My Birthday and New Guitar!!!

So today it was my 20th birthday and after a fantastic night out on Friday, including finally getting with the girl I'd had my eye on for ages ;) I woke up to find some birthday cards with cheques in them, my parents knew I'd wanted an acoustic guitar and have always supported my playing and were nice and generous. So that morning I headed down to my local guitar shop conveniently thirty seconds down the road and got straight down to business.

I had never really played acoustic guitar and didn't have any models in mind so just tried out as many as possible. Most of the acoustics in the shop were Cort's and I'd heard good things about them so I picked up a L100F. The guitar looked fantastic and was very comfortable with it's small body however it sounded a little tinny with a distinct lack of bass. With the benchmark set I tried a cheaper dreadnought style guitar which although had a lot more bass was a lot harder to play, I was a little confused though. In my opinion a better sounding guitar was considerable cheaper than the other, this was apparently down to the simpler shape and less expensive electronics.

With none of the guitars really blowing me away and after talking to the guys in the shop was about to walk away, as they were putting back the last guitar I spotted a really pretty dreadnought guitar but with a cutaway and a price tag similar to the smaller guitar. I asked to try that one and the second my hand touched the strings I knew that this guitar was the one. It's a Cort MR700F

It felt so easy to play and sounded magnificent, I must of been playing it for half an hour and loved every minute of it. It was a Cort MR700F electro-acoustic with a solid spruce top which will only sound better with age. I'd finally found the guitar I'd been looking for and picked it up with a decent case for £350 with a free setup booked for a couple of weeks time. I got it home and started playing it for an hour or so, I then had the idea of using it with my Boss RC-2 Loop Station and plugged it right in.

The electronics on the guitar were fantastic and made it sound even better than before, it was equipped with a Fishman Classic 4t which includes a built in tuner. After playing with this I got a really cool and chilled out version of Sweet Child of Mine going with a loop doing the rhythm and percussion while I improvised the vocal melody on top, I just couldn't believe how great the sound was and how easy it was to get these great tones. Once I've figured out the whole song I'll upload a video :)

So that's my new guitar and if anyone of you is thinking of buying a guitar (weather you're a beginner or expert) then I urge you to try as many as possible until you find one you truly love to play. Once you find that guitar then I can guarantee that you will have a blast with it and your playing will improve before you even know it. Remember that the right guitar is out there waiting for you, no two guitars are the same and it's up to find the right one. (sort of like women I guess, or men lol)

Speaking of the right guitar I finally got to see a real JEM7Vwh today, it looked fantastic. If I had an extra £2000 this would certainly be one of the guitars I'd consider, if you've never heard about this check it and Steve Vai out.

Finally I want so say a huge thank you to an incredible friend of mine who was literally in a shop about to buy me an acoustic guitar, if I hadn't given him a text about my new guitar then he'd of spent far too much money on me. As they say it's the thought that counts and it doesn't stop there he is very in to classical guitar and ended up getting me a music book with the sheet music for Preludio Español (Leyenda) by Albeniz which I'll post below. Inside the book he wrote "Happy Birthday and keep your fingers running on the guitar!" I can't believe how thoughtful he was and can't even begin to thank him enough for it.