Spruce or Maple for acoustic blues..
I have a 20 year old Fender MiniJumbo, which I am still fond of; but I am struggling with the buildt in Fisher PickUp system. It just doesnt sound good with my Focusrite 2i2 Second gen sound interface. I have read somewhere that Yamaha APX has the best internal pickup system in the World, and the Dawson review on youtube convinced me. The APX600 has a very atractive Price tag so that made me stop dreaming about the Gibson Parlor AG 2019, which would be overkill for me.
So the decision should be easy... but what would be the best for me - spruce or maple? The new maple versions looks good, but are quite a lot more expensive than the Spruce versions. Which one has the most bluesy sound?
I play with a heavy pick, and bend a lot. I play mostly blues and other stuff like Jack johnson, Dan Auerbach etc. I originally played Electric Guitar (Telecaster and Gibson SG) and I like a small scale acoustic guitar.
I live quite remotely in Greenland, so I cant just walk into a guitar shop and try them out.
Thanks in advance - Erik - Greenland.
Re: Spruce or Maple for acoustic blues..
Hi Erik, welcome to yamahamusicians.com As far as I know you are the first member we have had from Greenland!
Given the sort of music you like to play...and who doesn't like playing the blues, right? I would be looking at a few others guitars but before we go down that route are you sticking to the APX600 sort of budget? I am not one for hugely expensive guitars myself and I only have two that get anywhere near £1000, most being in the £4-500 range. I have though played a lot of guitars under £300 so if that is your budget we can go through the choices?
I am not on a strictly limited budget. I could buy the expensive Gibson I mentioned above, allthough it would be a little over the top for a hobby musician like me. I will welcome any advice from you, but unfortunately I just found out that Yamaha will not allow my preferred dealer Thomann.de to send any Yamaha Guitars to Greenland. So I have to look elsewhere. Maybe an Ibanez AE315 would be a good compromise, I am still considering. Meanwhile I will stick to my old Korean made Fender JG26SCE, and use an external mike.
Another favourite guitar of mine from the past 12 months is the Vintage VG2000GG. That is the Gordon Giltrap signature model. It has an amazing bass end on it which works really well for me as I mostly play in dropped D. Also comes with the Fishman Presys Blend pickup system. Sounds great plugged or unplugged. Also has quite an unusual shape which I like a lot.
Maybe check out my thread here where I go through a bunch of guitars?
Never knew there were maple top APX guitars. Looked them up and boy they look great.
Noticed somethng else I didn't know too. These APX600's have a shorter scale length than most oher APX's: 634 mm on a APX600 vs 650 mm on a APX 500, 700, 1000 etc. Just enough difference for a different feel.
Yes they are short scale, I like my guitar small, as my fingers grew up on an electric Gibson SG (629mm), and get lost on a fullsize dreadnought or jumbo. My current acustic guitar Fender(R) JG26SCE has 643 mm scale. In comparison the Gibson Parlor J-165 has 628 - even smaller than the Gibson SG.
Last edited by ErikW on Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Thanx for the input Saul. Among the guitars you have testet, it is the Ibanez AE245 that get my attention. Unfortunately its the same problem: They wont send it to Greenland due to Cites regulations.
The AE245 is a great all rounder. Plays really well, nice build quality as you would expect from Ibanez and of course it looks great too.
I am not sure why CITES regs would get in the way. All that it requires is that there is provenance for the materials used in the guitar, so in this case mahogany. Will need to check on this.
In the Ibanez AE315FMH-OPS they have replaced the rosewood with Maple, and there is no mahogany, so it will probably go right through. Maybe you should test that one, to see if the quality suffers from the replacement of Woods?
Sure but the same applies to rosewood if it is from existing stocks it can still be used and transported. Just needs to be certified.
India also has huge stocks of rosewood, a lot of it not even being used.
I do agree with the regs and we need to preserve endangered species and it has the bonus effect of encouraging guitar builders to look past the traditional and start experimenting with other woods and materials.
Top is solid Dolomite spruce, back and sides are solid American walnut, neck is mahogany, fingerboard and bridge are ebony and there is a bone nut and saddle.
Its probably the rosewood fretboard.
Yep, must be the rosewood fretboard, in combination wit exporting from inside the EU to outside the EU. The seller needs an export license, and the buyer an import license.
So best thing to do is join the EU. There's room for a new member after march 29 .
Another risk of a Brexit without a deal. Besides us paying about 20% more on tax when importing from the UK, we will run into trouble buying and selling a lot of guitars as rosewood is used a lot I'm afraid .
I am not sure we will actually leave the EU. There seems to be no way through the current impasse. There is no option which satisfies a majority of the members of parliament so I can't see how an agreement would ever get passed.
Can you send cites woods from Denmark to Greenland? It's the same kingdom isn't it.
Hi Leon - Thank you - I probably could. It would be quite expensive to send it though. Thomann would send it for 8 Euro by plane, I would have to pay about 100 Euro for transport by ship (3-4 weeks transport-time), if I buy the Yamaha APX600 at a Danish guitar dealer. It would still be a quite cheap guitar though. I am still considering what to do. No hurry no worry.
And yes Greenland is part of the Danish kingdom. Denmark is part of EU - Greenland is not.
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