The quality guitar builder celebrates 50 years of innovation with a compelling new collection of anniversary models.
Throughout 2024, Taylor Guitars is celebrating its 50th anniversary. For the El Cajon, California-based company, it’s not merely the marking of a milestone birthday, but an extended tribute to the spirit of player-friendly innovation that has always pushed the company forward. Read on for a brief history of this innovative acoustic guitar builder.
American Dreamers
In 1974, Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug, two ambitious, guitar-obsessed dreamers from San Diego who’d met at a guitar-making shop called the American Dream, embarked on a journey that would reshape the landscape of acoustic guitars. The path wasn’t always easy, and Bob and Kurt knew they had a lot to learn. “Things were hard for a really long time,” Kurt says. “We had to learn everything. How to build guitars. How to sell guitars. How to build a business.”
Relentless Innovation
Despite the steep learning curve, even in the early days innovation was part of the DNA of the company. In 1976, Bob Taylor introduced an early version of Taylor’s soon-to-be-embraced slim-profile, bolt-on guitar neck. This design marked a departure from the big, round, chunky neck profiles found on most acoustics of the day. It also made it easier to perform neck resets.
Musicians were impressed by the slender neck profile and low action, which made Taylor’s guitars remarkably easy to play. Neil Young played a Taylor rosewood/spruce 12-string Jumbo 855 in 1978, a purple 12-string Jumbo was crafted for Prince in 1985, and, shortly after, signature models were made for acclaimed acoustic players Dan Crary and Leo Kottke.
Taylor became the first acoustic guitar company to adopt computer-numerical-controlled mills. In 1990, they introduced CNC machines to their factory, which offer exacting precision in cutting, pocketing and shaping complex guitar components.
The Birth of the Grand Auditorium
In 1994, Taylor’s Grand Auditorium made its debut, sporting refined dimensions that sat between a dreadnought and Taylor’s small-bodied Grand Concert. This new body shape offered a versatile acoustic voice with remarkable balance across the tonal spectrum, and clear, well-defined notes suited for strumming, picking, and playing fingerstyle. This medium-sized body style redefined the acoustic guitar to better fit the needs of the modern player. Its sweeping utility made it a go-to choice for session musicians and gigging players alike, ultimately becoming Taylor's best-selling body shape.
As part of their 50th anniversary celebration, Taylor is releasing a collection of limited-edition guitars celebrating the best from the Taylor line over the past five decades. And it’s only natural that the all-purpose Grand Auditorium takes center stage in this commemorative collection. A number of models have already been released and are available now at authorized Taylor dealers, including the 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD, 314ce LTD and AD14ce-SB LTD.
Builder's Edition 814ce LTD
The 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD is an ultra-refined version of the player-favorite Builder’s Edition 814ce (released in 2023) that retains comfort-enhancing elements from the original: a beveled armrest, beveled cutaway, chamfered edges and a Curve Wing bridge. A solid sinker redwood top and solid Indian rosewood body offer a harmonious blend of rich lows, sparkling highs, bold projection and remarkable dynamic range. It features an abalone rosette, mother-of-pearl inlays, maple binding, maple purfling around the fretboard and peghead, and ultra-precise Gotoh 510 tuners, and streets for $4,999.
314ce LTD
One of the best-selling U.S.-made acoustic guitars, Taylor’s 314ce gets a premium upgrade with the 50th Anniversary 314ce LTD. Taylor’s special roasting process has been applied to the solid Sitka spruce top, offering aged-in depth and sweetness from day one, along with enhanced soundboard stability and responsiveness. Paired with solid sapele back and sides, you can expect a rich and versatile sonic profile with the signature warmth, clarity, and balance that’s characteristic of Taylor guitars. Eye-catching aesthetic touches include an artfully sprayed tobacco shaded edgeburst and a bold firestripe faux-tortoise pickguard. The street price is $2,799.
AD14ce-SB LTD
Some of Taylor’s earliest guitars featured a Sitka spruce top and a walnut body, many of which were built in the hippie-vibed music shop where Bob and Kurt met and from which the American Dream Series takes its name. The 50th Anniversary AD14ce-SB LTD, only the second Grand Auditorium in the series, combines workhorse versatility with earthy, neo-vintage aesthetics. With walnut contributing to a pronounced midrange and a balanced blend of warm lows and clear highs, this guitar is ideal for everything from intricate fingerpicking to vibrant strumming, and is street-priced at $1,999.
All three Grand Auditoriums are voiced with V-Class bracing, a groundbreaking sonic “engine” developed by Andy Powers, Taylor’s chief guitar designer (and president and CEO). Joining the team in 2011, Andy is committed to ensuring that Taylor’ guitar-making innovation continues to be a central focus in the decades ahead.
Each guitar in the collection shares celebratory appointments, including a commemorative 50th Anniversary label inside, ebony bridge pins with gold acrylic dots, and gold tuning machines and buttons.
You can explore Taylor’s full 50th Anniversary Collection of guitars here. All models are available exclusively at authorized dealers.
Plus, check out Taylor’s 50th Anniversary Timeline to learn more about the history of innovation and some of the amazing artists who have played their guitars over the past five decades.
Maple makes the dread grow mellower.
Exceptional playability and intonation. Sweet midrange focus. Records well in dense mixes.
Some will find the maple voice quirky. Not a lot of low-end resonance for a dread. Satin finish doesn’t suit a $2K-plus instrument.
$2,199
Taylor AD27e Flametop
taylorguitars.com
One of the nice things about designing guitars for a company like Taylor is that you’re less burdened by tradition. Even though the builder is now nearly a 50-year-old institution—not to mention one of the biggest guitar makers in the world—to many acoustic traditionalists they are still very much the new kid on the block. While such fresh-faced “newness” may mean flattop classicists look askance at your every move, it also means you can introduce a design departure like the company’s V-Class bracing without risk of rebellion from your consumer constituency—or, for that matter, build a dreadnought with a top fashioned from big leaf maple.
A maple top is one of those things that, according to traditional acoustic design think, shouldn’t work very well. Yet the AD27e Flametop proudly makes its maple top both a centerpiece of its sound signature and its visual identity. The results, in both respects, are unique and, in typical Taylor style, prove that acoustic guitar design still has room for imaginative deviations from the norm.
V Lets Maple Be
In spite of the simplicity and musical purity it projects, an acoustic guitar is a complex organism. Small changes in design or materials can be transformative. V-Class bracing is no small change, however. Certainly not when compared to the X-bracing that has been the standard for flattops for generations. Fundamentally speaking, V-Class bracing situates the most substantial braces in a V shape that tapers gently along the body’s center from a point just forward of the endpin. While it can be hard to say definitively what V-Class bracing does and doesn’t do to a flattop’s sound, an increasing sample size suggests that it tends to improve sustain, and even intonation, by leaving larger sections of the top to vibrate freely and aligning the biggest braces with the strings. In the case of the AD27e, V-Class bracing didn’t just improve the sound. According to designer Andy Powers, V-Class bracing is, in fact, what made the use of a big maple top feasible.
If we assume that V-Class bracing definitively improves sustain (and certainly our colleague Joe Gore heard as much in his review of the K14ce), then Powers’ assertion makes sense. Maple is generally less lively and works better as a reflective surface for backs and sides. Few if any large-scale production flattops have used maple as a top wood, and those that have, like Gibson’s acoustic/electric Starburst, employed a maple top because its less resonant properties reduced feedback in amplified situations. But the maple top on the AD27e resonates beautifully. And though the appeal of its sound won’t be universal, it occupies a very cool niche.
Unlike a lot of dreadnoughts, the AD27e also responds dynamically to a gentle touch.
Big Body Makes the Maple Go Boom
Taylor’s American Dream dreadnought is a beautiful shape. Its curvaceous lines project hints of J-45 influence and big Taylors like the 855. It’s a lovely reconfiguration of the classic dreadnought profile. But it also likely serves a very practical purpose in the AD27e, in the sense that the big body does much to compensate for the maple top’s less lively characteristics. The tones that result have a beautiful and interesting sense of balance. You won’t find the thumping grand-piano-like low-end resonance of a D-28 in the AD27e, yet it projects volume as a dreadnought should and gets loud without sounding brash or overdriven—probably because there is less low-end woof to obscure the pretty midrange and clear, chiming top end. Unlike a lot of dreadnoughts, the AD27e also responds dynamically to a gentle touch. And I found its sensitivity in these settings more reminiscent of a 00- or 000-sized instrument.
Shaped To Cradle
The AD dreadnought shape isn’t just pretty to look at. It’s also an ergonomic delight. The aft end of the body is considerably slimmer than a Martin D. That, and its slightly more pinched waist and sloped shoulder, make the whole body feel more compact and easier to hold for extended periods. But, as with so many higher-end Taylors, the foundation of its inviting personality is its playability up and down the neck. The action feels exceptionally low and fast, yet there isn’t a trace of string buzz or a dead spot anywhere—even when you strum vigorously. The low action also has the effect of making fingerstyle chord melodies feel extra fluid and lyrical—a quality well suited to the AD27e’s more subdued but ringing tonality. And while our review Taylors have almost always shown up with impeccable intonation, the AD27e’s spot-on intonation—even after two-cross country journeys in the dead of winter—makes us wonder if there isn’t something to Taylor’s claim of V-Class bracing improving intonation.
The Verdict
Yes, $2,199 is a lot of money for a guitar that, by design, presents a player with many unknown variables. The AD27e sounds different enough from a spruce-topped dread that many players will need to spend time to understand how it works within their style and relates to their musical objectives. Others will find its concise tonality immediately appealing. Given that, one should take our value score with a grain of salt and adjust according to personal experience.
But just because the AD27e’s design, materials, and tonality are unusual and specific doesn’t mean its appeal or musical potential is limited. It’s easy to hear how the AD27e would be a recording superstar. It rings sweetly without overpowering a mix and provides beautiful counterpoint in arrangements and mixes where the low-end is occupied by other instruments—no small consideration in modern effects-laden mix styles. But while its voice is focused, the AD27e can still sound big, and it most certainly sounds sweet. Any curious flattop aficionado should check out the AD27e to hear what it does differently. Just don’t be surprised if its sweet tonality and ace playability put their hooks in you.
Taylor AD27e Demo | First Look
The Screaming Females guitarist delves into haunting acoustic/electronic songwriting on her solo album Peace Meter, expanding her sonic palette and typically raging approach—but not without the help of her musical community.
Before she released seven full-length albums with her punk band Screaming Females, another four under her solo moniker Noun, and was listed as one of SPIN’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” singer/songwriter Marissa Paternoster didn’t have much hope for musical success.
“I spent a lot, if not all, of my teenage years being very afraid,” she shares. “I thought because of my gender, and then knowing full well that I was gay, that those things were going to keep me from ever being in a band or just being happy. I felt trapped.”
But the all-consuming urge to play guitar and be in a band kept her going. She absorbed every Smashing Pumpkins riff possible at her childhood home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and then discovered the anarchic punk women of the ’90s riot grrrl scene—which changed everything. She thought, “They exist, they’re out there. Maybe there is this little, tiny chance that I can find those people too.”
Marissa Paternoster - Peace Meter [FULL ALBUM STREAM]
Today, Paternoster has long since found her niche, her people, and her voice. This past December she released Peace Meter, her first album under her own name, co-produced by Andy Gibbs (of Thou) and featuring Shanna Polley (leader of Snakeskin) on background vocals and Kate Wakefield (of the duo Lung) on cello. She says it might as well be a continuation of Noun, and that the main reason that it’s under her name is because it’s more searchable, she laughs, but it does seem like a benchmark in her career. The concise, 31-minute, nine-track album is inexplicably new. It’s subtly supernatural, with Paternoster’s haunting vocals carrying through an acoustic/electronic folk realm, articulating an unfamiliar yet comforting sense of calm.
The project was conceived at the beginning of the pandemic when Paternoster found herself alone in her deceased grandmother’s home and began crafting and sharing her work with Gibbs remotely. In the beginning, she wasn’t sure it was going to become anything, but the more the two collaborated, the more she saw it going somewhere. Maybe it’s the quality of her voice, or maybe it’s the delay effects, or the ineffable chemistry between Paternoster, Gibbs, Polley, and Wakefield, but Peace Meter somehow fills a void none of us knew existed.
“I thought because of my gender, and then knowing full well that I was gay, that those things were going to keep me from ever being in a band or just being happy. I felt trapped.”
In March 2020, Screaming Females was nearly at the end of their tour with Canadian rock band PUP when the rise of the pandemic forced them to cancel their final dates in California. The group then drove their rental gear back to Los Angeles from Eugene, Oregon, and flew home—with Paternoster heading to her grandmother’s house in Union, New Jersey, to be close to her father.
She immediately set up her recording gear in the basement and began making music “like I had done for my whole life,” she says. All she had with her was her Screaming Females gear and a Taylor GS Mini that was at the house. This small-bodied acoustic can be heard on the album as part of the colorful mix of real and virtual instruments underpinning her chocolatey, melismatic voice.
Marissa Paternoster's Gear
Marissa Paternoster hovers over her pedalboard with her main axe: a G&L S-500 that’s her electric workhorse. It played counterpoint to her Taylor GS Mini on Peace Meter.
Guitars
- G&L S-500
- Taylor GS Mini
Strings & Picks
- GHS strings (.009–.042)
- Dunlop Heavy Sharps
Amps
- Sunn Concert Lead
Effects
- Fulltone OCD
- Earthbound Audio Supercollider
- Klon Centaur clone
- Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
- Boss Chromatic Tuner
- TC Electronic Flashback Delay
After putting some rough ideas together, Paternoster sent a draft of “Promises”—which ended up being the last track on the album—to Gibbs, a long-time friend, and asked if he could add some electronic drums to it. (Outside of Thou, Gibbs has a serious interest in electronic production.) “I didn’t have any expectations,” she says, “but what he sent back was really beautiful. I was like, ‘Should we do more? Was this fun for you?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do more.’”
Paternoster says that the album’s production was basically a 50/50 split between her and Gibbs. He took the originally morose, down-tempo “I Lost You” and infused it with a happier, up-tempo beat—it’s the track Paternoster says she’s most proud of from the collection. Throughout the project, “he would even manipulate the vocals. He used them as an instrument that he could add modulation to, which added texture to the songs.” The weird, Cocteau Twins kind of blurred line between analog and electronic instrumentation, she says, was mostly a product of Gibbs’ influence.
“I never felt confused about what I wanted to do with my life until I discovered punk. Then I wanted to be in a band so bad I thought that if I wasn’t in a band I would die.”
Paternoster enjoys effects—a lot of them—to the point where she’s had to limit her options just to prevent herself from going overboard. “If it were up to me, there’d be phaser on everything, and that’s not good,” she laughs. “As I’ve grown as a musician, I’ve removed a lot of flangers and phasers and octave pedals from my board. Now it’s just gain-staging and a delay pedal and that’s it.”
One piece of gear that ended up being central to the album’s guitar sounds was her TC Electronic Flashback Delay pedal. “I do really like this crystal delay function that it has,” she elaborates. “It has a nice little whistle tone as the delay trails off. It’s very dreamy. You can hear that a lot on the record.”
Marissa Paternoster: “My Secret Weapon Is My Unrelenting Anxiety!”
When asked if Peace Meter is a result of Paternoster’s personal evolution as a songwriter, she shares that the real change in her life has been that she now has access to a broad network of friends, contemporaries, and peers whom she admires, and who want to work with her. “I never had that before,” she comments. She hates having the album under her name, because she says she needs other people to make music—and the project gave her the opportunity to reach out to them.
Paternoster has always felt that art was her calling, even when she was just a child who loved to draw. “There was no question in my mind that someday I was going to be an artist,” she expresses. But that aspiration shifted when she entered her teenage years and found music. “I never felt confused about what I wanted to do with my life until I discovered punk. Then I wanted to be in a band so bad I thought that if I wasn’t in a band I would die.”
TIDBIT: Paternoster’s new album is a classic Covid project—recorded remotely and crafted via file sharing. However, thanks to her haunting vocals, a wide sonic palette, and her emotional songwriting, it’s far from standard fare.
While riot grrrl taught her that she was capable of being a punk rocker, she says that the biggest influence on her guitar playing was undoubtedly Billy Corgan. Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream is still her favorite album, and it was that type of music that she used to teach herself to play when she was in high school—alongside the songs of bands like Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. Though technically demanding guitar solos didn’t exactly fit her tastes, she did feel as though she needed to learn how to improvise, despite being a songwriter at heart.
“In the early ’00s, most of my peers who played music were men,” she shares. “And I thought that if I could rip a solo in a way that would impress these young boys, they might let me play in their band. But my focus has always been on songwriting, making interesting sounds, creating engaging art, and not really on shredding or whatever. I really don’t care about that at all.”
Rig Rundown - Screaming Females
When describing why she makes music, Paternoster delves into the topic of mental health. She lives with anxiety and depression, and, as she puts it, has had frank and open discussions about her mental well-being since she started going to therapy at age 14. “[For me, making art and music is mostly] born out of the compulsion to quell my anxiety in some way. And it’s been that way ever since I was very, very small. It was my coping mechanism for everything and anything.” She continues, “Your mental health affects your body, it affects you, and it affects absolutely everyone around you. It’s important to take care of yourself because in turn you take care of everyone around you.”
“My focus has always been on songwriting. Songwriting, making interesting sounds, creating engaging art, and not really on shredding or whatever. I really don’t care about that at all.”
Paternoster brings that self-awareness to all aspects of her life, including collaborating with fellow musicians. Working with others comes naturally to her, as she’s been doing it essentially from the beginning, but she does confess to having some shortcomings when it comes to bandleading. “I have a tendency to be a bit bossy when it comes to logistics,” she says. “I don’t want to let that intensity go, but I also don’t want to waste time worrying. You have to leave some things to the chaos that is our reality.
In her room: Paternoster created the bones of her new album alone, in the home of her late grandmother. Then she shared the files with co-producer Andy Gibbs and her other collaborators, vocalist and Snakeskin leader Shanna Polley and cellist Kate Wakefield.
“To be honest, I never really wanted to have full control,” she admits. “There is a lot to be said about relinquishing some aspects of creative control to people that you trust and admire. When you trust people who you know already do good work, they’re probably going to show up and do good work.”
Aside from being motivated by anxiety and compulsion, Paternoster describes how she often finds inspiration in silly simplicity. “I’m a big fan of like, general tomfoolery,” she comments, telling a story about how she’d seen two separate giant carrots graffitied on buildings in Providence, Rhode Island, where she’s been staying. It gave rise to a lot of questions. “What happened that night? Why did they paint the carrots so big? Why have they never done it again? Who are they, where are they, can we hang out?” she says, laughing.
That playful spirit ties into a sense of humility both about herself and her musicianship. She reflects on the one music theory course she took in college, during which she “mostly took naps,” and the pros and cons of being self-taught. “I mean, at age 35 I still am often like, ‘Man, I wish I could take guitar lessons or singing lessons.’ I think that would be really fun, but I only have so many hours in the day.”In the meantime, she feels that sticking with music might be a good idea. “This is my comfort zone … and other people tell me that I do this well, so I think I ought to do it more.”