The updates include a re-engineered D-28, several new Signature Edition Models, a new Limited Edition Model, and several series expansion models.
Nazareth, PA (June 29, 2017) -- C.F. Martin & Co. (Martin Guitar) will introduce a re-imagined D-28, bringing forward the guitarās unrivaled legacy with vintage appointments and a new neck profile for comfort and modern playability. Additionally, Martin will debut four custom signature edition models, including the newest Ed Sheeran LX1 and a Jason Isbell D-18. Also featured in the Summer NAMM lineup is a limited edition Art Deco model, the all new FSC Certified Model America 1 dreadnought, and several exciting series expansion models that are sure to delight guitar enthusiasts worldwide. Martin will now offer the LR Baggs Anthem pickup system in select standard series models. Further details on all of the new Martin Guitar models that will be featured at 2017 Summer NAMM are below and at www.martinguitar.com/new.
STANDARD SERIES
D-28 (2017)
Sometimes innovation is in the details and this is certainly true with Martinās re-imagined D-28. After nearly a century at the helm, and as the quintessential workhorse of music legends like Hank Williams, The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and so many more, Martin's legendary D-28 has been lovingly and artfully enhanced. āThe post WWII D-28 had a slightly different look than its predecessor and became the centerpiece of the folk and folk rock movements at their pinnacle in the 1950s and 1960s." says Chris Martin, Chairman and CEO of Martin Guitar, "We have extracted the finest features from the D-28 of both my grandfatherās and my fatherās respective eras.ā The all new D-28 blends the rich history of the guitar with Martinās newest and most heralded innovations. The 184 year old guitar maker has combined vintage appointments, including open gear tuners, an aged toner top, antique white accents, and a faux tortoise pickguard with a new neck profile to give D-28 enthusiasts a modern feel and comfortable playing experience. Martin has also added forward-shifted bracing to allow greater vibration of the top. The legend just got better! (MSRP: $3,299)
Model America 1
This limited edition Made in the USA dreadnought is based on Martinās legendary D-18. This guitar features all United States sourced woods, including sycamore back and sides, a cherry neck, black walnut fingerboard, headplate and bridge, as well as an Adirondack spruce top and bracing. The tuning gears are also made in the USA by Sperzel. (MSRP: $3,499)
CUSTOM SIGNATURE EDITIONS
Ed Sheeran Ć· (Divide) Signature Edition
Ed Sheeran and Martin Guitar have joined forces, once again, to deliver the third in a series of Ed Sheeran Signature Edition guitars. The newest installment celebrates Sheeranās long-awaited, third album Ć· (Divide). Sheeranās newest signature model stays true to his love for Martinās LX1E Little Martin, which offers unparalleled tone from a small body guitar, and continues with his mathematical-themed album cover art which adorns the guitarās headstock and the solid Sitka spruce wood top. The guitar also features a matching blue rosette, around the soundhole, and is constructed with mahogany high pressure laminate (HPL) back and sides. The model comes stage-ready, equipped with Fishman Sonitone electronics, SP Acoustic strings and a padded gig bag. (MSRP: $699)
D-18 Jason Isbell
Jason Isbell worked with the Custom Shop at Martin Guitar to design his new Custom Signature Edition D-18 which is closely modeled after Martinās Golden Era series. The model boasts a pre-aged Vintage Tone System (VTS) Adirondack spruce top; mahogany back and sides; and rear-shifted scalloped bracing which produces more natural volume and a clear powerful tone. Similar to Martinās Authentic series guitars, it is constructed using hide glue which, unlike newer synthetic reproductions, dissolves into the grain of the wood and creates more resonance throughout the instrument. Isbell chose a thin finish and left off the pickguard - all design details that have one common goal ā to make it loud. Mission Accomplished! Isbell also added a personal touch by including a custom inlay of one of his tattoos at the twelfth fret. (MSRP: $5,999)
D-Boak
Martin is proud to offer this Custom Signature Edition dreadnought featuring imprinted original āInside Outā artwork by illustrator, luthier, musician and Martin archivist Dick Boak. In creating the artwork, Boak wanted to reveal and embellish the quintessential scalloped X-bracing of the Martin Dreadnought ā the most beautiful and rarely seen internal structure of the company's flagship guitar. Personally signed and numbered in sequence, the D-Boak Dreadnought is crafted with a Sitka spruce soundboard, genuine mahogany back and sides, a modified low oval neck, simple dovetail neck joint, bone nut and saddle, and an ebony fingerboard and bridge. Tonally, the guitar is clear, projective and glassine. Anyone who has had the pleasure of working with Dick Boak over the past 40 years knows the impact that his creativity and love of guitars has made upon the company and the industry. This edition celebrates and shares his long and storied tenure at C. F. Martin & Co. (MSRP: $2,999)
D-18 RG
This Custom Signature Edition D-18, featuring imprinted original artwork by the talented Robert F. Goetzl, is a tribute to the Lakota Sioux Native American Tribe. The guitar features a single arrowhead inlay on the headplate, to symbolize a tool that was essential to the tribeās early survival, along with four arrowheads on the fingerboard, each facing outward, to represent the four directions which were sacred to the Lakota Tribe. Martin will be donating a guitar to the Native American Heritage Association (www.naha-inc.org), a charitable organization whose mission is to provide food and other essentials to the people of Crow Creek and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota. Pine Ridge has the lowest survival rate in the Western Hemisphere, second only to Haiti. The donated guitar will be auctioned off to raise much needed funds for the organization. (MSRP: $4,699)
LIMITED EDITIONS
SS-00LArt Deco-2017 Limited Edition
Unique 14 Fret Slope shoulder 00L guitar, limited to a run of thirty, is only available at Summer NAMM. It has a custom paper label signed by C.F. Martin IV and is the same size and shape as the popular CEO-7 model. The SS-00LArt Deco-2017 features a design motif in collaboration with luthier Bruce Petros in the form of wood purfling that extends around the top, back, and fingerboard. The purfling is laser cut from beautiful flamed maple. The top is Adirondack spruce with an antique toner and the guitar is further complimented with open gear Schaller Grandtune vintage copper tuners. (MSRP: $7,499)
15 SERIES
D-15M StreetMaster and 000-15M StreetMaster
Martin Guitar has expanded their popular solid mahogany 15 Series line with a respectful nod to the working musician. The StreetMaster models are built to the same specifications as the 000-15M and D-15M models but Martin has added a beautifully distressed satin finish. The StreetMasterTM is perfect for your next gig, whether it be at the historic Ryman Theater or a day of busking in the big city. Enjoy the look and feel of a well-worn instrument with the lifetime warranty and the superb playability of a brand new guitar. The 15 Series StreetMaster models come with a gig bag, making them ready to hit the streets. (MSRP: $1,799)
16 SERIES
GPC-16E
Martin has expanded their popular 16 series with the addition of the GPC-16E. Each model in the 16 series is designed with the tone wood that best compliments the body size and shape of that particular model. With the new GPC-16E, which is a Grand Performance size with the depth of a 000, Martin selected solid koa back and sides to enhance the easy, natural resonance of this guitar, making it great for recording. (MSRP: $2,999)
X SERIES
0X2MAE
Designed for those that have fallen in love with the look of Martinās 15 Series solid mahogany guitars, this small bodied X Series version features mahogany high-pressure laminate (HPL) top, back and sides, a herringbone applied rosette, a high performance neck and a Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified Richlite fingerboard and bridge. This guitar is road ready and built to last. ($729)
For more information:
Martin Guitar
Growing up in Australia, guitarist Jedd Hughes tells us he dreamed of playing in Vince Gillās band as far back as elementary school. Now, he lives in Nashville and stands next to the man himself on stage night after night. Weāve invited Jedd to join us on this episode of 100 Guitarists to talk about just what makes Vinceās playing so special.
Jedd tells us how his dream came true and how he first started playing with Vince. We dig deep into how everybodyās favorite country guitarist raises the bar every time he picks up the guitar, how he gets his amazing clean tone, and we take time to appreciate all aspects of his solosāincluding how he builds them and how he plays such clean bends. As for why his concerts are so long? āHe loves to play.ā
In our current listening segment, weāre covering the Black Crowes and Jimmy Pageās Live at the Greek box set and a live recording from Burlington, Vermontās Breathwork.
This episode is sponsored by EMG Pickups.
Do you overuse vibrato? Could you survive without it?
Vibrato is a powerful tool, but it should be used intentionally. Different players have different stylesāB.B. Kingās shake, Claptonās subtle touchābut the key is control. Tom Butwin suggests a few exercises to build awareness, tone, and touch.
The goal? Find a balanceādonāt overdo it, but donāt avoid it completely. Try it out and see how it changes your playing!
An ode, and historical snapshot, to the tone-bar played, many-stringed thing in the room, and its place in the national musical firmament.
Blues, jazz, rock, country, bluegrass, rap.⦠When it comes to inventing musical genres, the U.S. totally nailed it. But how about inventing instruments?
Googling āAmerican musical instrumentsā yields three.
⢠Banjo, which is erroneously listed since Africa is its continent of origin.
⢠Benjamin Franklinās Glass Armonica, which was 37 glass bowls mounted horizontally on an iron spindle that was turned by means of a foot pedal. Sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with water-moistened fingers. The instrumentās popularity did not last due to the inability to amplify the volume combined with rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad.
⢠Calliope, which was patented in 1855 by Joshua Stoddard. Often the size of a truck, it produces sound by sending steam through large locomotive-style whistles. Calliopes have no volume or tone control and can be heard for miles.
But Google left out the pedal steel. While there may not be a historical consensus, I was talking to fellow pedal-steel player Dave Maniscalco, and we share the theory that pedal steel is the most American instrument.
Think about it. The United States started as a DIY, letās-try-anything country. Our culture encourages the endless pursuit of improvement on whatās come before. Curious, whimsical, impractical, explorativeāthatās our DNA. And just as our music is always evolving, so are our instruments. Guitar was not invented in the U.S., but one could argue itās being perfected here, as players from Les Paul to Van Halen kept tweaking the earlier designs, helping this one-time parlor instrument evolve into the awesome rock machine it is today.
Pedal steel evolved from lap steel, which began in Hawaii when a teenage Joseph Kekuku was walking down a road with his guitar in hand and bent over to pick up a railroad spike. When the spike inadvertently brushed the guitarās neck and his instrument sang, Kekuku knew he had something. He worked out a tuning and technique, and then took his act to the mainland, where it exploded in popularity. Since the 1930s, artists as diverse as Jimmie Rodgers and Louis Armstrong and Pink Floyd have been using steel on their records.āThe pedal steel guitar was born out of the curiosity and persistence of problem solvers, on the bandstand and on the workbench.ā
Immigrants drove new innovations and opportunities for the steel guitar by amplifying the instrument to help it compete for listenersā ears as part of louder ensembles. Swiss-American Adolph Rickenbacker, along with George Beauchamp, developed the first electric guitarāthe Rickenbacker Electro A-22 lap steel, nicknamed the Frying Panāand a pair of Slovak-American brothers, John and Rudy Dopyera, added aluminum cones in the body of a more traditional acoustic guitar design and created resophonic axes. The pedal steel guitar was born out of the curiosity and persistence of problem solvers, on the bandstand and on the workbench.
As the 20th century progressed and popular music reflected the more advanced harmonies of big-band jazz, the steel guitarās tuning evolved from open A to a myriad of others, including E7, C6, and B11. Steel guitarists began playing double-, triple-, and even quadruple-necked guitars so they could incorporate different tunings.
In Indianapolis, the Harlan Brothers came up with an elegant solution to multiple tunings when they developed their Multi-Kord steel guitar, which used pedals to change the tuning of the instrumentās open strings to create chords that were previously not possible, earning a U.S. patent on August 21, 1947. In California, equipped with knowledge from building motorcycles, Paul Bigsby revolutionized the instrument with his Bigsby steel guitars. It was on one of these guitars that, in early 1954, Bud Isaacs sustained a chord and then pushed a pedal down to bend his strings up in pitch for the intro of Webb Pierceās āSlowly.ā This IāIV movement became synonymous with the pedal-steel guitar and provided a template for the role of the pedal steel in country music. Across town, church musicians in the congregation of the House of God Keith Dominion were already using the pedal steel guitar in Pentecostal services that transcended the homogeneity of Nashvilleās country and Western clichĆ©s.
Pedal steels are most commonly tuned in an E9 (low to high: BāDāEāF#āG#āBāEāG#āD#āF#), which can be disorienting, with its own idiosyncratic logic containing both a b7 and major 7. Itās difficult to learn compared to other string instruments tuned to regular intervals, such as fourths and fifths, or an open chord.
Dave Maniscalco puts it like this: āThe more time one sits behind it and assimilates its quirks and peculiarities, the more obvious it becomes that much like the country that birthed it, the pedal steel is better because of its contradictions. An amalgamation of wood and metal, doubling as both a musical instrument and mechanical device, the pedal steel is often complicated, confusing, and messy. Despite these contradictions, the pedal-steel guitar is a far more interesting and affecting because of its disparate influences and its complex journey to becoming Americaās quintessential musical instrument.āBy refining an already amazing homage to low-wattage 1960s Fenders, Carr flirts with perfectionāand adds a Hiwatt-flavored twist.
Killer low end for a low-wattage amp. Mid and presence controls extend range beyond Princeton or tweed tone templates. Hiwatt-styled voice expands vocabulary. Built like heirloom furniture.
Two-hundred-eighty-two bucks per watt.
$3,390
Carr Skylark Special
carramps.com
Steve Carr could probably build fantastic Fender amp clones while cooking up a crĆØme brulee. But the beauty of Carr Amps is that they are never simply a copy of something else. Carr has a knack for taking Fender tone and circuit design elementsāand, to a lesser extent, highlights from the Vox and Marshall playbookāand reimagining them as something new.
Those that playedCarrās dazzling original Skylark know it didnāt go begging for much in the way of improvement. But Carr tends to tinker to very constructive ends. In the case of the Skylark Special, the headline news is the addition of the Hiwatt-inspired tone section from theCarr Bel-Ray, a switch from a solid-state rectifier to an EZ81 tube rectifier that enhances the ampās sense of touch and dynamics, and an even deeper reverb.
Spanning Space Ages
With high-profile siblings like the Deluxe, Bassman, Tremolux, and Twin, Fenderās original Harvard is, comparatively, a footnote in Fenderās wide-panel tweed era (the inclusion of Steve Cropperās Harvard in the Smithsonian notwithstanding). But the Harvard is somewhat distinctive among tweed Fenders for using fixed bias, which, given its power, makes it a bridge that links in both circuit and sound to the Princeton Reverb. The Skylark Specialās similar capacity for straddling tweed and black-panel touch and tone is fundamental to its magic.
Like the Harvard and the Princeton, the Skylark Specialās engine runs on two 6V6 power tubes and a single 12AX7 in the preamp section. A 12AX7 and 12AT7 drive the reverb and the reverb recovery section, respectively, and a second 12AT7 is assigned to the phase inverter. (The little EZ81 between the two 6V6 power tubes is dedicated to the rectifier). Apart from the power tubes and the 12AX7 in the preamp, however, the Skylark Special deviates from Harvard and Princeton reverb templates in many important ways. Instead of a 10" Jensen or Oxford, it uses a 50-watt 12" Celestion A-Type ceramic speaker, and it includes midrange and presence controls that a Harvard or Princeton do not. It also features a boost switch that manages to lend body and brawn without obliterating the core tone. There is also, as is Carrās style, a very useful attenuator that spans zero to 1.2 watts. Alas, there is no tremolo.
āIād wager the Skylark Special will be around every bit as long as a tweed Harvard when most of your printed-circuit amps have shoved off for the recycler.ā
It goes without saying, perhaps, that the North Carolina-built Skylark Special is made to standards of craft that befit its $3K-plus price. Even still, Carr upgraded nine of the coupling capacitors to U.S.-made Jupiters. They also managed to shave six pounds from the Baltic birch cabinet weightāreducing total weight to 35 pounds and, in Steve Carrās estimation, improving resonance. Say what you will about the high price, but Iād wager the Skylark Special will be around every bit as long as a tweed Harvard when most of your printed-circuit amps have shoved off for the recycler.
Sweet Soulful Bird
Fundamentally, the Skylark Special launches from a Fender space. But this is a very refined Fender space. The bass is rich, deep, and massive in ways you wonāt encounter in many 12-watt combos, and the warm contours at the toneās edges lend ballast and attitude to both clean tones and the ultra-smooth distorted ones at the volumeās higher reaches. All of these sounds dovetail with the clear top end you imagine when you close your eyes and picture quintessential black-panel Fender-ness. The presence and midrange controls, along with the 50-watt speaker, lend a lot in terms of scalpel-sharp tone shapingāproviding a dimension beyond classical Fender-nessāespecially when you bump the midrange and turn up your guitar volume.
The tube rectifier, meanwhile, shifts the Skylark Specialās touch dynamics from the super-immediate reactivity of a solid-state rectifier to a softer, more-compressed, more sunset-hued kind of tactile sensitivity. But donāt let that lead you to worry about the ampās more explosive capabilities. There is more than enough high-midrange and treble to make the Skylark Special go bang.
Anglo and Attenuated Alter Egos
The Hiwatt-inspired setting is still dynamic, but itās a little tighter than the Fullerton-voiced setting. Thereās air and mass enough for power jangling or weighty leads. The differences in the Bel-Rayās tube selection (EL84 power tubes as well as an EF86 in the preamp) means the Skylark Specialās version of the Hiwatt-style voice isālike the amp in generalāwarm and round in the low-mid zone and softer around the edges, where the Bel-Ray version has more high-end ceiling and less mellow glow in the bass. It definitely gives the Skylark Special a transatlantic reach that enhances its vocabulary and utility.
Attenuated settings are not just practical for suiting the amps to circumstances and size of space youāre in; they also offer an extra range of colors. The maximum 1.2 watt attenuated setting still churns up thick, filthy overdrive that rings with harmonics.
The Skylark Specialās richness and variation means youāll spend a lot of time with guitar and amp alone. Anything more often feels like an intrusion. But the Skylark Special is a friend to effects. Strength in the low-end and speaker means it humors the gnarliest fuzzes with grace. And with as many shades of clean-to-just-dirty tones as there are here, the personalities of gain devices and other effects shine.
The Verdict
Skylark Special. Itās fun to sayāin a hep-cat kind of way. The name is trĆØs cool, but the amp itself sounds fabulous, creating a sort of dream union of the Princetonās and Harvardās low-volume character, a black-panel Deluxeās more stage-suited loudness and mass, and a zingier, more focused English cousin. It can be sweet, subdued, surfy, rowdy, and massive. And it works happily with pedalsāmost notably with fuzzes that can make lesser low-mid-wattage amps cough up hairballs. The price tag smarts. But this is a 12-watt combo that goes, sonically speaking, where few such amps will, and represents a first-class specimen of design and craft.