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Martin Guitars at GearFest
Check out these C.F. Martin & Company guitars. The Lawrence Juber Signature, the D-45V and the Crosby, Stills and Nash Tollman Tribute guitars at GearFest 2008.
For more information, visit mguitar.com.
Check out these C.F. Martin & Company guitars. The Lawrence Juber Signature, the D-45V and the Crosby, Stills and Nash Tollman Tribute guitars at GearFest 2008.
With a tone vocabulary that spans clean, smoky, grinding, and growling—plus a Two notes speaker simulator—the 25-watt Airwave is a ferociously fun, potentially formidable amp for any size stage or studio.
Needless to say, the splashy news about Supro’s Airwave is its onboard Two notes cab sim that expands the amp’s studio and live capabilities, not to mention a player’s creative options. Having Two notes cab simulations onboard is a cool thing. It takes many of the cab sim tailoring capabilities of, say, the Universal Audio OX or Boss’ WAZA Tube Expander, and makes them part of the Airwave’s amp architecture, which is no small victory for convenience.
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But the 2x6V6 Airwave is a very cool stage and studio amp before you ever touch the cabinet simulation capabilities. At 25 watts, with tube-driven tremolo and spring reverb, it’s a cool alternative for players considering a tweed Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb, or, for that matter, any of Supro’s excellent low- to mid-power combos. But while it’s not quite the blank slate a Deluxe Reverb is (the Airwave’s voice is generally more compressed, with lower headroom), if I had to record or play a show with the Airwave, a delay pedal, and a guitar, I’d do so confident that I had about 4-zillion awesome, tender-to-gnarly textures to work with.
Little Basher
The Airwave is a handsome amp, designed with lots of vintage Supro motifs, a wide aluminum control panel, rocker switches, and a control layout that are more than a little evocative of the Rolling Stones’ early Ampegs. There’s also a little Stones swagger in its voice. For while it can do a very convincing approximation of bright, almost-cleanish Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb sounds, it’s basically grittier than either of those. Not in a way that confines the Airwave to garage-rock trash realms, but which hints at sepia-tone speaker sounds and a loud, rowdy vintage Supro or tweed Fender edge when you dig in with a flatpick. These savage-around-the-edges facets of the Airwave’s personality are tempered, perhaps, by the 12'' speaker, which adds thickening counterpoint to the barky midrange growl and enhances bass frequencies. It helps make the 3-band EQ section feel more sensitive and interactive, too.
The tone variations available between just the EQ and master volume/gain control interplay are plentiful. But all those sounds can be dramatically recast and even made electrifyingly aggressive with the onboard, switchable boost and drive, which are activated by the two rocker switches on the front panel or optional footswitches.
Alternate Realities
To interface with the Airwave’s Two notes capabilities, you download the Torpedo Remote app. But you can obtain excellent sounds without going deep, thanks in part to the amp’s onboard boost and drive switches. They feel like pedals perfectly selected to work with the amp and each other. The drive in particular is tough and snarling. And though your results may differ, to me the effects feel organically enmeshed in the fabric of the amp’s output. Both effects can be gritty, punchy, and explosive extensions of the amp, and together they can make it sound huge for 25 watts. The Torpedo Remote app calls up more-or-less photorealistic representations of several studios and live spaces (ancient temples included!), microphones, and cabinets. As in many other cab sim applications, you can readily and easily change microphones, slide microphone positions back and forth, switch between virtual cabinets of various sizes, as well as add preamps and reverbs with easy-to-use analog-style interfaces. If the wealth of sounds here isn’t already everything you need to get a great recorded sound, they get you off to a great start. What’s important, though, is how seamlessly they function with the whole range of the amp’s tones.
The Verdict
Although $1.5K might seem like a lot to pay for an Indonesia-built tube amp, it’s noteworthy that amps like the Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue are now pushing the $1.8K barrier. But the Airwave includes a useful and well-integrated Two notes Torpedo cab sim solution worth several hundred dollars by itself. Most impressively, Airwave excels in both the purely analog and digital cab sim realms without compromising capabilities in either. The amp has loads of personality and range. It’s up for a punky Kinks/Ramones rumble or Alvin Lee rippage, but just as eager to please as a clean-cut extra in a Jaguar-and-spring-reverb surf party flick or vintage soul session. If you’re the kind of artist inclined to do a little of all that in your recording and performing life, the Airwave satisfies on every count.
In some ways, it’s hard to know whether to categorize the Martin D Jr E StreetLegend as a backpack or travel guitar. After all, Martin still maintains the LX Little Martin line, which is marketed in very specific terms as a travel instrument. And the D Jr E’s size, which isn’t a whole lot smaller than my Martin 00-15, stretches the boundaries of that classification. But Martin definitely leans into the go-anywhere appeal of the D Jr E and its brethren in the new revamped Junior Series. If the soft case fits, wear it. Assuming it lives, at least partly, in that category, it is among the best sounding travel guitars I’ve ever played. Thanks to the all-solid spruce and sapele body construction, it possesses a warm, woody, and organic voice that is likely made richer by the new, longer 24.9" scale.
Stretching Travel Boundaries
Even apart from backpack-guitar-or-not classification questions, it must be a little tricky marketing the D Jr E StreetLegend. With its distressed finish, the StreetLegend version costs just less than 900 bucks, which, in inflationary times, might be a threshold that budget-conscious, small-guitar customers might be hard-pressed to cross. But if you broaden your expectations of what the D Jr E StreetLegend can be, the price looks less formidable, because it can definitely be a front-line, everyday instrument.
If you’ve spent any considerable time with Martins, the D Jr will feel familiar, and though its shrunken dreadnought body profile can be oddly disorienting, the longer, 24.9" scale (the previous Junior series guitars featured a 24" scale) is the same as full-sized Martin mainstays like the 000 and 00. At 1 3/4", the nut width matches the wider spec for the Martin OM, which lends the D Jr E fretboard a spacious, accommodating feel. I’d wager that more than a few players would identify the D Jr E as an instrument from Martin’s full-sized lines. Body aside, it just doesn’t feel small.
Like many guitars built in Martin’s Mexico factory, the D Jr E StreetLegend’s build quality is excellent. And though it doesn’t benefit from the nano-level attention to detail of an upmarket Nazareth-built guitar, you won’t see a trace of the hastily sanded bracing or sloppy fret dressing that mark many accessibly priced instruments. The rounded and beveled fretboard edges, which also highlight the very nice fretwork, give the D Jr E a comfortable, broken-in, and inviting feel. Our review guitar’s action was on the high side (though well within the bounds of acceptable), and though Martin didn’t include a hex wrench for adjusting the neck relief, there is room for adjustment there, as well as a break angle at the bridge that will permit shaving a few millimeters off if you want to adjust the action from that end of the string’s length.
“You won’t see a trace of the hastily sanded bracing or sloppy fret dressing that marks many accessibly priced instruments.”
It’s important to know that the D Jr E StreetLegend is not the only junior dreadnought in the line. And if you want to save 200 bucks you can opt for the natural finish D Jr E. That’s a good thing in more ways than one, because the distressed finish on the StreetLegend version is bound to be polarizing. Though the “wear” is patterned after instruments in Martin’s own museum, and identical to the pattern on the $2,500 D-18 StreetLegend, the effect is created on the D Jr E by dyeing the top and the almost uniform flatness in the distressed zone makes the faux finish damage less than convincing.
Boisterously Voiced
The D Jr E, like many small-body flattops, is strong in the midrange, which can generate brashness under really hard strumming, and if you use that technique exclusively, the bass can be a bit too boxy to offset the bright presence of the mids. If you suspect you have a heavy hand, it will pay to check how the guitar responds to your approach. A lighter touch definitely brings out the best in the D Jr E, and though there’s not much dynamic range in terms of headroom, it sounds awake and responsive to picking nuance.
The Martin E1 electronics and built-in tuner go a long way toward enhancing the utility of the D Jr E. The presence of any reasonably effective pickup and preamp would make the D Jr E very appealing to a gigging guitarist on the move. But the E-1 system is remarkably natural sounding for an affordable acoustic pickup and it can do a lot to round off sharp edges in the guitar’s treble spectrum when amplified and playing loud.
The Verdict
Though the effectiveness and appeal of the distressed StreetLegend finish will be a very personal matter, there is no denying the D Jr E’s strengths—most notably a great neck, solid woods, and responsiveness to a light touch. The extra 200 bucks you’ll pay for the StreetLegend finish makes the D Jr E seem more expensive than it should be, so it’s important to point out again that the more traditional natural finish model, at $699, will be much kinder to thy wallet and is priced more in line with comparable guitars in the liminal market space between travel, backpack, and merely small guitars. Given that, you should consider the value and design scores here on a sliding scale. But any small flattop that features all-solid-wood body construction, an OM’s wider nut width, a full scale, and fits in an overhead bin merits attention. Martin has, indeed, carved out a very interesting niche here.
Moths and butterflies are admirably, amazingly adaptable in flight. I mean, imagine you weigh mere milligrams. You’re trucking along, minding your own business, and a 45 mph gust blows you straight into the path of a garbage truck. As a moth, you have to be ready for anything. I’ve been in a lot of jams like that. The Moth Electric C. Regalis would have been a perfect companion.
The C. Regalis (the name honors the largest moth, by mass, found north of Mexico, making the moth in my earlier metaphor seem pretty lame) derives its own adaptability from blendable drive and clean tones. There’s nothing revolutionary about that idea. But the C. Regalis has a drive section that sounds great and is very versatile by itself and makes the whole very special. It has a flexible +/-15dB treble-and-bass EQ and a smooth/crunch switch that functions, more or less, exactly as advertised by adding even-order harmonics. The many possible tones from the drive section can, in turn, be compounded exponentially with the dirty/clean blend. All this room to roam in the controls means C. Regalis isn’t encumbered by a rigid agenda. It cares little about whether you use a Jaguar or an SG, a Fender Deluxe Reverb or a Marshall. The C. Regalis is eager to please. And it’s hard to imagine a player that couldn’t find a sound, or 30, to love in this pedal.
Master of Metamorphosis
Overdrive pedals, even lovable, essential, invaluable ones, can be pretty boring. And I can’t remember the last time I thought of an overdrive as a songwriting machine. But the C. Regalis is varied, forgiving, and intuitive in ways that facilitate fast movement between tones and make morphing between mere sounds and more concrete musical ideas fluid and effortless. There are many springboards and templates to work from too: Randomly choosing pedal settings, I bounced between sweet, toppy clean boost, hot treble-boosted tones, tweed Deluxe haze, Stonesy grime (’60s and ’70s versions), Dinosaur Jr. grind, and Sabbath sludge—and that was with a single guitar and amp.
Not surprisingly, for an overdrive and distortion with a clean blend control, there are strong hints of Klon, and I found many comparable tones in the C. Regalis and my fave klone at many settings. But the C. Regalis is also generally airer and less compressed than the klone, which translates to a lot of headroom and range. That range can reveal potential in the amps and guitars you already have. A few examples: I turned a raspy P-90 and Marshall combination into deep, pillowy Kevin Shields smoke. A Telecaster and vintage Vibrolux bellowed like a plexi, then ripped lines of treble-boosted acid twang. Curtis Novak Wide Range pickups in a Telecaster Deluxe plus the Moth sounded good with … everything. And I don’t remember encountering undesirable combinations that couldn’t be fixed with a simple, quick adjustment to the pedal or guitar controls (the C. Regalis is also highly responsive to guitar volume and tone attenuation).
The Verdict
Moth Electric’s C. Regalis is a really lovely, thoughtfully designed drive unit. At $179, it’s also a deal. The controls are smooth, precise, and situated in a clean, clear, and straightforward layout. And the simple, spacious design makes it easy to move between drastically different tones, mid-performance, without feet or presets. (Yes, bending over mid-jam kinda sucks, but if you don’t have enough time to pull this off, you’re probably playing too many notes.)
There are, of course, specific drive sounds that the C. Regalis can’t recreate. But it was hard to find any sizable holes in its performance envelope. And it can convincingly approximate almost any pedal, and many amps, at anywhere along the clean-boost to mid-gain distortion spectrum. If you chase specific pedal tones at super-granular levels, the C. Regalis might not always hit the mark. But if you’re out to craft a tone of your own that’s rooted in the organic, analog, vintage realm, C. Regalis has a very high likelihood of delivering.
Like so many pedals that became legends, the Klon Centaur spawned legions of copies and imitators that possess unique virtues all their own. You can now count Keeley’s new Manis among the Klon-inspired stomps that took a great idea and shaped something uniquely awesome in the process. As far as klones go, it’s a great one. Tested alongside a very accurate klone that I use as a benchmark in Klon tests (it was A/B tested with a real-deal Klon once owned by my colleague Joe Gore), the Manis was virtually a mirror image, and often a more satisfying one for its slightly less compressed voice.
One of the most practical attributes of good Klon-style pedals is the relative ease with which they pair with very different rigs. The circuit’s inherent ability to span mellow boost and ferocious, chugging distortion while maintaining dynamic response and detail makes it an invaluable tool for coping with luck-of-the-draw backlines and adjusting to venues of varying size. With options to use germanium transistor clipping and a bass boost, however, Manis multiplies this multifacetedness considerably.
The Deadly Manis
Germanium clipping diodes are, of course, among the most critical parts of the original Klon’s architecture, and the Manis sounds beautiful and accurate in germanium-diode mode. But when germanium transistors take over the clipping function, the character of the pedal changes perceptibly. The Manis is audibly and tangibly less compressed, there’s more air and space in the output, and it’s easier to summon extra grit from your signal by changing pick intensity. You might hear a little less focus in germanium transistor mode, which can adversely affect the pedal’s ability to slot in a busier mix. But in isolation, the germanium transistor clipping sounds and feels much more awake and dynamic. The ability to switch between the two also makes the Manis more versatile when stacking with fuzz and other overdrives, and merely flipping between clipping modes could significantly recast the personalities of Big Muffs, Fuzz Faces, and even other klones without diluting their essence.
“The Manis is audibly and tangibly less compressed, there’s more air and space in the output, and it’s easier to summon extra grit from your signal by changing pick intensity.”
Switching in the bass boost, which gives the Manis a 3 dB kick one octave below the circuit’s usual cutoff frequency, also adds a significant breadth to your available tone spectrum. It can lend warmth to the most authentically Klon-like voices in germanium diode mode, or lend an almost Marshall-like sense of oomph to a signal without compromising much in the way of dynamics.
Ultimate Klon Killer? The Keeley Manis Overdrive Demo with John Bohlinger | First Look
The Verdict
If the Manis was merely a klone that hewed close to its inspiration, it would be an admirably authentic example of the breed. But the bass boost and transistor clipping modes make the Manis a potentially invaluable survival tool for any player that faces changing amplifiers, venues, and recording situations, and needs to extract the most utility possible from every pedal. It might well be the only klone you ever need.
Andy Powers’ influence on the substance and style of Taylor guitars has been truly significant. Over his 14-year tenure leading Taylor’s design efforts, he’s introduced entirely new bracing patterns and body profiles—never easy when working for a legacy brand in a tradition-oriented industry. In crafting the new Gold Label 814e Koa Super Auditorium, Powers might have created Taylor’s prettiest body shape yet—a blend of sweeping curves, airy lines, and graceful proportions that, like a river stone, appear as if shaped by water.
Stylish, for sure. But there’s substance in abundance, too. The ever-tinkering Powers reconfigured the V-Class bracing Taylor introduced in 2018 for the new Gold Label 814e guitars. There’s also a new glue-free long-tenon neck—significant news considering how large Taylor’s NT neck looms in the company’s identity. What’s interesting about those moves is that Powers was keen to bake a visceral sense of vintage-ness into this guitar. The Gold Label 814e doesn’t sound much like the old American flattops I run into, but it’s distinguished by sweetness, clarity, balance, and expressive range.
Presence and Proportions
The Super Auditorium body shape that debuts with the Gold Label 814e is a close relative of Taylor’s lovely Grand Auditorium shape, which, at 30 years old, is now a foundational part of Taylor’s line. In fact, the 814e Koa is just 3/16" longer and 1/4" wider than a Grand Auditorium. More obvious is the absence of a cutaway, and the symmetry of the curves highlight lovely, just-about-perfect proportions. It’s a beautiful guitar, but it’s probable the increase in dimensions has more to do with Powers chasing a specific sound. Certainly, more size could align with aspirations to the antique tone glow of a vintage American flattop.
The collective effect of the body dimensions (which live in a sweet spot between grand Concert and dreadnought size) and the modified V-Class bracing means the Gold Label 814e’s voice is distinctive rather than overtly “vintage” (a broad, unspecific term at best). At the risk of disappointing Powers and Taylor, I think the Gold Label 814e exhibits many classically Taylor tone attributes to excellent effect, and the snappy midrange and relatively even string-to-string balance at times evoke an acoustic that’s been EQ’d and compressed by a recording engineer. But what will resonate for many players is the way the Gold Label 814e complements the modern facets of its voice with toasty bass from the 6th string and a little less top-end brilliance from the 1st and 2nd strings—qualities you’re more likely to hear in a guitar with 70 years of toil baked in. In the Gold Label 814e, those tonalities are bookends for a broad midrange that is very present and very Taylor, and whether that whole suits your playing style has a lot to do with how much you can leverage its impressive dynamics. Heavy-handed strumming confirms that the Gold Label 814e is capable of being very loud. It also highlights a pronounced midrange that, for all the guitar’s string-to-string balance, can be a bully if you have a heavy touch. If your approach is more varied and sensitive, though, the extra volume becomes headroom and the midrange becomes a chrome shine set against a dusty desert patina. It’s a killer recipe for fingerstyle. A light touch can still generate detailed, complex overtone pictures, while the high headroom accommodates and inspires high-contrast high-intensity counter phrasings. There’s a lot of room to explore.
Grease the Runway
Playability is, as expected, a strong suit. The action feels extra-easy and encourages hyperactive playing styles as well as languid chording that utilizes the instrument’s sustain, range, and rich pianistic qualities. The 1:21 ratio Gotoh 510 tuners feel ultra-precise, making moves between alternate tunings easy and enhancing an already strong sense of performance stability. Flawless fretwork, meanwhile, feels fantastic and underscores Taylor’s super-high quality. A fatter neck profile certainly would have suited me, and even though you can feel the tiniest hint of a V-profile bump at the neck contour’s apex, it still feels a touch thin. Even so, a lack of hand fatigue and a sense of fleetness in the fingers make the trade-off worthwhile.
Appropriately, for a guitar that costs $4.8k, the Gold Label 814e is a feast for the eyes, but in a sneaky, not-too-extroverted kind of way. The Hawaiian koa back and sides, which are a $300 upcharge from the rosewood-backed 814e, are, along with the Continental inlays, the flashiest element of the instrument. And though the high-quality lumber elsewhere in the guitar (torrefied spruce top, ebony fretboard, mahogany neck, ebony tuning keys) all feel luxurious, the deeply figured koa adds an extra splash of bespoke flash. Seasoned Taylor spotters will also note that the lines of the koa sides are not cluttered with the controls of the Expression System 2 electronics, which have been replaced here by an excellent L.R. Baggs Element VTC system that utilizes controls tucked inside the soundhole.
The Verdict
Though the 814e Koa aspires to 1940s and ’50s American flattop vintageness, it doesn’t always deliver on that count. For the right player, though, the instrument offers a unique and complex voice with a super-wide dynamic range and soft-focus bass and treble tones that temper the midrange. The new glue-free, long tenon neck can be reset fast and inexpensively should that time ever come, which might make the sting of the hefty $4,799 investment feel less risky—at least in maintenance terms. Yep, it’s really expensive. But consider, too, the joys of beholding the 814e Koa’s graceful curves all day—you might be able to justify the cost as a musical instrument as well as art.