The idea for the Tour came about last year from its originator Dave White of De Faoite Guitars. The basic principal is that one of my guitars is going to Tour a number of player throughout the UK. Each player will have the guitar for 2 week and will hopefully write an honest review and perhaps record the guitar in action. This Tour is a wonderful way for people to play one of my instruments and get an idea of the kind of guitars that I'm building. It also gives me an invaluable insight into peoples playing style and preferences on aspects of guitars, thus enabling me to better my instruments. The players that are receiving the guitar are mostly members of the Acoustic Life Forum from the Acoustic Magazine website. However there are a few other player including Kris Drever, Matheu Watson, Martin Simpson, Adam Bulley and Martin Taylor who have also agreed to join the tour and give their opinions. I will be posting reviews on this page along with videos and recordings. You can also see the Tour Tirga Beag being build by clicking here.     David Boyter We dropped into the Reverie in Edinburgh on Tuesday night to hear some tunes of the Scottish variety. Here is a picture of David Boyter playing the Tirga Beag Tour guitar. Lots of great music and good feed back about the guitar. The Reverie hosts one of the best sessions in town and there are always familiar faces, Tom Oakes, Toby Shippey, and Shoogleniftys Angus and Luke along with many other brilliant players. (All links open new windows).  Gerry Hastie I have just recieved the first Tour Review from Gerry Hastie. I met Gerry when he brought me his Mondolin for repair. A wonderful guy who plays both Mandolin and Guitar Brilliantly. Here is what he thinks. "The opportunity to test this fabulous guitar fell to me after Rory did some great work setting up my mandolin. What can I say about this amazing guitar? Opening the case reveals a fantastic looking musical instrument. Making wood look this good starts to give a strong impression of artisan craftsmanship. This is a lovely looking guitar with a strong emphasis on clean lines and a contemporary feel. Nothing is over designed with a simple headstock logo and no fretboard makers. You just want to get right to playing it! The feel, to me, is very Taylor like in terms of the sizing of the body and neck feel. This is a gracious instrument and the subtlety of craft is echoed in it's intimate feel as a finger-pickers instrument. It is also incredibly light in weight. It sounds glorious! The treble, mids and bass are well balanced and the separation of sound when playing is exceptional and allows notes to ring with each other and not clash or clang. Detuning to DADGAD is a dream with very smooth tuners. It sounds excellent with those dreamy, chiming overtones that DADGAD should produce. This not for folkies only and some Eric Bibb style blues is equally at home on this guitar. The bass balance and sound separation ensure that Travis style or country blues picking allow the rhythm to sit in with a melody on top. Lovely." Many Thanks Gerry for all of your kind words. Adam Bulley I have just recieved a Review from Adam Bulley. I met Adam at last years Ullapool show where he and Chas Mckenzie from Winging It where playing. Adam is a Demon on Mandolin and can play the Guitar real well as you can hear on his recordings. (To come) "It was an absolute pleasure playing the Taran Guitar. I found it to be an instrument that instantly responded. The biggest eye-opener for me was the tone. Usually I've found I need to use thicker gauge plectrums to achieve the warm tone I like, but this guitar somehow manages to produce it regardless of the gauge. Due to the fantastic mid's, it was perfect for flat-picking, enabling the guitar to really cut through. I also found it extremely responsive for fingerpicking and lighter, more subtle playing." Many Thanks Adam. Adam does alot of work with Martin Taylor and if you would like to hear more of his playing please click here. Matheu Watson A great start to 2011 and to the Tour. Matheu Watson was invited to play with Indian tabla maestro Zakir Hussain for the opening performance of Celtic Connections in Glasgow. I was lucky enough to be there and what an incredible evening of music it was! Matheu was playing the Tour Tigra Beag for the gig, it was amazing to hear an instrument of mine being played by an amazing musisian along with so many wonderful players. The gig its self was more of an exploration of tone, colour and sound scape than tunes and the work of Zakir and his fellow accompanists, Kumaresh and Rakesh Chaurasia left the audiance transfixed by the flow of the subtle yet powerful Indian music. I've asked Matheu to write down his thoughts on the guitar and will post them soon. The Guitar is still in Glasgow with Damian and will be slowly winding its way south. I wonder how many different styles of music will be played in it before it gets back to Edinburgh?  Damian Lynch I dropped the Tour Guitar off with Damian at the opening of Celtic Connections in January. Here is what he thinks.  PLAYABILITY Really liked the way things were set up...played almost perfectly...almost!I loved the neck...big and meaty but totally comfortable..a beautiful shape in the hand...nicely rounded edges with no sharpness anywhere to disturb the flow...lovely piece of mahogany too... There were minor changes I would have liked to the set-up but I dont think that's worth mentioning here...a guitar like this on a National Tour has to be set-up to fit all hands and that's no easy task... Minor set-up issues aside, I loved the playability...obviously it could easily be dialed in from where it was... THE SOUND Ah well, the sounds the thing isnt it? Why we play... When the strings died down a bit and lost their zingyness things really started to come into focus...lots more sweetness and much less brightness...(I hate the first few hours of most strings, so this was totally normal for me... I still wasn't sure what to make of it when I took it into my office to show my colleague who also plays...its a large open-plan office, like a shed...I played a few tunes for the staff, just fingerpicking some DADGAD stuff and some Martin Simpson melodies...people kept commenting on how good it sounded...even coming from twenty or thirty feet away...it really projects a lovely clarity and evenness of tone...it was easy to make it sound good for an audience with little effort... This is definitely in contrast to other guitars I have played in that room...my Forster struggled a bit more..it's slightly quieter with more of a harp-like sound...my Collings was good but needed more care to avoid dynamics getting out of hand ...bit more of a 'thump' to the Collings bass with quite 'heavy' sounding treble strings...(which I love when playing in small rooms) I wondered if this is from Rory's developing things with Matheu Watson and other performers...particularly those with a smooth style and more plectrum use...I can imagine this guitar fitting right in to a group setting or a recording studio...the tone is so even across the strings and so easy to get out that it would be my choice (out of the guitars I have) for these situations...it's almost like it had a built in tube compressor...and an EQ with the upper-mids bumped.... In fact one of the things that it reminded me most of was the projection you get from an archtop jazz box...but obviously with a very different overall sound.. I wondered if it was the combination of the quite crisp-sounding euro-spruce and a more dense 'metallic' rosewood...or maybe the arching of the top and back? Heck, i don't know! But for me, I would probably want a less 'controlled' instrument...but I can certainly see why it would work perfectly for some folks...especially in a group setting, for a singer song-writer or for recording as I said. This is a very personal thing I know and others may well disagree...again, that's why custom builders exist! FIT/FINISH/APPEARANCE So, a bigger than average OM size (about 15 3/4") in Rosewood and Euro spruce...the woods are top notch and immediately strike me with their quality...the Rosewood is dark and deep with a nice tight grain...the spruce very 'creamy' in colour with close, even grain...the neck mahogany is, again, clean and simple...all ebony is black, glossy and smooth...the machines are the standard gotoh 510s...the bone nut and saddle are both just right... To be honest I care far far far less about how a guitar looks as long as it sounds the business and feels great to play...but with commissioned guitars this does make a bigger difference as it should be possible to reach closer to a personal 'dream' design etc... The styling strikes me as super-clean...not a wasted line anywhere and no extravagance...a new guitar shape must be something very hard to achieve, and I would be able to pick this guitar out of a line-up from just the silhouette which speaks volumes for the design... I love the bound sound-hole, and the purfling and binding is classy with super-tight mitred joints (which I really like to see...which probably makes me a bit anal...oh well...)...the insides are immaculate as well, so all you folk who like to get the inspection mirror out you wouldnt be disappointed (I do love to see that kind of attention to detail...) The finish is the same as on my Forster and the same as used by Stefan Sobell....applied by Dave Wilson in the North of England...in my experience this picks up a beautiful lustre as it ages... Overall? I had a great time with the Tour...a quality instrument which rewards all the time you give to it....it feels streamlined and functional like a professional music-making tool should... Its a classy instrument and I could literally feel and hear the last few years of development Rory has put into it.. For me I would like some tweaks, as is only to be expected for any guitar built on spec. by a custom maker.. ...but I would have total confidence that Rory would build me a guitar that I could love... I hope this review helps anyone here who has been interested in Taran's (or any other custom build!) ...it certainly made me think about what I am looking for! And thanks to Rory, for letting me in on the Tour...I appreciated it very much... Cheers, Damian Many Thanks Damian for your opinions on the guitar. This Tour is already giving me new ideas for future builds. |
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