A Religious Experience in Your Own Home
Written: Jan 15 '04 (Updated May 26 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: One of the finest acoustic guitars available
Cons: Cost. Many bucks, esp for vintage models
The Bottom Line: A wonderful acoustic instrument, best played by professionals who demand top quality in tone
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Martin D-28 Acoustic Guitar |
As as number of reviewers of the Martin D-28 have already written, this acoustic guitar is a flatpicker's dream. Horswispr has already written a terrific review of this beautiful machine and I'll try not to duplicate his musings, but I'll add a few of my own.
The D-28 has been around since the mid-30's or so. My copy is a 1949 or 1950 model, deeply aged yellow on the front, dark brown almost black fret board. There are 20 frets, but it's difficult to play above the fifteenth fret due to the lack of a cutaway.
Unlike the newer models, which thanks to the enviro-nazis have less interesting wood, my box has back and side Brazilian Rosewood that you can't find on a bet. I've still got the original case. Even after fifty years, on opening the case one is greeted with an utterly remarkable aroma of wonderfully aged wood.
It goes without saying that the craftsmanship is superb.
The guitar is deep, with a single sound hole with a small pick-up guard below, large enough that smaller people may be a bit uncomfortable. The strings are held in with old-style pegs. As a result, you really can't adjust the action, which is high to begin with, unless you're stupid enough to try to file down the nut. I haven't measured the neck, but as you can guess, it's thick. Combined with the fact that you'll be using acoustic, wound strings, you've got a guitar that doesn't play very fast, maybe 20-25% slower than on a Strat or similar instrument.
Then again, the guitar is not designed for speed work. The trade-off, of course, is that the guitar sounds heavenly. The sound is rich and filled with overtones. The projection is not particularly powerful, certainly not along the lines of my Super 400, but loud enough. Given the extraordinary quality of the tone, even cowboy chords sound great. On the other hand, the volume will not overcrowd a singing voice, make this an ideal instrument for the singer-songwriter crowd.
Of course, it has that trademark Martin sound that can't be duplicated. In fact, I remember my father telling me stories about how the Gibson guys would rip apart Martin's back in the 50's, build their own models from the ground up using the precise Martin woods and design, and the guitar would end up sounding like a . . . Gibson. If you've played a Gibson acoustic and put it next to a Martin, you know what a mean. Nice try, but not quite, boys.
Naturally, just about any kind of acoustic music sounds great on the D-28: country and western, bluegrass, standards, pop and rock ballads--try playing Staind's "So Far Away", for example, and you will want to weep at the results.
My guitar is a bit of history: My father picked this guitar up back in the late 50's at a dead-and-gone guitar shop at 26th and Pulaski in Chicago in a neighborhood that long ago went Hispanic and very tough. It even has the old sticker on it. He played it at just about every hillbilly, country and western, and sh*t-kicking North and South Side Irish bar in Chicago way back in the old days before Belmont and Halsted went gay and upscale and Uptown went, well, pan-American. There's a lot of memories in this one.
You can have a lot of memories in one, too. There are some lower-cost D-28's floating around and you won't give up much in quality for the drop in price. Vintage boxes like this one will run six grand and up, so we're not talking about getting beginners started on this.
You may find some of my guitar reviews interesting:
Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom
Epiphone Les Paul Standard
Epiphone G-400 SG
Fender Classic 50s Esquire
Fender Cyclone
Fender VG Stratocaster
Fender American HSS Stratocaster
Fender Standard HSS Stratocaster
Fender John Mayer Stratocaster
Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster
Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster
Fender 57 Stratocaster Reissue
Fender 50s Telecaster
G&L Legacy Strat
Gibson ES-5
Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster
Gibson ES-165 Herb Ellis
Gibson ES-175
Gibson ES-333 Memphis Style Hollow Body
Gibson ES-335
Gibson ES-335 1959 Reissue
Gibson ES-350T
Gibson ES-350T
Gibson Les Paul Classic Custom
Gibson Les Paul GT
Gibson Les Paul 1957 Goldtop
Gibson Les Paul Studio
Gibson Les Paul Robot Guitar
Gibson Les Paul Classic Ebony
Gibson SG 61 Reissue
Gibson Super 400
Gretsch Electromatic G5120 Hollow Body
Gretsch White Falcon II
Ibanez Artcore AS73 Semi-Hollow Body
Joe Satriani JS 1000 Solid Body Guitar
Ibanez Steve Vai Jem7
Martin D-28 Acoustic
Ovation VXT Acoustic Electric
PRS McCarty
PRS Single Cut
PRS Santana SE
Schechter Diamond C 1
Variax 700 Acoustic
Other amp reviews from buffoonery:
Crate Acoustic CA30
Crate Power BlockFender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Fender Cyber Twin
Fender DSP 65
Fender 64 Vibroverb Custom Blackface
Fender Super Sonic 1x12 Combo
Fender MH 500 Metalhead
Hughes and Kettner Switchblade 50 Combo
Line 6 Spider II Head
Line 6 Flextone III Plus
Line 6 Vetta II Combo
Line 6 Spider III 75
Line 6 Spider Valve 2x12 Combo
Marshall Super 100 JH
Mesa 5:25 Express
Mesa Stiletto Ace
Mesa 5:50 Express
Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster
Mesa Stiletto Deuce
Mesa Triple Rectifier Head
Mesa Lone Star Combo
Peavey JSX Joe Satriani Signature Head
Peavey Classic 30 Combo
Peavey Triple XXX Head
Peavey Penta Head
Roland Micro Cube
Vox Valvetronix AD60VT
Vox AD50VT-XL 50 2x12 combo
My effects and stomp box reviews:
Boss AC-3 Acoustic Guitar Simulator
Boss BD-2 Distortion Pedal
Boss ME-20 Guitar Multiple Effects Processor
Boss GT-8 Multi-Effects Processor
Boss GT-10 Multi-Effects Processor
Boss ME-50 Multi-Effects Processor
Digitech RP50 Guitar Effects Processor
Digitech RP80 Guitar Effects Processor
Digitech Brian May Red Special Overdrive Pedal
Line 6 POD X3 Guitar Multi-Effects Board
And you may also be interested in a few books such as:
Hugo Pinksterboer – Tipbook Amplifiers and Effects
Ritchie Fliegler – Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll
Michael Ross – Getting Great Guitar Sounds: A Non-Technical Approach to Shaping Your Personal Sound
Nick Freeth – Classic Guitars: Identification and Price Guide
Recommended:
Yes
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