listen
We understand that describing sound can be a subjective experience, as everyone has their own way of perceiving and expressing what they hear. To help navigate the complex topic of tone or timbre, we have curated a collection of wonderful recordings featuring our guitars, accompanied by our own thoughts on the sounds we hear. Our goal is to foster a shared understanding and language for us to build upon in our discussions with you, helping us find the sound you're looking for.
This page is enjoyed best with a good pair of headphones or speakers.
the taran
The Taran is the smallest guitar of our range. Just slightly smaller than OM, the Taran is a beautifully intimate instrument. Predominately a finger style instrument and while small in body size, its voice is big, bell-like and powerful even to the lightest touch.
DS13 Taran - Rippled Maple, Swiss Moon Spruce & Brazilian Mahogany Neck
We love the sound of the DS13, it has much more fullness than you’d expect from a maple guitar. It’s clean, with a slight sparkle, and is bright without being brash. Overall it’ well balanced with round trebles and a big dynamic range.
The Nan Taran - Scots Pine & Scottish Walnut Neck
The Nan Taran has a lovely sweetness to the sound. It’s thick, with a woody fundamental, and is completely encompassing and intimate. We think it blends really well in them mix of voice and accompaniment.
DS5 Taran - Macassar Ebony, Swiss Moon Spruce & Brazilian Mahogany Neck
The Ds5 has a wonderful rich sound without sparkly overtones you’d find in a Rosewood guitar. It’s mellow, clean, a has a full, wide range.
Tirga Beag D.f.
The Tirga Beag is larger than OM in width and depth but not in length, making it feel very compact and comfortable for its size. The Tirga Beag is designed with volume and headroom in mind enabling it to be heard in noisy sessions, but with a full rich tone perfect for smaller audiences and solo playing. It is perfect for flat picking and accompaniment with good separation between strong clear bass and thick trebles.
Tirga Beag D.F. - African Blackwood, Italian Spruce & Wenge Neck
Dustin’s Tirga Beag has a strong, dark fundamental, it’s direct and powerful with a fast, immediate response. There’s lots of sparkly separation and projection in the sound which works so well with Dustin’s playing.
Tirga Beag D.F. - Royal Fenland Oak, Curly Sinker Redwood & Honduran Mahogany Neck
This Tirga Beag has a bouncy sound quality, it’s sparkly with lovely background warmth and a rumble in the bass. There’s less separation in this sound, particularly compared to Dustin’s African Blackwood model.
Tirga Beag D.F. - Indian Rosewood, Italian Spruce & Wenge Neck
This guitar has a bit of everything! It has a sweet tone with good separation. There’s a richness to the sound with warmth, depth and well balanced overtones. The sound is controlled with lots of volume and projection when needed. Many thanks to Stuart Ryan for providing this recording!
Tirga Mhor
The Tirga Mhor is our take on a 000. Rory was lucky enough to have had long discussions with Martin Simpson about all things guitar. This model is a product of those meetings. The Tirga Mhor is designed with with an open voice enabled by the 12th fret bridge position with lots of 'spit' with its powerful attack. As with its sister model the Tirga Beag, the Mhor has good separation across a very dynamic range.
DS8 Tirga Mhor - African Blackwood, Adirondack Spruce & X Mahogany Neck
The first word that springs to mind with the DS8 for us is “massive”! The sound fizzes with an encompassing energy which makes the whole guitar seem alive. It’s articulate with lots of separation and a full sound which gives this Tirga Mhor a sense of grandeur.
Tirga Mhor - African Blackwood, Italian Spruce and Brazilian Mahogany Neck
This shares a lot of the qualities to the Tirga Mhor above, it has that same massive sound but with more warmth from the Italian Spruce soundboard. It has lots of sustain with more of a bloom to the note which give the faster passages a beautiful cascading sound.
DS7 Tirga Mhor - Tasmanian Blackwood, Adirondack Spruce and Padauk Neck
The DS7 has a crisp, sweet sound to our ear. It’s a very clean, broad sound with plenty of warmth, the bass isn’t too strident leaving a well balanced sound across the range.
Tirga Mhor - African Blackwood, Adirondack Spruce & Wenge Neck
Martin’s guitar has the “spit” Rory was looking for when re-designing the Tirga Mhor with Martin, you can find out more about that here. It’s an incredibly powerful and immediate sound. It isn’t brash however, there’s a nice warmth there and the whole sound is just very encompassing.
oreval
The Oreval is based on the acclaimed Tirga Beag Mk II shape and has a classic Taran style. Its own unique bracing pattern and greater depth give the Oreval a big voice, perfect for noisy sessions. At home, solo, the Oreval offers a large dynamic range.
DS11 Oreval - Claro Walnut, Tunnel 13 Redwood & Wenge Neck
We hear lots of warmth in the DS11 across the whole range which is really embracing. The sound is woody with a rich sparkle, thick trebles. There’s also an airy quality to this guitar which we really love.
Oreval - “The Tree” Mahogany, Lucky Strike Redwood & Wenge Neck
The sound of this Oreval is so multi-faceted, we had a hard job pinning it’s timbre down to just a few words! It’s a big sound with an incredible richness and presence. The sound has a broad range and is very full and even. There’s not a huge amount of separation but is well balanced across the range. We hear that bouncy quality in this guitar too!
oreval 12-Fret
We went back to the drawing board to completely redesigned the Oreval for our first build slot with Dream Guitars. Our starting point was the sound of the instrument. We wanted to make a guitar for a dynamic player, capable of soft playing with a nice warmth and balance of overtones. We also designed it to have an enveloping almost intimate sound but be capable of delivering plenty of power when needed.