Image a Taylor guitar in your head – the look, the texture, the sound – in case you’re studying this you most likely have a reasonably clear image of what it’s, as Taylor has spent a lot of the final 50 years doing it. It’s most likely received a small physique, there’s most likely a cutaway there too, the neck is skinny and straightforward to play, the sound is pristine and high-fidelity, and it’s most likely fabricated from some tonewoods that wouldn’t have been chosen 100 years in the past. This recipe for doing issues in a different way, for doing issues their very own manner, has been the engine that has powered Taylor from a pair of novices constructing guitars with little or no information in a San Diego co-op to one of many world’s most revered, standard and modern guitar manufacturers.

However have a look once more on the guitar on the prime of this text – does it appear to be a Taylor to you? Perhaps within the loosest sense of the time period, however nearer inspection reveals that the brand new Gold Label assortment guitars are a number of the most stunning devices the model has ever made.

As a result of the Gold Label isn’t only a new guitar design conceived by President & CEO Andy Powers – it’s an acknowledgement of one thing. For the final 50 years, Bob Taylor and the model have worn that nearly as a badge of honour – they’re not for everybody, however everybody has to acknowledge the innovation, craftsmanship and high quality of their devices. However what about these ignored within the chilly?

“In my background as a builder, I wasn’t constructing one taste of sound,” explains Powers of the Gold Label’s conception. “Having labored as a customized instrument maker, I used to be within the thoughts to go, ‘You must construct what the participant is asking for’. Construct what fits their music. That’s why they’re right here, proper?

“If we take a look at the Taylor sound, we’ve been lucky that for lots of gamers, that sound does work very nicely for them. But when we are saying both you prefer it otherwise you don’t, that implies that there are gamers the place that isn’t the suitable factor. And I don’t assume that they’re fallacious. I feel they’re listening to what they’re listening to and so they get to decide on whether or not they prefer it or not.

“And in order a builder, I’m thrilled that many individuals do love this, however for many who don’t, nicely, there may be different sounds too. And since I like that one as nicely – that doesn’t imply that I dislike this one, or that this one’s worse or higher. They’re simply totally different.”

Gold Customary

The ensuing Gold Label 814e is a surprising instrument for anybody well-versed in Taylor guitar historical past – as a result of it’s a guitar that’s clearly well-versed in different historical past. When Bob Taylor began making guitars in 1974, by his personal admission a part of the rationale he did issues in a different way to anybody else was that he didn’t know any higher – he broke conventions as a result of he didn’t know they had been conventions.

The Gold Label guitars nevertheless are fabricated from issues like spruce, rosewood, cover glue… the kind of supplies that guitars had been being made out of fifty years earlier than Taylor even began. And that’s earlier than you begin enjoying it – when rapidly you hear a sound that’s acquainted, however not essentially within the context of a Taylor guitar – it is a sound that’s outdated, classic… dare we are saying conventional? It speaks greater than something of the distinction between Bob Taylor and Andy Powers – the latter has been steeped within the deep historical past of instrument making from when he was a baby.

“As a participant and a builder, I’ve cherished the historical past of guitars,” Energy agrees. “I really like what the devices are themselves. I really like what totally different makers have accomplished over time. It’s enjoyable for me. It’s enjoyable to see the various things that folks provide you with. It’s like listening to totally different recordings of various kinds and totally different artists.

“And so that you’re proper. It is a guitar that feels prefer it is aware of its guitar historical past. It sat via all of the lessons and realized all of the methods and understands the place it comes from. And so this sound, it’s totally different for us as a contemporary guitar firm, however it’s not totally different when it comes to what guitar gamers have an ear for.

“Every little thing about that sonority is a really totally different sound for a Taylor guitar. And but, as a guitar participant, I am going, ‘Nicely, that’s proper in the midst of this collective heritage of what we consider as acoustic guitar sounds’. The richness and the heat of that low finish. The stability via the midrange, the fullness there. This type of muscular high quality on the excessive finish. I prefer it so much.”

The New Outdated

That final quote is the important thing tenet of the Gold Label idea – this isn’t Taylor throwing the final 50 years of innovation and evolution within the bin, it’s demonstrating that you should utilize these improvements and ideas to do extra than simply produce a guitar that epitomises the ‘conventional’ Taylor sound. These guitars may sound outdated, however the know-how below the hood is totally innovative and fully Taylor.

“Who doesn’t need a great-playing guitar with correct notes, correct pitches, nice fretwork, serviceable, dependable, balanced – all these sorts of issues which might be fantastic,” Powers posits. “However what if we need to construct one thing with totally different colours, totally different sounds, totally different feels?”

One of many key parts in creating the Gold Label was V-Class – the revolutionary bracing system that Powers designed that supplied a outstanding leap ahead in tuning and intonation stability all the way in which up the neck. When it was first launched in 2018, it made sense to use the know-how to make guitars that enhanced the prevailing Taylor sound.

“These are the sorts of guitars and the sorts of sounds we’re identified for,” Powers explains. “So it is smart to voice these to try this, and serve our gamers. However as we begin to make different iterations, it broadens what the factor is, what it represents and what it could actually give you.

“So this one is a special voicing of a V-Class concept. It’s a V-Class braced guitar, however it’s a special revision of that. It really borrows some components of a classical fan bracing and mixes a few of that aspect into this. And that sound hits me in a different way.”

One other hanging change from the standard Taylor fare is a model new physique form – it nonetheless seems to be like a Taylor, however with a twist. “It’s a brand new form for us,” Powers explains. “One thing we’ll name a Tremendous Auditorium. It has an analogous set of measurements because the Grand Auditorium, however the set of curves that join all these dots are totally different. In my opinion, it’s a extra classically proportioned guitar. I like the way in which it sits on a participant. I just like the look of it. I like the texture of it. I just like the sound that it contributes to.”

Sticking Your Neck Out

However maybe essentially the most spectacular little bit of innovation on the guitar is one which’s hidden below the floor. For 1 / 4 of a century Taylor’s neck meeting has been one of many firm’s crowning achievements – a marvel of engineering, CNC precision and innovation that has made the long-term upkeep of Taylor guitars a doddle for any competent tech.

However the Gold Label 814e debuts a brand new neck design, greater than seven years within the making, from Powers – which may show to be much more revolutionary than its predecessor.

“For the primary 25 years of Taylor guitar historical past, we constructed necks the place there was {hardware} within the heel,” Powers explains. “You’d bolt that part on and also you’d glue the fretboard down. After which round 12 months 25, Bob and the crew developed what we known as the Taylor Neck or the NT Neck, the place it was totally hooked up with {hardware} and these ultra-precision shims. We’ve been constructing guitars efficiently that manner for 25 years. These guitars work very well. However in wanting farther ahead, I would like the guitars to serve the musicians even higher than that. Can we do higher? I feel we will.

“And so for a variety of years, I’ve been engaged on this design – it’s really a long-tenon neck. And so it behaves a little bit in a different way than our basic Taylor neck, in that it considerably displays a extra conventional neck joint – a protracted tenon or a dovetail or one thing like that – it lets you construct a few of that sound in.

“What’s totally different, although, is that this one is extra adjustable than what we’ve accomplished up to now even. With this one, the precise neck angle or string top may be adjusted with only a wrench. So in case you’re going to do a neck reset, you don’t take the guitar aside. You don’t even detune the strings – you simply merely regulate it. So for the lifetime of the instrument, the setup goes to be, regulate the truss rod after which regulate the string top, and also you’re set to go. It’s wild.

“That is presumably essentially the most modern and new piece of guitar development that we’ve provide you with – we will put this neck on this physique and regulate the string top nearly prefer it was an electrical guitar. And but it’s essentially the most conventional sounding, enjoying, feeling guitar we’ve ever constructed. That’s a very wealthy combine.”

It sounds nearly too good to be true – a better of all worlds when it comes to sound, playability and innovation… and Powers admits that this type of heady brew comes at a value on Taylor’s aspect.

“I’ll admit that it’s a tougher design to make,” he explains. “It’s not an easier factor. It’s a extra concerned, tougher design. So numerous credit score for heavy lifting must go to our crew of engineers, machinists, toolmakers, who I’m lucky to get to work with.

“I can solely make a handful of those by hand with my antiquated hand instruments, so we’ve got to take a seat down and determine how we’re going to make this in a contemporary manner. And so, yeah, it’s been a course of. It’s taken a little bit bit.

“It’s a problem, however it’s a privilege. It’s a privilege as a result of I get to construct a guitar for myself, as a result of that’s what evokes me as a guitar participant. However what I’m actually known as to do is construct devices that serve the wants of gamers all over the world – in addition to our workers, in addition to our suppliers and everyone else who’s concerned. This must be an excellent guitar for everybody. This has to have the ability to work for everyone to maintain everyone busy and maintain all of the musicians busy having fun with this stuff and feeling recent inspiration out of it. That’s what excites me.”

Good Lookin’

However even with a lot radically totally different about this guitar, Powers nonetheless may have stored the visuals the identical as the remainder of the Taylor vary to minimise the shock, however to his thoughts that might have defeated the entire function.

“With that sound in hand, I must appoint the guitar appropriately,” he says “And this does really feel like such a radical change for us. I want to alter a number of the issues that we’re identified for to be an applicable match for that.”

So sure, the headstock has modified barely, and is extra back-angled like an outdated mandolin – there’s a brand new hand-drawn Taylor brand on there too. Elsewhere there are visible touches that draw from Thirties banjo design, and classic archtops… it’s a smorgasbord of cherry-picked visible touches. However that’s not all. The guitar is fabricated from Honduran rosewood and torrefied Sitka spruce – two extraordinarily conventional tonewoods by Taylor’s requirements – whereas quaint cover glue is even utilized in some locations.

“It appeared applicable for the instrument we needed to construct,” Powers shrugs. “I nonetheless love working with sizzling cover glue, and for the components which might be applicable, that works good on this guitar. A few of these different supplies, it’s a mixture of issues that may give us the form of sound and really feel that we need to obtain out of this instrument. And so it’s so simple as selecting the components that go well with the recipe.”

Whereas the Gold Label collection is designed to offer an alternative choice to the standard Taylor recipe – and most definitely NOT a substitute – Powers additionally envisions a situation the place a number of the improvements utilized in it’d trickle all the way down to the remainder of the vary, in the identical manner that V-Class has.

“A good suggestion that serves a participant higher deserves to unfold out,” he insists. “So these issues that do make a greater, extra dependable, extra serviceable, higher functioning guitar, yeah, we’ll watch these transfer out. However I don’t know over what time span or how that performs out. These chapters within the guide aren’t written but.”

51st State Of Thoughts

Taylor’s popularity because the world’s most modern guitar model has solely enhanced within the decade-plus since Powers got here onboard, first as Grasp Guitar Designer and now melding that with taking the reins of the corporate as CEO & President. For anybody who has hung out with Powers, or examine his philosophies and pursuits, this looks like maybe essentially the most ‘Andy Powers’ Taylor guitar but. We surprise if he sees it as his crowning achievement so far…

“I’m unsure I may put issues in a rank as a result of each time you’re employed on one thing, it feels thrilling and galvanizing and recent,” he responds with sincerity. “However this does really feel like an even bigger leap than most of the tasks we’ve labored on up to now, as a result of it displays a lot. There was a lot of the event within the final 10 or 15 years that’s actually coming into fruition now. So we will go, ‘Nicely, that’s a radically totally different instrument’, and it’s thrilling. So this feels significantly particular to me.”

It can also’t be ignored that that is the primary main launch following the fiftieth anniversary and particularly the full-circle Legacy Assortment – a mission that notably had Bob Taylor’s signature on the label for the primary time shortly. Does the timing of these two tasks characterize the tip of 1 period and the start of a brand new one for Taylor?

“50 years is a large milestone,” he accepts. “You understand, it’s a type of thresholds that you just cross over and go, wait a minute. That was greater than a little bit blip on the radar. That was 50 years. And but, 12 months 51 is upon us.

“It’s necessary as an organization, it’s necessary as a builder, however actuality is the method of constructing issues leads you into the method of inventing issues. Each time you’re taking your chisels up, you go, ‘Okay, it’s a brand new day, we’re gonna study some issues right here, let’s see what we will accomplish’. And it’s thrilling.

“And so a few of these concepts, nicely, I didn’t actually know after they could be prepared. I simply work on them, after which in the future you get up and also you go, ‘Hey, you realize what? That one’s prepared. It’s accomplished. Let’s set it in movement’.

So whether or not by probability or by destiny, it’s time for this guitar to be out on the earth within the fingers of gamers, as a result of it’s prepared. And now that it additionally occurs to suggest that is the beginning of 12 months 51? Let’s go. We received songs to play, we received guitars to make. We received one other couple of many years to go.”

Discover out extra in regards to the Gold Label 814e at taylorguitars.com