I'm going to jump in here and say that I actually prefer the look of a Venetian (blunt) cutaway on most acoustics. I'm not usually a fan of Florentine (pointy) ones though, but they can look great on certain shapes. All but one of my custom acoustics have cutaways, and the non-cutaway one was simply because my luthier didn't want to risk breaking the side during the steep bend. He was using a set of Brazilian Rosewood he had saved for nearly 40 years, so it was irreplaceable. He said that there was a 5-10% chance of it breaking during the bend, and given the significance of the guitar and the wood (my fifth and final build from him, near the end of his career, with an irreplaceable set of wood), neither of us wanted to roll the dice on that one.sal paradise wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 9:38 amIs that why people have cutaways, for solos? I joke, yet the realllllly good debut album by Turin Brakes is almost ruined by a pentatonic acoustic solo…
I have seen Laura Marling do some pretty high up finger picking, so we’ll all pretend that’s why I need it. Thanks.
But it's a functional thing for me. I play fingerstyle in mostly open tunings, and I also frequently capo between the 4th and 7th frets. I travel upwards of the 12th fret quite often, and a handful of my songs are more or less unplayable on a non-cutaway guitar (especially if the neck joint is at the 12th fret instead of the 14th), unless I transpose and/or rearrange some things.
So I just don't play those songs on that guitar, which is a shame, because it's the most stunning sounding guitar I own.