Martin Guitar unveils its 2025 NAMM Show lineup, featuring the limited-edition D-3 Millionth, Grand J-28E DN, Centennial Concert Uke, CEO-11, 00L Oliver, and D-Robert Goetzl 10.
These models join the refreshed Standard Series and Retro Plus guitars, showcasing Martin’s unwavering dedication to craftsmanship and creativity. Designed for musicians and collectors alike, they promise something truly extraordinary.
This special lineup of instruments will be on display at The 2025 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California, through Saturday, January 25, with more exciting releases to come.
For more information, please visit martinguitar.com.
D-3 MILLIONTH
The Martin D-3 Millionth is a breathtaking celebration of Martin Guitar’s rich legacy, craftsmanship, and the people behind it all. This limited-edition Dreadnought, marking the 3 millionth serialized Martin instrument, is a masterpiece in both sound and design that celebrates the “& Co.” in the company’s name.
Its top depicts a cross section of an American sycamore tree, featuring rings made of real sycamore and solid gold representing each year of the company’s growth, with diamonds marking major milestones in Martin’s 192-year history. The theme of “past, present, and future” is woven into every ornate detail, including its ebony headplate showcasing a diamond-filled Moravian star and an engraved 14-karat palladium pickguard, with rubies marking each of Martin’s three Nazareth-area factory locations since 1839.
On the back of the guitar, which is made of rare and coveted Brazilian rosewood, a beautiful sycamore tree of gold and pearl pays tribute to the countless employees who have left their fingerprints on the company’s legacy, from its early days in New York City to its longtime home in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
With only three of these guitars in existence—and only one for sale (serial number 3,000,002)—this awe-inspiring instrument is both a tribute to the workers who built the brand and a testament to the innovation that keeps Martin at the forefront of acoustic excellence.
D-300
Inspired by the D-3 Millionth, the top of this limited-edition Dreadnought also represents the cross section of an American sycamore tree, with rings made of real sycamore and silver representing each year of the company’s growth, and solid gold dots marking pivotal moments in Martin’s history.
Its Brazilian rosewood back features a sycamore tree made of abalone, symbolizing the countless employees who have left their mark, while rubies embedded in the inlaid ebony pickguard represent Martin’s three Nazareth-area factory locations since 1839.
With European flamed maple binding, Waverly gold tuners, and Liquidmetal® bridge pins with bezel-set emeralds, the D-300 is both a visual and sonic masterpiece, honoring Martin’s enduring commitment to quality, artistry, and the workers who built the brand.
Only 30 of these guitars are available for purchase.
GRAND J-28E DN
For the first time in over a century, Martin is thrilled to offer a one-of-a-kind double-neck instrument—the Grand J-28E DN. As a member of the popular Standard Series lineup, this all-new guitar combines Martin’s renowned quality and craftsmanship with modern innovation, featuring an acoustic-electric with a twelve and six-string neck, giving you the versatility to explore new sounds, tunings, and musical textures all on one guitar.
Its powerful Grand Jumbo body delivers a bold, resonant tone, with solid East Indian rosewood back and sides and a solid spruce top that ensures balance and clarity across all playing styles.
This double-neck guitar took years to perfect, and thanks to cutting-edge technology at Martin’s Nazareth factory, the Grand J-28E DN, featuring two compound dovetail neck joints and unique X bracing, is now available to the public. Both necks feature a smooth satin finish and ebony fingerboard, with the six-string neck offering a slightly slimmer profile at the nut. It also includes built-in custom Fishman® electronics, making it ready for the stage and studio.
With classic 28-style appointments and endless sonic possibilities, this guitar is a dream for players seeking an extraordinary instrument that’s anything but standard.
CENTENNIAL 1 CONCERT UKE
Celebrate a major milestone of Martin craftsmanship with the limited-edition Centennial 1 Concert Uke. This understated yet elegant ukulele honors 100 years of Martin producing concert-sized ukes, which have been cherished by players worldwide since 1925.
Crafted from solid sinker mahogany, reclaimed from the depths of Belizean rivers, this uke has a rich, warm tone and a striking grain that only nature could create. Its concert size offers a coveted balance, sitting between the smaller soprano and larger tenor, making it comfortable to play while delivering full, resonant sounds. The neck is also made from sinker mahogany paired with an East Indian rosewood fingerboard that stops at the body joint, a nod to vintage ukulele design that opens up more of the instrument’s top for increased resonance.
With only 91 instruments available, this vintage-inspired uke is a rare find for players and collectors alike. It even includes a commemorative paper label inside to mark this special milestone, featuring an image of the North Street factory where the first concert ukes were handcrafted 100 years ago.
CENTENNIAL CONCERT UKE
Only offered through 2025, this vintage-inspired ukulele also honors 100 years of Martin manufacturing concert-sized ukes.
Crafted in Navojoa, Sonora, Mexico, it's made from solid genuine mahogany, offering a blend of warmth and brightness with a punchy midrange that makes every note sing, while its select hardwood neck features an East Indian rosewood fingerboard that stops at the body joint. Coupled with spruce bracing, the design allows the body to resonate freely, resulting in a powerful, dynamic tonal response that honors the heritage of Martin’s original concert ukuleles.
Modern upgrades include Graph Tech RATIO® tuning machines, giving you the convenience and stability of a geared tuner while keeping the look and feel of a vintage friction peg. It also includes a commemorative paper label inside, featuring an image of the historic North Street factory, and is snugly housed in a softshell case.
The Centennial Concert Uke offers the chance to own a piece of Martin’s rich musical history, celebrating the world’s oldest surviving ukulele manufacturer.
CEO-11
The Martin CEO-11 is a striking, limited-edition acoustic-electric that blends artistry and craftsmanship in a way only Martin can. Designed by President and CEO Thomas Ripsam, this Grand Auditorium (M) model features a figured white oak multi-piece back and sides paired with an FSC®-certified European spruce top, offering a rich, dynamic sound that’s both powerful and warm.
The eye-catching New Horizons blue burst top and dark mahogany-colored sides create a look that’s as bold as the sound it creates. Unique inlays, including a custom Unalome symbol on the headplate, add a personal touch that speaks to finding your creative path.
With a two-piece flamed maple neck, European flamed maple binding, and scalloped spruce X bracing, the CEO-11 invites you to connect with your sound and express yourself fully. It’s equipped with Fishman Aura VT Blend electronics, custom-voiced to Thomas’ preference, ensuring that its tone stands out wherever you play.
The number 11, a “master number” that symbolizes intuition and creativity, aligned perfectly with the guitar’s artistic vision, acting as a subtle reminder of the journey every artist takes to find their true voice. Limited to only 1,111 models, the CEO-11 is built for players looking to make a statement—sonically and visually—while staying true to Martin’s legacy of unleashing the artist within. Each guitar includes a blue paper label signed and numbered by Thomas.
00L OLIVER
The Martin 00L Oliver is a stunning new model born from a unique collaboration between Martin Guitar and renowned artist Julie Heffernan. This limited-edition acoustic features Heffernan’s captivating oil painting “Self-Portrait as Arms and the Men,” beautifully reproduced on its FSC-certified solid spruce top.
Heffernan’s painting transforms the guitar into a canvas that tells a story every time you play it. Her surrealist landscape lays bare the conflict between nature and humankind's impact on the planet, and the result is something you can both showcase and play.
Beyond its eye-catching artwork, the 00L Oliver, named after Heffernan's son, is crafted with premium materials and appointments. With a sloped-shoulder Grand Concert body, its solid medium-flame koa satin back and sides bridge the gap between the rich tones of rosewood and the warm, resonant qualities of mahogany. Its FSC-certified satin spruce top also delivers balanced projection while underscoring Martin's commitment to sustainability.
With only 104 instruments available, the 00L Oliver is a harmonious blend of art and music, inspired by Heffernan’s visionary artwork and Martin’s legacy of excellence. Whether you're a collector, musician, or lover of fine art, this guitar promises to inspire creativity and unleash your inner artist.
D-ROBERT GOETZL 10
The D-Robert Goetzl 10 is a one-of-a-kind creation that lets both music and art take flight. Hand-painted by acclaimed artist Robert Goetzl, this stunning Martin Dreadnought features a vibrant hummingbird surrounded by bright, blooming flowers, bursting with color and life.
Just like a hummingbird, this guitar is light and agile, yet full of energy and vibrancy. The solid spruce top, adorned with Goetzl's artwork, ensures the guitar’s rich, resonant tone soars, while the solid East Indian rosewood back and sides provide deep bass and lush overtones.
Goetzl worked closely with Martin's expert craftspeople to bring his vision to life. “Not only are they making a beautiful body for me to work on, but once I hand it over, they help really make it special,” says Goetzl. From the hand-painted top to the final touches added by Martin’s team of artisans, this guitar is a true collaborative effort.
Complete with an abalone rosette, Waverly gold tuners, and a genuine mahogany neck, the D-Robert Goetzl 10 is a striking piece of playable art. Whether it’s perched on your wall or in your hands, this bird is ready to sing.
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Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
Gary is not exclusively a destruction machine. Its distortion/overdrive section is a very streamlined take on EarthQuaker’s Gray Channel, a versatile DOD 250-derived double distortion. Like any good circuit of the 250 ilk, Gary’s hard clipping OD/distortion section bites viciously in the high- and high-mid frequencies, supported by a tight, punchy low-mid output. You can play anything from balanced M.O.R. studio crunch to unhinged feedback leads with this side of Gary. But it’s the envelope-triggered pulse-width fuzz—which most of us will hear as a gated fuzz, in many instances—that gives the Gary its werewolf duality. Though practice yields performance patterns that change depending on the instrument and effects you use around the Gary, its fuzz ultimately sputters and collapses into nothingness—especially when you throw a few pitch bends its way. The cut to silence can be jarring, but also compels a player to explore more rhythmic leads and choppy riffs that would sound like sludge with a Big Muff. The Gary’s unpredictable side means it won’t be for everybody, but its ability to span delicioso distortion and riotous splatter fuzz in a single unit is impressive.
EarthQuaker Devices Gary Automatic Pulse Width Modulation Fuzz/Overdrive Pedal
