I did it again.

[Larry Mal]

Guilds are known for being cannons in general, and a lot of flatpickers really like to go full-bore 100% of the time (especially in bluegrass, where they need to be heard over an ensemble, and which Guild clearly cares about), so it's also a matter of horses for courses.

Not trying to cherry pick your response or anything, but this did kind of jump out at me.

I've owned five Guilds at this point, not all of them for very long. I had the initial D-40, then a 70's era F-30, then the M-20, then a 2010 or so F-30, finally now another D-40.

None of them have been "cannons"- none of them have been particularly loud. I honestly haven't heard that Guild has a reputation for being "cannons", it would be something of a turn off since I consider that to be as useless a metric as the blind quest for sustain. I guess at this point people just say any guitar they like are "cannons". But I've yet to see a Guild cannon.

Maybe I'll do a demonstration, I have three dreadnaughts at this point, one maple, one mahogany, one rosewood. The rosewood one genuinely is what you would call a "cannon", but I consider it to have plenty of subtlety also. I mean, I wouldn't keep it around if it didn't- I also fingerpick, and I also am concerned with things like dynamic range on my guitars. Not everyone who uses other subsections of the AGF is just hammering away blindly with a pick imagining that a banjo might show up.

I have some guitars that are loud, but others that are out and out quiet for what they are. In both cases all the guitars have plenty of dynamic range to them, if they don't, I don't keep them.

But loud guitars blow out microphones.

Anyway, all of the Guilds have had the same overall character to them, a well balanced, sweet sound with good string clarity and yes, great dynamic range.

Don't let the name fool you- it's not clear to me how seriously Guild was trying for the Bluegrass market, I always thought they were just trying to hearken back to an earlier age more than anything with the silly name. Regardless of what they intended or hoped for, there's only ever been one name in Bluegrass and it's never been Guild.

[Embenny]

Didn't mean to imply that flatpickers don't use dynamics, just that my uncle who's a bluegrasser definitely values something different in his guitars from me.

The cannon reputation came from the laminate bowl-back Guilds, I believe, but as you've pointed out to me, that's a very specific subset of Guild guitars, which have had many different factories and lineup revamps over the years.

The bowl-back design is specifically geared toward increasing directional projection by focusing internal reflections toward the soundhole, it's like the parabolic dish of a radio telescope or satellite receiver.

In any case, I'll stop arguing a point that can't be argued, which is that a type of guitar you've not tried has tendencies toward certain characteristics. You can neither agree nor disagree unless you try a bunch. I never said that factory guitars don't have a dynamic range, just that's it's narrower in comparison. I played with a wide range of dynamics long before I gave up on factory guitars. I just do so more easily, more enjoyably and with less effort now.

It's like telling someone that your spicy cooking is more varied and potent since discovering hot peppers beyond jalapeños, and hot sauces beyond Tabasco. They might argue that they've always made things plenty hot with jalapeños and Tabasco, and that countless great and spicy dishes have been made with only those, which is true, but doesn't mean that a broader range of flavours and a higher ceiling of spice can't be achieved via other means. Both things can be true, but they wouldn't know without trying.

[Larry Mal]

The cannon reputation came from the laminate bowl-back Guilds, I believe, but as you've pointed out to me, that's a very specific subset of Guild guitars, which have had many different factories and lineup revamps over the years.

The bowl-back design is specifically geared toward increasing directional projection by focusing internal reflections toward the soundhole, it's like the parabolic dish of a radio telescope or satellite receiver.

In any case, I'll stop arguing a point that can't be argued, which is that a type of guitar you've not tried has tendencies toward certain characteristics. You can neither agree nor disagree unless you try a bunch. I never said that factory guitars don't have a dynamic range, just that's it's narrower in comparison. I played with a wide range of dynamics long before I gave up on factory guitars. I just do so more easily, more enjoyably and with less effort now.

It's like telling someone that your spicy cooking is more varied and potent since discovering hot peppers beyond jalapeños, and hot sauces beyond Tabasco. They might argue that they've always made things plenty hot with jalapeños and Tabasco, and that countless great and spicy dishes have been made with only those, which is true, but doesn't mean that a broader range of flavours and a higher ceiling of spice can't be achieved via other means. Both things can be true, but they wouldn't know without trying.

Yeah, I guess I've heard that the round back Guilds had good projection, I and I guess I've heard that they can be loud- I sort of always thought it was more or less people reassuring each other than these were good guitars despite not being all solid wood. I never have gotten around to buying one yet, but it's sort of on the list to check out. A D-30 would likely be where I would start.

Regardless, a guitar getting loud is just about the last thing I really care about, my first awful acoustic was an Alvarez, it sucked, but if you made it be loud it would be loud. But that's all it could do, which is why when I get a guitar I play it quietly to see if the sound seems to have all the frequencies I would be expecting at a low volume.

I've always been convinced that the way to tell if an instrument sounds good is if it sounds very good when you play it very quietly. I try and think what does the microphone hear. That is to say, if someone asked me, should I get a Guild D-40 or buy a one of a kind guitar from a guy on the AGF I would much more quickly ask about the recording environment, microphone, etc., all of which will be of much more importance. If you can't make a great recording with a D-40, or you can't put on a good live show with one, spending four to five times as much on a better guitar probably isn't the solution.

Anyway, it's been an interesting conversation, I took it as far as watching this video where some guy from Martin says they got some kind of lacquer finish down to 3 mil. And I'm not really disputing that finish thickness would have some result on sound, although I might say that it's just one variable among hundreds on any guitar that might have more effect. A stiffer or less stiff neck carved from a single piece of wood would probably have more.

Good news is, anyone can test out this concept, you can go to a store and play a guitar with a full gloss finish and the same model with a satin finish and see if you hear the difference.

But you know, at the end of the day, the vast majority of guitars sold are going to be factory made guitars, and the vast majority of people that buy them will undertake to play them, and record them, and perform with them, and write songs on them- the things people do with guitars. The vast majority of those people using those guitars for those things will be happy with them and feel that the guitars work for what they are doing with them. By far the majority of those people, if you told them that they really should spend five times as much on a different guitar, would be very surprised at that suggestion.

The vast majority of guitars you are going to hear in the music you listen to will be played on these guitars, and the vast majority of listeners will think those recordings of those guitars sound very good.

And none of those people are wrong, you know?

[Embenny]

By far the majority of those people, if you told them that they really should spend five times as much on a different guitar, would be very surprised at that suggestion.

Don't disagree with anything you said, other than the part about spending five times as much, which isn't what I'm saying at all, since so many luthier-built guitars are available for the same price or cheaper than some rather popular factory-built ones.

But I really shouldn't beat that dead horse.

[Larry Mal]

Don't disagree with anything you said, other than the part about spending five times as much, which isn't what I'm saying at all, since so many luthier-built guitars are available for the same price or cheaper than some rather popular factory-built ones.

But I really shouldn't beat that dead horse.

Nah, let's do it- I mean, shit, this is a much deeper conversation than I expected considering I'm a dumb asshole who bought the same guitar twice and thinks the second time would have any interest! I can tell you the folks on Let's Talk Guild didn't take my New Old Guitar Day post very far.

But, I spent $1150 on this guitar. I'd be very happy to consider the luthier made guitar that would cost that much and how it might be better.

[Embenny]

Nah, let's do it- I mean, shit, this is a much deeper conversation than I expected considering I'm a dumb asshole who bought the same guitar twice and thinks the second time would have any interest! I can tell you the folks on Let's Talk Guild didn't take my New Old Guitar Day post very far.

But, I spent $1150 on this guitar. I'd be very happy to consider the luthier made guitar that would cost that much and how it might be better.

I just didn't want to derail a happy thread further, but if you're happy to talk about it, this is as good a place as any, I suppose!

The first thing I'd have to preface this with is the caveat that we're talking about a used $1150 guitar, so you'll probably have to set your expectations at the prospect of only finding a potential handmade competitor by looking at used guitars.

The second suggestion I'd make is that you can look for younger, less-proven luthiers, as it's customary for them to start out with sort of aggressively low pricing to build a name for themselves, like Ed Bond did when I grabbed my $900 (CAD!) Halcyon.

My third suggestion is to make use of your favorable exchange rate by looking at Canadian luthiers. We have a dearth of guitar-building talent here that is really quite overly-dense relative to the size of our population. We have 10% the population of the US but more than 10% as many luthiers.

For example, I live right near Andy Bounsall of Bounsall Guitarworks, who regularly advertises brand new builds for as low as $2600 CAD ($1900 USD). He's relatively early in his career and hasn't built a huge reputation yet, so I can't imagine used examples of his work fetching more than your hypothetical $1150 USD budget.

I also know for a fact that I've seen used Halcyons come and go in the sub-$1k price bracket a number of times recently, and those are guitars I can vouch for personally. The more plain, early-style builds go for as low as $850 USD when they pop up, and most of his builds are of the more old-school shapes (Martin Dreads and OMs, Gibson sloped shoulders, etc), which would probably be more to your taste than some of the more unique designs since you'd have a better idea of what you might be getting.

I haven't been keeping my finger on the pulse of the newest, "best kept secret" luthiers like I used to, since my current guitar collection killed all acoustic GAS for me years ago - my last commission was completed in 2015, and I've felt no vestige of desire for more acoustics since then. I have all my bases well and truly covered.

But I could certainly brush up on the state of Canadian luthiery if you're seriously open to checking out something luthier-built in that price range. The usual way of finding hidden gems is to look at whose apprentices have just opened up shop on their own. Their designs usually don't stray far from their teachers, so you know what tonal camp they're in, and you know they've got several years of building experience that has met the standards of a pretty big name. Ed Bond was one of the countless builders who have popped up in Jean Larrivée's long shadow, and you can hear the influence in his work, but he focused on going "more old school" from that starting point, while most tend to go "more new school" instead.

But in any case, used Bounsall and Halcyon guitars would be the two off the top of my head that could potentially be snagged for $1150 USD or less and would likely knock your socks off. If you stretched your budget a little higher (not 5x higher, not even 2x higher), the number of names I'd know would increase by a lot, but I'd be up to the challenge of learning what might be floating around the $1150 mark these days if you're genuinely interested in finding out.

[Maggieo]

Nice Guild, Larry!

You know how i love my F-20.