2021 Martin custom shop Dreadnought: Part 1

This is a custom shop Martin dreadnought style guitar which is basically a D-28 model but being custom shop, has no official model designation but it's a rosewood back and sides with a D-28 style throughout with aged Adirondack spruce top and wild grain East Indian rosewood
It has been aged to Martin's stage 1 and a very subtle relic. I never thought the trend towards relics would extend to acoustics but I love this look. The spruce top is very old looking but it has no need of a neck reset and hasn't got bracing falling away inside; it's a new guitar.

I play electric mostly but I felt a need to have one of these and have been listening to a lot of Nick Drake again and John Martyn, so I got this and it's very satisfying to play but you need stamina for it. Featuring 13-56 gauge strings and an action that many would find hard to handle, I like the setup from Martin. I don't like guitars with low action as it throttles the sound.

No throttling with this one: a big bold dreadnought but with subtlety too and dynamics!

I recorded this with an SM57 on the bridge and a Rode NT1-A on the 12th fret. I added a tiny touch of reverb in post processing as the sound from the microphones sounded dry. I think listening to the guitar in a room is the result of the sound dispersing around the reflective surfaces of the room and the dry sound as recorded didn't sound like I heard it at the time so a touch of reverb was used in mixing.

It's actually harder to record acoustic than electric.

Check out my website for more cool stuff:

https://www.gringopig.com/