aspirational instrument, no doubt, and one that may never leave your side if you can stretch for it. But moreover, it’s hard to believe this all came from a tree felled at the corner of Sunset and Fountain (that, of course, is not true. But someday, it could be).

Specs

• STREET PRICE: $2,999
• SCALE LENGTH: 25-1/2"
• BODY DIMENSIONS: 16 x 20 x 4 5/8" (W x L x D)
• TOP FINISH: Silent Satin
• NECK/HEEL: Tropical Mahogany
• NECK WIDTH: 1-3/4"
• NUT & SADDLE: Tusq Nut/Micarta Saddle
• NUMBER OF FRETS: 20
• TYPE OF NECK JOINT: Scarf
• BRACING: V-Class
• PICKGUARD: None
• TUNERS: Gotoh
• STRINGS: Elixir Phosphor Bronze Light
• CASE: Taylor Deluxe Hardshell Brown

For more information, head to Taylor Guitars.