Guitar Gear

Five years ago, I walked into a guitar shop in Waikiki, near the Alamoana Mall. Browsing through the shop, I saw that they had an HK Audio Elements PA system setup. I asked one of the guys that worked if I could check it out and he said, just get a guitar off the wall. My eyes were immediately drawn to the Gibson acoustics and I asked if I could pull a J-45 off the rack. I had recently gotten into Passenger and Mike plays a J-45. The guy came over and took it off since it was one of those that required “sales assistance.” Once he handed it to me, I plugged the guitar into the PA and was immediately transported to my happy place; that creative zone full of musical possibilities.

A couple of hours later, I resolved much like Wayne in Wayne’s World: You Will Be Mine!

Today that resolution came to pass. I just received a 2019 J-45 Avant Garde Walnut Burst. It is SO cool that I’m close to speechless, so I’ll just share some photos I took before I even tuned it up and played it.

When I finally did play it, I was again transported to my happy place. Though in the five years that I first played a J-45, I ordered this walnut version without ever playing one. I had just listened to recordings and watched videos with good quality sound, and merely had an idea of how it would sound. This definitely was a gut call, but I really felt in my heart of hearts that it would be a great choice. I wasn’t wrong.

Initial Impressions

After just playing it for about a half hour, here are my initial impressions:

1. First off, the guitar is absolutely gorgeous. The grain of the walnut is purely amazing. When I first looked at the back, I had to check myself. I haven’t seen a guitar back that looked like this except for a friend’s sapele acoustic (though sapele’s lines are more even). The striations on this walnut back and sides are incredible! It looks like a piece of frickin’ furniture!
2. The neck is perfect. At 24.75″ scale, it plays like a Les Paul neck, but it has a modern taper to it, so it plays even easier.
3. As for the action, it’s low without any buzz. It’s perfect!
4. The tuners are nice and snug and very smooth, making tuning a breeze.
5. As far as the sound is concerned, what it produces is the archetype of acoustic guitar sound for me. It has nice, round, well-behaved lows, and crisp mids and highs. While not bright at all, there’s a high-end overtone sparkle that really makes itself apparent when strumming.

I can confidently say that though I’ve only spent a little time with the guitar, it is everything I’ve ever wanted in an acoustic.

Some Quick Sound Samples

Fingerstyle

This guitar sustains notes like nobody’s business! I’m looking forward to playing it regularly because it really needs a while to settle in. But right out of the box. Wow!

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It’s a Gibson J-45 Avant Garde Walnut Burst and it’s also the first brand-new guitar I’ve purchased in a few years. It arrives tomorrow, and I can barely contain the giddy feeling I have in anticipation of unboxing it and playing it the first time.

For me, the J-45 is the acoustic I’ve wanted for a long, long time. I fell in love with one in Hawaii while visiting my daughter a few years ago, and the memory of playing that wonderful guitar left an indelible mark.

After I completed the purchase, I was a little surprised that I bought this guitar without that old feeling of GAS. In fact, my purchase was the result of literally months of research, playing various J-45’s. The one I got was actually at the lower end of the price range for J-45’s, but that wasn’t a driver. Since it’s made of walnut rather than rosewood or mahogany, the price was significantly less for the same features.

I actually did some careful planning on this purchase. I knew that I was going to spend in the $2k range. I wanted a dreadnought with a cutaway. But specifically, I wanted a J-45 body shape with a cutaway. All it took was time.

That’s not how it has been in the past with my guitar purchases. I’d see something, and I’d just buy it. Admittedly, at the time, I didn’t have multiple college tuitions to pay so it was a lot easier. But all these years later, I’ve had to take a much more measured approach to major gear purchases.

Admittedly, once I make a major purchase, it’s a little anti-climactic because I would have spent a lot of time researching leading up to the purchase. But that sense goes away quickly when I realize that I’m finally getting what I spent so much time getting educated.

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Even before I received my trusty Simon & Patrick PRO as a gift from a friend, I’ve been looking to get a Gibson J-45 acoustic. Ever since I played one in Hawaii a few years ago, that guitar has been at the top of my list as my next guitar (I also want to get another Les Paul, but that’s another story).

Unfortunately, my financial obligations (read: college tuitions) have made it such that I’ve had to defer that purchase. Truth be told, my S&P PRO has been a great interim guitar while I’ve been deferring getting the J-45. But I’ve recently been able to free up some funds, and it’s time to get the J-45.

So, as is my custom, I started doing research on the best pricing, etc.. Damn Gibson! (I say this tongue in cheek) Give them credit for trying to address different players’ needs, but just as with the Les Paul, they’ve got several models of the J-45, forcing me to do even more research than what I originally anticipated.

One of the features that I wanted was a cutaway model, so that narrowed it down a bit. I did some searches and came across several forum discussions; one in particular that gave me a laugh. In that discussion, someone had asked what others thought of the J-45 cutaway. 99% of the responses were on the level of “heresy” or “sacrilege.” The puritanical response was what made me laugh.

One person even claimed that most people who get a J-45 probably won’t play above the 7th fret except for using a capo, so why have a cutaway? I was amazed at how many people agreed with this. While that claim might be true given the overall population of guitar players, almost every demo I’ve seen have demonstrators regularly playing above the 7th fret. Yes, it was a stupid claim.

For me though, ever since I started focusing on reggae and reggae-inspired music, I make regular trips to the high frets; furthermore, playing lead guitar, having a cutaway gives me much easier access to the high frets, and makes fretting above the 12th fret so much easier. But even before my reggae bent, I’ve mostly used cutaway acoustics precisely for high fret access.

So, to each their own. Buy what you need and buy what pleases you. If you want the pure, traditional stuff, no problem. If you want more modern features, go for it.

For those who are curious, I’ve decided to go with a J-45 Avant Garde Walnut Burst. Sacrilege indeed! A thinner body cutaway made of sustainable wood. 🙂

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Several months ago, I got a bit frustrated with the sound of my custom Slash L Apache “Katie May” (shown to the left). To me, the bridge pickup, while it sounded fine, didn’t seem to have the volume of the neck pickup, and it also sounded a bit thin and reedy.

So I raised the pickup to be closer to the strings, thinking that it would give me more volume. It didn’t really improve the situation. And that’s what I get for making adjustments and pulling the solutions out of my ass!

But still, I persisted to play around with the pickup heights, not really understanding what I was doing until I felt I dialed it in with the amp I was playing at the time, which was a DV Mark Little 40. Then I got my BOSS Katana 50 and got an absolutely rude awakening. That was yesterday.

I hadn’t played Katie May in awhile, so I decided to pack her up for my weekly church gig, along with my Katana. I figured that I had made the tweaks to the pickups so she’d sound just fine. Man! Was I wrong! Once I had everything set up, my tone sounded like SHIT! I spent most of the time during rehearsal and even during service tweaking my EQ. In the end, I had to pump up the bass and really roll off the treble and mids to get a useable sound. Pissed me off!

Granted, Katie May has a naturally bright sound. The neck-through design combined with the mahogany strip sandwiched by hard rock maple is bright; like Telecaster bright. That’s okay. I expect that. Plus the Lollar Imperials generate a fairly strong magnetic field, so putting them closer only brightened up the sound because of the Gauss effect (basically, the stronger the magnetic field, the brighter the sound).

As far as Gauss is concerned, I only found that out by doing a little research this morning. So I lowered the pickups back to where they were first installed. Luckily, I had put pencil mark on each side of the pickup those many months ago. And the guitar got its voice back.

Okay… so silly me for messing around with my gear in a completely brainless way, and being way too cute for my own good! Lesson learned.

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