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where you’ve got this burly, punchy
quality. There will be times when players might prefer the spruce-top version,
but if they want to play a little ragtime
or blues, that mahogany-top is the one.
It could also work as a slide instrument,
with a taller nut. It’s really cool as a lap
guitar, almost like a Weissenborn with
a bottle neck. The short scale makes
slants really easy, it handles some higher tunings really well, and you can do all
kinds of fun stuff with it. And for what it
costs, a person could buy one of those
and dedicate it to a specific use. I even
know players who will buy two or three
of them, high-string one with that short
scale, and set up another one for playing with a slide. Some guys keep them
in different tunings as an alternate guitar. It’s a really versatile little piece.”
The Electric Line
In its relatively brief history thus
far, the Taylor electric line has quickly
grown to encompass an expansive
range of guitar styles and tones. Over
the course of 2011 the SolidBody
saw the addition of double cutaways,
new colors, and new pickup configurations. The custom-ordering flexibility,
together with the aftermarket Loaded
Pickguards, gives players incredible
aesthetic and tone-shaping control.
For the hollowbody T5, a new
Spires fretboard inlay was designed for
Custom models, while the semi-hollowbody T3 is now available with additional
pickup options, including vintage alnico
and high-definition mini humbuckers,
the latter of which the design team felt
were a great match for the guitar.
Our baritone and 12-fret models
also welcome a new addition in the
form of mahogany versions that accompany the original rosewood models.
“The nice thing about the mahogany
baritones is the way the extra clarity
works with the lower-pitch fundamental
of the B tuning,” Andy says. “They
sound great.”
12-Strings
Another change for 2012 is a
refinement of Taylor’s 12-string model
selection. We’ve decided to make the
GS the predominant body shape for
our 12-strings, based on the natural
compatibility of the body shape with
our current 12-string design.
“Our mini humbuckers are fantastic
pickups,” Andy says. “They’re really balanced with a pretty character to them,
but they also have this bold and punchy
quality. At times they have almost a
single-coil-like character in their clarity,
with the power and noise-cancelling of
a humbucker. You get the sparkle, the
punch, the pop of a really good single
coil, but put into a setting you can have
a lot of fun with on stage. These are
unique, wonderful sounds that you can
use to play rock, rockabilly, surf music,
Merle Travis-style country, all kinds
of stuff.”
Builder’s Reserve:
Ukuleles and Amps
“We’ve found that the GS makes a
great 12-string because the waist has
been shifted a little higher and pushed
out a little more than a traditional
Jumbo, so the top is a bit more flexible
in some of those curves,” Bob explains.
“Players get a more resonant, colorful
sonic picture. It turned out that the GS
shape delivers a lot of what players
want to hear from a 12-string guitar.
You have this beautiful, rich low end,
with an even balance from the low to
the high that gives it a pleasant ringing
quality.”
We’ve also pared down our selec-
tion of Grand Auditorium 12-strings to
the GA3-12 and GA4-12. The Jumbo,
meanwhile, is taking a temporary leave
of absence from the line. The plan is
for the design group to experiment with
some new shape and voicing ideas to
refine its tonal personality.
One of the more intriguing developments for 2012 isn’t formally part of the
standard Taylor guitar line but is slated
to make recurring appearances each
quarter. Over the past several years
we’ve made two batches of ultra-limited
Builder’s Reserve guitars (one was a
SolidBody Classic made from burled
Bastogne walnut, the other a run of 50
Liberty Tree T5 models featuring tops
made of the historic wood). This year
marks the return of Builder’s Reserve
as a high-level design shop that
allows us to craft very small batches
of detail-rich instruments that are too
labor-intensive to build through our
standard guitar line. Andy’s arrival last
year helped rekindle the spirit of super-premium, handmade craftsmanship that
sets Builder’s Reserve apart.
Two extraordinary Builder’s Reserve
offerings are sure to make a stylish
Andy Powers uses a rabbet plane to shave a ukulele’s oversize braces down to begin the top voicing. “I’ll work them
slowly, going from one to the next until they all approach their finished size, monitoring the sound of the top as I go,”
he explains. “I made that plane on my 13th birthday, and have used it on nearly every guitar I’ve made since.”
entrance for 2012. To celebrate the
redesign of the Koa Series, we’re
releasing 30 all-koa guitars that are
each paired with a matching, handcrafted tenor ukulele also designed in-house. It marks Taylor’s first non-guitar
instrument offering and was made possible by Andy’s background in making
high-end ukuleles.
“Andy has been building ukes since
he was a kid, and I mean for nearly
20 years,” says Bob. “He knows what
a good uke sounds like because he’s
such a great player, and he knows
how to build it to get there. His ukes
feel and sound like real musical instru-
ments.”
The whole project came about on
the fly, after Andy built a tenor uke on
a whim using some koa that was too
small to build a guitar with. He gave the
uke to Bob to take home one weekend
and have fun with it.
“It was so much fun I couldn’t put it
down,” Bob says. “So, we thought, let’s
build some ukes by hand, and when we
get a hankering to build more, we will.”
All 30 will be built by hand because
no tooling has been made for the ukes.
THE 2012 TAYLOR GUITAR GUIDE
WALKING A FINE LINE
taylorguitars.com
