Acoustics Again

This is an AI redraw in 3D animation style from a frame in a video feed of my son and I playing at church. Compared to the first time I posted an AI photo just slightly over two years ago this is astounding. What a world we live in, but I digress...

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I have talked about my Maton EM225C in the past. It was the guitar I was playing in the heyday of youtube when I was getting millions of views. A guitar that I played so much I wore grooves into the frets so I had them redressed.  These days I take that work on personally, so the other week I had it on the bench yet again.

But before we go there, "what's the problem JAW?"

Here is a snippet of me isolated the other week at my local church:

That is gross on so many levels, but put aside I'm a boring rhythm guitarist and let's talk about the elephant in the room. First up there is just a general buzzy twang all the way through. I recently watched a video by Sor Hands in which he yet again bagged out steel string acoustic guitars. Some quotes of his: "Chains hanging off it" "Sounds like pots and pans" "No amount of money can be spent on a steel string that will sound any good". While I don't fully agree, I don't fully disagree either. That little snippet there did sound like chains were hanging off my guitar.

That section there was a crescendo, so I way playing full tilt which was bringing out the buzz. You can make any acoustic buzz, but it should be an extreme situation. You can also hear me hit some badly fretted chords, but come on, I was fretting an A chord. I have been fretting an A chord for 45 years, I can cleanly fret an A chord even on the worst day, and yet bleugh, buzzy buzzy bad fretting. No guitar should be so unforgiving that it buzzes out like that.

It *was* pots and pans.

So rewind, the week before I played this I had the Maton on the bench, strings off, straight endge out. There were clearly some high frets close to the body, and the neck was generally warped around where it hits the body. Very hard to take that photo, but this shot does reveal it somewhat:

So eyeballing the fretboard like this I could see that from around the twelfth fret and definitely by the 14th fret where the fretboard joins the body, the wood is high. Ideally the fretboard should be dead straight with a touch of neck relief right up at the nut. But what I've got here is lick a spoon - everything behind the 12th fret is down, so the latter half of the fretboard are all pretty much high frets and thus will buzz when you dig in.

I blocked back all the frets to straighten the neck out, until I thought there was no more fret left to give and then stopped. Re-crowned the frets and put it back together. In conjunction with this a few years ago I had put in a higher saddle - to get the strings up and reduce buzz - which helps - but it brought it's own troubles. The saddle was leaning forward, effectively making the string length shorter which means that the intonation is out and all the notes are sharp across the board. I tried to deal with this but cutting some compensation into the saddle, which again helped, but it is no cure.

This is an improvement, I recommend it if you have some minor intonation issues. Sure the saddle will wear a groove faster, but in ten years time, make another one!

It's all just bandaids over the actual issue. I need to pull all the frets, sand the fretboard back to being straight again, and put in new frets. I will take that job on, one day, but my mind turned back...

...to nearly three years ago when I was in Perth's historically significant music store "Kosmic Music". Side note, Kosmic has been around since 1969 - older than me - but during covid it went out of business. But I'm pretty sure it was Billy Hyde music that bought it and stood it back up again. Anyway, I played a few acoustics and a Cole Clarke really stood out, I was quite impressed with it. But at $4k I put it back on the shelf.

I revisted it again - it is my favourite shop alongside Mega Music and Mannys for looking at/playing guitars. Chatted with Paul, "I want a big dreadnaught acoustic I can really dig into without getting buzz." At the lower price point the Yamaha A3M was nice enough. I could make the Maton Troubadour buzz too easily. I played at least two Martins and every time I have played a Martin I don't dig the sound. Can't explain it. World famous American guitars played by so many people and I've never played a Martin that felt good or had a sound I liked.

But the Cole Clarke Fat Lady 2 with spruce top, rosewood back and sides and ebony fretboard, not bad! Cole Clarke guitars are all made in Melbourne and generally use local woods, this particular one wasn't - was all traditional woods. I had to fully thrash before I heard buzz. The intonation was spot on, even when I fretted a low F, which I notoriously fret too hard and push sharp - yep, not bad at all. But the real killer was the 3 way pickup. Undersaddle piezo, soundboard transducer AND in body condenser mic. Three knobs, twist to add more or less of the three pickups. Bass/Mid/Treble EQ. The sound was just gorgeous. And since I will only ever be playing the guitar through a PA, that is pretty important.

The FL2 model comes in many many wood configurations and a lot of them are around $AUD2.5k(2025). However this one with the most expensive woods...Sitka Spruce, Rosewood and Ebony... $AUD3.4k(2025)

Exhorbitant, but seeing as I bought the Maton for around $AUD1.2k(1997) and it has lasted me this long, I think I might be able to pull the money together...