The Six String Side: Taylor 610 CE

Maple sides and back here.

When I started this blog over ten years ago, I stated that it was a "Bicycle and guitar oriented elixir....". Well, the "guitar" part sort of got pushed out by the bicycle stuff, but I've always been playing. In the Easter post, I mentioned playing my '90 Strat, and someone suggested I detail the fleet, so here ya go. Hopefully ya'll enjoy the change in pace. I'll post something periodically throughout the year. Here's #6

Acoustic guitar wasn't my first choice in guitars when I started out, but it wasn't long before I traded a solid state Yamaha amp for a Yamaha acoustic guitar back when I was just starting out. I had that Yamaha for quite a few years, which I used to figure out songs on when an amped up rig was out of the question. Somehow or another, I acquired a Fender acoustic, which I deemed a better guitar,back in my 30's. Really. I have zero idea how I got that one, but anyway. I had it and it was one of those models made in the 90's with a Fender head stock, six in a row tuner layout. Since I had two acoustics and a friend that wanted to learn guitar, I decided to gift him the Yamaha.

Subsequently I met a luthier in El Paso, Texas that was pretty good at his craft. He said he could take a look at the guitar if I brought it down sometime, because I wasn't 100% happy with how it played. A couple years later I brought it to him. He put a compensated bridge saddle in it, refretted half the neck, crowned the frets, and did a couple odds and ends I don't recall. When I strummed it.....holy cow! I was blown away. It sounded like a completely different, and far better, instrument.

So, I took it home, and a few years later I meet a guy in need of a guitar, so I gifted him the Fender to get him going. Zero acoustic guitars in the house? No, not really. My wife had three at the time, but all of them were sub-par instruments. She needed something better. That's where this Taylor comes into the story.

These things are incredibly hard to photograph without weird reflections!

 We were down at the guitar shop, of course, Bob's Guitars, and he told us that this guy traded in a fine Taylor after only owning it for six months for a newly announced signature model. It was in new condition with a used price. Mrs. Guitar Ted liked it, so we got it. We gifted the three sub-par acoustics to other folks in need, and this became the sole acoustic in the house. So, it is really Mrs. Guitar Ted's, right? Well.......

Several years later, Mrs. Guitar Ted got her Master's Degree. She worked really hard to get it. She had expressed a desire to get a Koa wood guitar at some point. So......I bought her a Koa Taylor. Then I took over as the"owner" of this Taylor. That's how I got it, sort of....... Okay. Call me this guitar's caretaker then. With the Koa Taylor in hand, my wife isn't looking back at this one!

Taylor's famous, or infamous, neck profile is......okay. I'm not a hater, but it is not my favorite neck shape. I will say it has a consistent feel and tonality up and down the neck. I really, really did not like this guitar when we first got it. Thin, strident, and lacking any beef in tone, was my take. I could take about a half an hour of it before I would put it away. Then the magical aging thing happened and the guitar mellowed out some. It sounds way better now and I can handle being around it and playing it these days, although, I would rather have a better,  or I should say different, sound than this has. Like the Koa guitar, only not so airy and unfocused. Bah! I'm just too picky, I guess! The Koa guitar sounds better for sure, but it still isn't my cuppa tea.

This is still light years better than any other acoustic I've owned, so there is that!