My new toy (Guitar)

[Nightingale 0]

Little Martin Guitar

Anyone else ever played with one of these?

I was surprised to find that it sounds better than my Ovation, which cost about 3 times as much.

Martin makes damn good guitars.

[McBeth 0]

Will you serenade me in LP?

[skydemon2 0]

my friend has one he loves it.

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone!

I like to start my day off with a little Ray of Soulshine™!!

[PLFXpert 0]

Sweet!

Yet another thing I'd like to learn. Supposedly it's easy for piano players to pick up. I've always wanted to play the guitar portion of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way".

Hey. A girl can dream.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[GARYC24 3]

I haven't heard of little Martin. But I check out Martins alot at Guitar Center and other shops.

Martin Marquise guitar strings are my favorite.

[napalmboy 0]

Martin makes damn good guitars, indeed. They're so much fun to play, although I don't have one myself.

I never really liked how Ovations sound...I always attributed it to the rounded back, but I suppose it's just personal opinion.

Well, the door was open...

[Nightingale 0]

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Will you serenade me in LP?

LOL. I've only had lessons for about a year, which translates to "I suck" and you don't want to listen to me. I just can't jump at LP, so I figured I should bring something else to do, and the Little Martin fits in an overhead compartment on an airplane.

[McBeth 0]

You can come skinny dipping with us at the lake

[ChrisL 2]

I used to have a Martin DX1 dreadnought and it had the hardest action of any guitar I ever played. Sounded nice but even with light guage strings it wasa bitch to play.

Now I have an Ovation 1777 Legend LX and I absolutely love it.
Granted, the Ovation cost twice what I paid for the Martin so I'd expect
that.

Still, I put medium guage strings on it and its easier to play than the Martin was with light guage.

Sounds nicer too.

I came to the conclusion that Martin makes awesome guitars but anything they make thats under a grand sucks...

One mans opinion

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My mighty steed

[Nightingale 0]

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I never really liked how Ovations sound...I always attributed it to the rounded back, but I suppose it's just personal opinion.

The round back of the ovation is engineered to allow you to amplify the acoustic guitar without all the issues that you can run into when trying to amplify a wood-backed flat chambered instrument. The round, rigid plastic backing reduces the sympathetic resonance that causes feedback when you amplify accoustic instruments. The ovation is designed for a pretty specific purpose, and it does its job extremely well.

[Nightingale 0]

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I used to have a Martin DX1 dreadnought and it had the hardest action of any guitar I ever played. Sounded nice but even with light guage strings it wasa bitch to play.

Most martins have adjustible saddles. You can replace the saddle to lower the action.

The Little Martin sounded a lot better than the Baby Taylor, and the Yamaha that size sounded like a ukelele.

[ChrisL 2]

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Martin makes damn good guitars, indeed. They're so much fun to play, although I don't have one myself.

I never really liked how Ovations sound...I always attributed it to the rounded back, but I suppose it's just personal opinion.

Have you tried some of the better Ovations with the medium bowl? The cheaper models with the shallow bowl sound tinny.

Mine sounds very sweet, and it has built in peizo pickup in the bridge and when I record with it plugged straight into my mixing board it sounds phenominal

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My mighty steed

[ChrisL 2]

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Most martins have adjustible saddles. You can replace the saddle to lower the action.
-.

The action was already very low and the neck was straight as a ruler.
Any lower and it would have been buzzing like a hive of angry hornets.

Believe me, I've been playing for 30 years both personally and professionally. It was just a hard guitar to play. Plain and simple.

The frets were too high and you had to apply too much pressure to fret the note clean.

Hands got tired in no time flat.

That could have been fixed but it would have cost me hundreds of dollars to have a professional luthier get that guitar playing well.
Not a great bargain.

I know lots of Martins that played great, but the DX1 dreadnought was one of their first "less than a thousand dollar" models. Around $700.00 at the time.

It was not wrth the money.

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My mighty steed

[Nightingale 0]

Quote

Sweet!

Yet another thing I'd like to learn. Supposedly it's easy for piano players to pick up. I've always wanted to play the guitar portion of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way".

Hey. A girl can dream.

Well, I play piano, and my guitar teacher said I picked up the guitar basics amazingly quickly compared to some of his other students, but he said that it seems to be hinged on your piano style. Do you play chords with your left hand, reading the guitar chords above the melody line plus the melody, or the actual bass notes? If you play chords and understand how chords are constructed, guitar basics come very quickly. If not, you still know how to read music, which is half the battle, but you have to learn chord theory, which can take a while.

[Nightingale 0]

Quote

Quote

Most martins have adjustible saddles. You can replace the saddle to lower the action.
-.

The action was already very low and the neck was straight as a ruler.

The frets were too high and you had to apply too much pressure to fret the note clean.

Hands got tired in no time flat.

That could have been fixed but it would have cost me hundreds of dollars to have a professional luthier get that guitar playing well.
Not a great bargain.

I have a yamaha guitar like that. It was my first guitar, and I got so frustrated, because I couldn't understand why I could only play for ten minutes or so before my hands would be killing me. I've done as much tinkering with it as I'm willing to do, and it is still painful to play. I can play the ovation and the new martin for hours, but the yamaha...fifteen minutes, tops.

[ChrisL 2]

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I have a yamaha guitar like that. It was my first guitar, and I got so frustrated, because I couldn't understand why I could only play for ten minutes or so before my hands would be killing me.

Some guitars just need to be taken out back and shot

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My mighty steed

[PLFXpert 0]

That's interesting.

I've never tried to read guitar music or played a guitar---just would like to.

Piano-wise, I do it all. I won a couple national classical championships when I was little. I quit when I was 15 b/c I just didn't have time/desire with everything else I was doing at the time.

But, I've been shopping for a new piano.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[ChrisL 2]

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That's interesting.

I've never tried to read guitar music or played a guitar---just would like to.

Piano-wise, I do it all. I won a couple national classical championships when I was little. I quit when I was 15 b/c I just didn't have time/desire with everything else I was doing at the time.

But, I've been shopping for a new piano.

I started out on classical piano as a child but switched to guitar as a young teenager. (now I'm a million and six)

The piano experience only helped in that I already understood music theory and I could sight read music.

This saved my teacher some trouble that he normally would have had with a novice guitar student and gave the appearance that I picked it up faster.

The reality, IMO, is that it didnt make any difference at all in how easy it was to master the instrument itself.

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My mighty steed

[Nightingale 0]

A friend of mine found an old grand piano for $50 at a garage sale... the thing had been painted purple on the outside and lime green on the inside for a production of Alice in Wonderland (someone decided it would be a good idea to have the pianist on the stage and decided the piano ought to match the set!). After working with a piano repair/refinisher, they finally got all the paint off and saw the original finish and insides of the piano. The name on the piano... Steinway.

[mccurley 1]

I've got a Martin J1 that's about 5yrs old now and love it. In fact never played a Martin I didn't like, but have never had a go on a cheaper one.
The J1 cost over 2 grand here in New Zealand and with an LR Bags Proactive pickup in it sounds great amplified.

I also have a 1976 Yamaha FG160 which sounds beutifull but I hardly ever play it as the neck feels so thick compared to the Martin.

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI