Advert characteristic with Taylor Guitars

Taylor Guitars has at all times been a model that listened to the participant. However when Andy Powers turned Taylor’s Grasp Guitar Designer over a decade in the past, this mindset turned much more central, evolving Taylor into one thing outstanding: a world guitar model with the mindset of a bespoke luthier. Now a model new Guitar.com Presents movie will get to the center of what this actually means.

In Taylor Guitars: Crafted To Encourage we head to Taylor’s HQ in El Cajon, California, and sit down with each Powers and different members of the Taylor group to discover precisely what it means to deliver the in-depth, player-centric mindset of a one-of-one luthier and the way that may be scaled as much as make higher devices for hundreds of guitarists all around the world.

“I’ve by no means lived in a world the place there was a separation between the builder and the participant,” Powers explains. “Whether or not it was constructing an instrument for myself, or constructing an instrument for somebody that I’m sitting throughout from, and even constructing an instrument for anyone who’s half a world away, we communicate the identical language, and we’re searching for the identical sorts of issues, which is musical inspiration. ”

This mindset has reached new heights with the Gold Label Assortment – a variety of radical new guitars launched simply final yr that showcases the daring and unconventional manner that Taylor is responding to the wants of musicians like by no means earlier than. And the proof of this isn’t simply within the devices themselves, however the artists who’ve embraced them already, from signature artists Trey Hensley and Ben Harper, to Nashville musicians who would beforehand have by no means picked up a Taylor.

“However I’ve lots of long-time conventional guitar participant, pre-war guitar gamers who’re pulling down our door to get their palms on one in every of these,” explains Jay Parkin, Taylor’s director of artist relations and partnerships. “Andy had the foresight to create guitars that sound and look extremely acquainted, but they’ve the playability of a contemporary Taylor, which is like none different.”

However the true magic of Powers’ design genius might be present in the way in which that the improvements that he makes use of to make guitars which have a specific sonic and visible model might be redeployed to boost and evolve different guitars within the Taylor vary. That is seen most strikingly within the evolution of Taylor’s traditional Grand Auditorium and Grand Live performance Subsequent Era guitars – which utilise most of the improvements discovered within the Gold Label, however lead to a sound that’s way more classically Taylor.

“I really like that musicians don’t all sound alike,” Powers explains. “Now we have completely different pursuits. Now we have completely different influences, completely different inspirations, and I get pleasure from that. I don’t need devices to all be simply the identical factor.

Watch Taylor Guitars: Crafted To Encourage on the Guitar.com YouTube Channel. 

Josh is the Commissioning Editor of Guitar.com. He is liable for planning a lot of the evaluations and options you see on the positioning – and writing a good chunk of them, too. Josh has been on employees at Guitar.com since 2019, having beforehand labored at Guitar Journal, Guitarist and Whole Guitar. He has an never-ending fascination with offsets of all sizes and styles, and rearranging his pedalboard for no actual sensible purpose.