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Washburn D105/12 I got this guitar because of listening to too much Leo Kottke. Leo's live album from the mid-90s is hands-down the best live recording of acoustic guitar i've heard, not just for its virtuosic playing (and story-telling), but for quality of sound. Recently his One Guitar, No Vocals has been endlessly repeating on my iPod, and i might like it even better. Really beautiful music, besides technically stunning. I had a 12-sting in the 80s; a cheap Alvarez that played ok, which i eventually sold to finance the paying of rent and also the purchase of maccaroni-and-cheese. For years thereafter, i joked that 12-string players spent half their lives tuning and the other half playing out-of-tune. But it was only to mask my own bitterness at no longer having a 12. When i finally began to search for one, i played a bunch before i happened on this inexpensive Washburn, which felt and sounded right. Kind of pretty too, except for a black plastic pickguard which was absolutely wrong on this thing, needlessly obscuring some very nice streaky bearclaw in the spruce (is it still bearclaw if it goes the same direction as the grain?), and which i removed as soon as it was legally mine. The armrest got added later, and cheapo plastic bridge pins were replaced with ebony sets from Stew-Mac. Beautiful mahogany in the neck, back, and sides. The chrome tuners (like the case) are also cheapies, and i'll probably replace them eventually with some black minis to match the bridge pins and armrest. (I wanted to match the mahogany with the armrest and bridge pins—which would mean gold tuners—but the bridge is black; a design flaw in my opinion, but it's glued on, so there you go.) It holds tune very well and has (mostly) good intonation all the way up the neck. Now if i can just cop some of those Leo licks . . . |
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