I'm a Guild noob and am reading past posts here in an effort to rapidly educate myself. Until that happens (which quite honestly is going to take a while), what would you say is the top 3-5 guitars that a fingerstyle/strummer type player should focus on pursuing that best represents the Guild sound without too much tonal overlap?
Sixx, you're gonna have to narrow it down to a preferred tonewood/body because:
3 primary body woods ('hog, maple, rosewood)
3 primary sizes:
Dreadnought, Jumbo, concert
2 primary back constructions: Flat and arched.
There's 18 right there, although to be fair, flatback maple and archback rosewood are pretty uncommon.
Then there's the
12-strings. :biggrin-new:
As of 1997, "Guild Gallery" #1 said "More
D25's have been sold than any other Guild"
Pretty sure the big majority of those would be the 'hog archback version since by then it had been in production for 23 continuous years compared to only 6 or 7 years total ('68-'74)for its 2 earlier configurations.
So I'd put that on the top 5 most iconic Guilds list, but an archback and mahogany are not necessarily everybody's cup of tea, it just seems to be an
extremely versatile "formula".
Another
very popular finger-picking model was the 'hog flatback
F30, think Mississippi John Hurt and Paul Simon, and Simon was even responsible for getting Guild to build a some flatback rosewood versions in mid-'70's.
So between those 2 you could cover 2 body types and backwoods, which leaves the other Guild "icon", the
F50, jumbo body maple archback.
Dave Van Ronk favored those, for a finger-picking reference, and the formula was so popular Guild even offered a "blinged down" version, the JF30, from '97 to '04.
Another Guild icon is Richie Havens'
D40 which opened Woodstock, 'hog flatback dread. Richie's not necessarily known for fingerpicking but in fact the flatback would probably be a better finger picker than its cousin the archbacked D25 due to cleaner note separation.
If rosewood floats your boat then look for
D50's or even DV52 as the "low-bling" offerings, D55's as the high-bling offering.
If maple really floats your boat there was an archback maple dread, the G37, which became the D30, but
flatback maple dreads are fairly uncommon, I suspect for the same reason that archback rosewood dreads are, that they're inherently less versatile than the other more popular formulas. (Current owners here may disagree, but I think that's gotta be the reason those 2 formulas never stay in production very long. They probably
do do the specific things their owners like very well, but just aren't as widely appreciated as the more "mainstream" models.)
For example, Guild did experiment with an archbacked-rosewood jumbo in the late 60's with early F50R's, but quickly reverted to flatback only for rosewood, forever after, in F50's at least.
I can only think of one archback rosewood dreadnought, and it was the DCE5, an A/E that actually got pretty lukewarm owner reviews around here for its acoustic output.
Guild must have known something.
All of the "primary" suggestions are pretty commonly offered on the net.
The one thing I'd like to add to
my collection someday is some rosewood.
If I expanded my collection to 5 I think I'd add a D30, and an F40 sized body (16" jumbo vs 17" on F50's) with flat rosewood back, like an F47rce, or maybe an F30R like Paul Simon.
Also let me warn against the popular misconception that maple is somehow too bright or trebl-y.
Not in
Guilds, it ain't.
It's actually got the flattest response of the 3 major body woods when Guild builds 'em, with 'hog typically being boldest in midrange and rosewood offering best bass punch...