Here are some pictures of a unique custom Breedlove Quartz FF mandolin available at MacNichol. The top is Adirondack (Red) Spruce, and the fretboard has a single position marker at the twelfth fret.
MacNichol Guitars and Mandolins is pleased to announce that it has become an Authorized Dealer for baden guitars. The vision of T.J. Baden, the company produces 100% truly handmade guitars that are made the Old World way - with mallet and chisel, and features such as all solid tonewoods, bone nut and saddle, hand-carved dovetail neck joint, pre-War style, scalloped forward-shifted X-bracing, and hand-carved mahogany neck. baden guitars are handmade of all solid tonewoods and reduced to “purest, most elegant form”. The instruments lack inlay, even fret position markers, although side position markers do appear. This minimalist styling leads to an incredible sounding guitar with a minimalist price tag.
baden currently produces two distinct body shapes - the baden A shape, and the unique baden dreadnought, available in rosewood, maple, or mahogany. Both models have 25 ½”- inch scale length, 1 23/32”- inch nut width, and 2 3/16”- inch spacing at bridge.
Pointless Picks debuted at Summer 2008 NAMM Show, winning a Best in Show Award. The picks are round, with raised grip rings in the center. The picks come in bright colors (easier to find if you drop one) and three different thicknesses - light (.58 mm), medium (.72 mm), and heavy (1.0 mm).
They’re similar to rounded picks such as Golden Gate or Dawg Picks, but because of the circular shape, there’s more space that’s hitting the string. This leads to two advantages. First, for individual note picking and slow strumming, much greater volume. Indeed, I stacked up the 1.0 mm Pointless against a 2.0 mm Dunlop, and, the Pointless came out the volume winner. Second, you can slide the pick underneath the string and then lift the string up away from the guitar body, and then let the string snap back to get a touch of a snap to the sound. You can even move the string right up to the raised grip and get a little bit more leverage and snap.
The disadvantage of the additional area hitting the string is that, although for playing individual notes at slow or medium speeds, the Pointless stands up well to other picks, for fast individual note playing, I frequently found the Pointless too bulky and found myself tripping up often. Granted, I’ve been playing with regular picks (pointed or rounded side) for nearly twenty years now, whereas I’ve had the Pointless Picks for a mere four months. Thus, it may just take some getting used to.
Interestingly, when I did medium and fast strumming, the Pointless produced less volume. This was odd when I did a lot of runs mixed in with some strumming because the runs came out much louder yet the strumming much softer. I tested the .72 mm Pointless against a Dunlop nylon .73mm, and got much more balanced volume from the Dunlop.
However, something that I like about Pointless Picks when doing light and medium strumming is that the strings’ notes meld into one wall of sound coming out from the guitar rather than a bunch of individual notes that happen to be played almost simultaneously. For rhythm playing, this could be beneficial. Another aspect that I found interesting is that because of the rounded and large space, I could “bounce” the pick up and down across the strings when doing medium or fast strumming, thus achieving either a volume increase on certain strings. I also angled my hand downwards about 45 degrees to get a different, slightly more percussive sound. In short, light and medium strumming with a Pointless produce a much different sound from that of other picks.
Lately I’ve been in love with OM body guitars, and so now is a great time to look at Larrivee Guitars OM-03RE, which, has great balance and a sweet yet dark tone. The guitar will work well for a variety of playing styles, but will work particularly well for fingerstyle and fingerpicking, as well as slow/medium strumming, Carter picking, and crosspicking.
I started out with flatpicks - a 2.0 mm and a .73 mm Dunlop, and a 1.0 mm and a 0.72 Pointless Picks. If you haven’t played a pointless pick, give one a try. Check out www.completelyoblivious.com and my Pointless Picks review. Light and medium strumming work great with or without a pick. Hard strumming can be done with hands or a with a flexible pick, but I wouldn’t advise doing hard strumming with a thicker pick.
I then tried a bit of fingerstyle and fingerpicking. As expected, the OM-03RE produced great balance, along with a touch more bass than I would expect from an OM. The bass is dark yet sweet, with a slight piano-like timbre to it. The mids are mellow, and the highs have a touch of “snap” to them.
Features include: All Solid Wood Construction, Single Piece Mahogany Neck, Canadian Sitka Spruce Sound Board and Bracing, African Ebony Fretboard and Bridge, Canadian Maple Multi-strip Body Binding, Rosewood Back and Sides, Symmetrical Parabolic X-Bracing, Hand fit Dovetail Neck Joint, Abalone Rosette, Pearl Logo and Silver Headstock Border, Chrome Ping Tuners with 18:1 ratio, Ivoroid Fretboard Binding, Exclusive Tortis Beveled Pickguard, Microdot Fretboard Markers, Compensated TUSQ Saddle, Limited Lifetime Warranty, L.R. Baggs Element Notch System (Single Source), and Larrivee Guitars Hardshell Case.
