Saturday 7 May 2011

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.    


50 comments:

  1. Sick guitar man!! congratz and i hope you rock with it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. happy birthday!

    I remember getting a guitar on my last birthday as well :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice guitar man. I was thinking of taking up guitar.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beautiful guitar and nice pedals. Consider me jealous :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. i wish i could buy some talent!! nice setup, congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Happy Birthday! Congrats on getting your guitar, looks awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Happy Birthday! Rock hard :D

    ReplyDelete
  8. Happy birthday. Show us how you rock out on that thing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Awesome blog! Was a nice read =D Keep it up, i'm enjoy reading it!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Freaking nice guitar man and happy birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  11. whoa great thing :) keep playing

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congrats on the new guitar, and, it sounds like you had a good birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow great guitar and great accessories too

    ReplyDelete
  14. Really lucky! Nothing like a solid axe....

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nice guitar man, My birthday is coming up as well :-) Need something in addition to my Epiphone Les Paul!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I might just want to get a guitar man. Cool

    ReplyDelete
  17. Happy birthday! and really cool guitar man

    ReplyDelete
  18. Nice guitar! Happy belated birthday and congrats on your purchase.

    After I got an acoustic (as a present) it ended up being much too big for me. I ended up getting a ukelele afterwards :P

    ReplyDelete
  19. Nice guitar man, hope you enjoy it! Yeah, the things you said about finding the right guitar are absolutely true. Price isn't something you should worry about (unless it's extremely expensive), what matters is what feels right.

    And man, that JEM. What I would do for one of those. One day...

    ReplyDelete
  20. Also, just thought I'd throw in that my profile pic is based off of a JEM. Note the monkey grip! One of my favorites though is the Ibanez Universe. Beautiful seven string.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Little late here but happy birthday! Congrats on the guitar man, I tried to learn but didn't have the patience. Oh and good job with that lady friend ;)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Nice! happy birthday.hopefully wasnt to crazy of a night

    ReplyDelete
  23. Happy Birthday! Getting a new guitar is always a momentous day.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Awesome post man! Keep blogging cause this is great!

    ReplyDelete
  25. great guitar, great stuff, I'm in.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Wow, I'm glad you enjoyed your birthday. Really cool guitar.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Nice guitar and blog. I really need to start learning guitar again.

    +follow

    ReplyDelete
  28. Really like the guitar. Happy belated b'day!

    ReplyDelete
  29. happy birthday man! nice guitar too

    ReplyDelete
  30. Happy birthday. Really enjoy all of the guitars you post. I will be back for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  31. good blog keep up the good work. followed

    ReplyDelete
  32. Awesome.
    So informative.
    I might take up the guitar soon, so i followed, just in case (

    ReplyDelete
  33. cool! following ;)

    ReplyDelete
  34. I've been meaning to get a loop pedal for quite some time now.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Happy Birthday! And nice equipment you've got there.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Happy Birthday! Loving the tasty equipment!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Hey, awesome new guitar!

    ReplyDelete