A trip to Guitar Gallery

[B0WIE]

The left side of that scale appeals to me probably because I have a heavy picking hand (thumbpick and bare fingers), heavier than most fingerstyle players as I've discovered. I love percussive, hard driving, at times funky blues. That surely plays a part. And to add to the answer you gave William, yes, the 12-fret Collings guitars I own have incredible sustain. I would never call them over-built (not that anyone did), just a little more heavier-built than a Santa Cruz or FB.

That makes sense. And, yes, definitely heavier. You pick up a Collings and you can just feel when it goes into motion it's going to keep ringing. It's not just the weight, when handling them you can hear the thing talking as the resonance it very apparent. My "keeper" Collings is also a 12-fret. Since you're a 12-fret Collings fan, I'll share the story of this one. I had found out that John Griffin of Old Standard Wood (the company that supplies some of the best Adi spruce to Martin, Collings, etc) had done a run where they took the very best tops they had been saving (out of many thousands) and had Collings make a few "Old Standard Wood" editions. I wanted one, badly, but John said they had long sold out and weren't making new ones. After chatting a bit about woods I think he may have appreciated my enthusiasm because said, "Well... I do have the shop guitar." Apparently, he kept one SD12 to showcase the company for visitors, and to feature on their website because it had as perfect a top as you can get with adi. I sold my two best guitars and bought it. Being a guitar nerd, I had to ask about the wood and he graciously told me the story about the morning he found that old magnificent log buried in the snow.
Though it's mahogany, it's far warmer than any rosewood guitar I've ever played, much warmer than my braz rosewood Bourgeois. My light playing doesn't do it justice and I actually decided to sell it a few months ago when I was going through a hand injury but, when my friend was trying it out before buying, I fell back in love with it. He owns vintage D28s and 35's and was baffled at how my Collings sounded better than his old Martins. It's as deep-throated as a dragon, and you can tune it down to C and it still sings. This might sound like I'm just bragging but I'm not like that and I don't think of guitars as an extension of my personality. I just feel lucky to have access to some special instruments. I got them from trading up over the years and doing a lot of fixing and flipping. I don't make the kind of money to afford guitars like this.

For fingerstyle, what was your favorite Bourgeois model(s), Bowie?

The only Bourgeois that really spoke to me is my SD12, adi/braz. For a big guitar, it's quite articulate. Has a little bit of that traditional bounce and drive you get from a Froggy, but it is it's own thing. The other Bourgeois I've tried have been impressive, but never really spoke to me as something I wanted to have. I think I like guitars that do one thing really well rather than the jacks of all trades. I love character and quirk. It's ok that one thing isn't perfect because it does this other thing that's simply amazing.

I've often thought that sustain and response seemed to move in opposite directions. We tend to want it ALL in one guitar, but the physics sure don't make things easy for the builder (or the player). 

That's one of those things that took me a long time to accept. One instrument can't do everything better than every other guitar. People have this need to put everything on a scale of good to bad and it makes learning (and shopping) online very confusing. People post reviews and describe their guitar as both warm AND bright, sustaining AND dynamic, etc. Things that conflict with each other. In my audio parts business, the #1 thing I try to get across to people is that music doesn't sit on a scale of good to bad so components don't either. We're all doing different things in different ways and we just need to find the tools that help us make the sound we have in our heads.

[BlueBowman]

My "keeper" Collings is also a 12-fret. Since you're a 12-fret Collings fan, I'll share the story of this one. I had found out that John Griffin of Old Standard Wood (the company that supplies some of the best Adi spruce to Martin, Collings, etc) had done a run where they took the very best tops they had been saving (out of many thousands) and had Collings make a few "Old Standard Wood" editions. I wanted one, badly, but John said they had long sold out and weren't making new ones. After chatting a bit about woods I think he may have appreciated my enthusiasm because said, "Well... I do have the shop guitar." Apparently, he kept one SD12 to showcase the company for visitors, and to feature on their website because it had as perfect a top as you can get with adi. I sold my two best guitars and bought it. Being a guitar nerd, I had to ask about the wood and he graciously told me the story about the morning he found that old magnificent log buried in the snow.
Though it's mahogany, it's far warmer than any rosewood guitar I've ever played, much warmer than my braz rosewood Bourgeois. My light playing doesn't do it justice and I actually decided to sell it a few months ago when I was going through a hand injury but, when my friend was trying it out before buying, I fell back in love with it. He owns vintage D28s and 35's and was baffled at how my Collings sounded better than his old Martins. It's as deep-throated as a dragon, and you can tune it down to C and it still sings. This might sound like I'm just bragging but I'm not like that and I don't think of guitars as an extension of my personality. I just feel lucky to have access to some special instruments. I got them from trading up over the years and doing a lot of fixing and flipping. I don't make the kind of money to afford guitars like this.

Thanks for sharing that story.

Not sure what it is about those old woods (added stiffness relative to younger wood?), but they always seem to have another gear to them. I've had one guitar, VERY lightly built, with old Adi (and old hog b/s). The response had another gear (on par with that wonderful H12 I recently played) to it when compared against similar guitars from the same builder.

Sounds like a killer DS1A you have. Great design, big and balanced sound. Not that all Collings have that growl in the bass, but when I tune mine down, it's shocking how big it sounds. Big, but articulate and round. What's not to like?   

I like that you do not want the guitar to be an extension of your personality. Just trying to describe the guitar as objectively as you can, or as objectively as one can. That's an admirable way to participate in the forums, I think. They are tools for making music in my mind. I think most of us are looking for the best one we can find to achieve our musical goals. Not easy to describe a guitar via the written word, but removing all the fluff surely helps the reader arrive at some better understanding of what the guitar can do.

The only Bourgeois that really spoke to me is my SD12, adi/braz. For a big guitar, it's quite articulate. Has a little bit of that traditional bounce and drive you get from a Froggy, but it is it's own thing. The other Bourgeois I've tried have been impressive, but never really spoke to me as something I wanted to have. I think I like guitars that do one thing really well rather than the jacks of all trades. I love character and quirk. It's ok that one thing isn't perfect because it does this other thing that's simply amazing.

This might explain why you tend towards the luthier-built side of the equation, as I find many luthiers specialize in doing X or Y really well. Not all, of course. Some build great all-rounders, but I think the ones that stick out do one or two things amazingly well.

That's one of those things that took me a long time to accept. One instrument can't do everything better than every other guitar. People have this need to put everything on a scale of good to bad and it makes learning (and shopping) online very confusing. People post reviews and describe their guitar as both warm AND bright, sustaining AND dynamic, etc. Things that conflict with each other. In my audio parts business, the #1 thing I try to get across to people is that music doesn't sit on a scale of good to bad so components don't either. We're all doing different things in different ways and we just need to find the tools that help us make the sound we have in our heads.

I dig it. The "good to bad" guitar scale is something I've had to break away from in my own mind. The rookie mistake, the one I most definitely made in the beginning, was to think that volume and response reign supreme: if it's punchier and louder, it's better. And, yes, for some styles, that's exactly what you want. And I'm still susceptible to this type of guitar. They're downright fun to play, but I wouldn't say they are necessarily the producers of BEST TONE. Playing more luthier-built guitars opened a new world to me. Some can be relatively quieter, but they also can posses an indescribable beauty and sweetness in their tone. And there are guitars that run the gamut between both of these extremes.

No right or wrong, just right or wrong for this player. It's not easy changing that mental model of "good to bad," but I think breaking out of that paradigm is definitely helpful. Once a certain threshold of resonance, response, volume, balance, etc., has been achieved, it's really just deciding where you want to land on that scale. They're all good, just different.

[BlueBowman]

The only Bourgeois that really spoke to me is my SD12, adi/braz. For a big guitar, it's quite articulate. Has a little bit of that traditional bounce and drive you get from a Froggy, but it is it's own thing. The other Bourgeois I've tried have been impressive, but never really spoke to me as something I wanted to have.

Adi/braz is an incredible combo in the right guitar. As an over-generalization, I think they sound best in big-bodied guitars.

I have the least experience with Bourgeois, or at least the ones that lend themselves well to fingerpicking. I've yet to play a single 12-fret guitar of theirs. I've also heard really good things about their 0 and 00-size 12-fretters, and I'd jump at a chance to try one of their slope D-12s like you have. Nashville is flooded with Bourgeois guitars, but these mostly represent their bluegrass models ("Country Boy," etc.). For what I like, those guitars didn't move the needle for me, unfortunately.