I just finished my morning set of a three-day weekend youth retreat. Except for one set where I used my Gibson J-45 because I thought something had gone wrong with the T5z, I used the T5z for all the other sets throughout the weekend.
To give you a bit of context, this is an annual retreat for my parish’ youth ministry. It’s an incredible retreat that is planned by the teen leaders themselves and music is a core component of it. We don’t do long sets at a time – usually about 15-30 minutes each set, depending on the activities; except for Saturday night where we play for three hours straight (with 15-20 minute breaks, so it’s not bad).
And though we don’t play long sets, there are lots: 4 on Friday, 5-7 on Saturday (sometimes we need some filler – this year we did 6), and 2 on Sunday, though the first set is a free-for-all warm-up set where we do pop and classic rock songs while the participants socialize and write “love lines” which are little notes to different people.
It’s an exhausting retreat. I write the theme song every year and plan out all the sets with the teen leaders leading up to the event to get lighting and lyrics hammered out, so it’s a lot of work even beforehand; not to mention the audio setup as my band configuration changes from year to year. But it is one of the most rewarding things I do as a musician and praise & worship leader and I look forward to this retreat every year.
This year, I was excitedly anticipating putting the T5z through its paces because I knew that this would be the ultimate test of the guitar as I would use it as both an electric and an acoustic. And now that I’ve finished the retreat and have had time to chillax, I’m smiling just thinking about the T5z. After this gig, it’ll probably become my #1.
But let’s make no bones about it: It’s an electric guitar. Yes, even Taylor places it in its electric guitar lineup. But after I heard Eric Rachmany playing it, and having now experienced it myself, the acoustic tone from the acoustic setting on the guitar has had me all conflicted since I got it.
But don’t take my word for it, here are some clips I recorded this morning, running the T5z directly into my audio interface. I didn’t touch EQ at all. After you listen to the clips, you’ll understand why I’m a bit conflicted.
Now you can see why I’m a bit conflict as to what the T5z is. The flat sound is great. It sounds like a raw, plugged-in acoustic guitar. But when I add reverb and room ambience, it sounds like a mic’d acoustic! At least to me, Taylor hit the ball out of the park with this.
Now, considering the title of this article, let’s not mistake this particular post and equate it to my original review of the T5 back in 2007. Back then, the acoustic sound was only okay. And the electric sound was… well… not very pleasing to me, and I ended up kind of bashing the guitar. But it’s a whole new ballgame for me with the T5z. The acoustic tone – which you heard in the clips – is very acoustic.
And the electric tone, well, there’s no mistaking that it’s an electric guitar, but in the electric guitar settings, I can get a variety of tones out of it from Tele to Semi-Hollow Body tones. It’s such a FUN guitar to play.
But this is where I get a bit conflicted, especially when I play in acoustic mode. I consciously know that the T5z is an electric guitar. It feels like an electric, it plays like an electric, and though I’m playing 11s for a beefier string feel, the short scale length lets me bend notes like an electric. The jumbo frets force me to fret super-light, just like on an electric guitar.
But when I hear the acoustic sound coming out of my amp, my subconscious mind puts me into an acoustic-guitar-playing mode. In that mode, especially when I’m strumming, I can get a bit violent with my playing, something I picked up from studying Michael Hedges’ technique 40 years ago. That causes a few problems; mainly knocking my guitar out of tune. I’ve had to make a conscious adjustment to back off my percussive style and just let the guitar do the work.
So to be perfectly honest, I’m still getting used to playing the T5z. But despite that, the sound it produces is SO incredible that I’m looking forward to putting in the hours to discover what sounds the guitar can produce.
Guitar Gear 
Hi. Nice review. I just bought a T5z Deluxe and am trying to get an acoustic tone like yours.
What strings are you using?
Fingerstyle? No pick?
Did you use a capo?
And just straight into the audio interface?
Which amp(s) do you use for live performances? Sound the same?
Thanks!
I’m using the standard Elixir 11s for electric guitar, the same ones that come with the guitar. I also use a pick and play fingerstyle and also use a hybrid thumbpick from Black Mountain Picks. I basically play the guitar like I would an acoustic usually, so I use a capo when called for and it works great.
As far as plugging into my interface, I just go direct in, then in GarageBand, just use one of the acoustic guitar plug-ins, which are mic sims rather than amps.
For gigging, depending on what I want to achieve, I’ll either plug straight into a board or into my JBL Eon One or BOSS Katana Artist. In all cases, I run the guitar through my pedalboard: BOSS CE-1 Chorus -> BOSS DM-2w Waza Delay (for slapback) -> Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay (for dark and spacious delay) -> TC Hall of Fame Reverb. I don’t run any compression, though after yesterday’s church gig where I went straight into the board, I could’ve used some compression to fatten up my sound a bit (maybe 2:1 or up to 3:1 ratio).
As far as tone is concerned, no, it doesn’t sound the same, but it sounds like an acoustic guitar. I’m more concerned about that midrange honk than anything else, and as long as it sounds pretty natural, I’ll dial in the EQ on the guitar to fit the sound system I happen to be using at the time.