Ready to try carbon fiber. Suggestions?

ZM;

Given your opening statement, the first question I would ask is if a nylon string guitar is your preference? If so, your task is easier since there are fewer options: Blackbird Rider, Rainsong Parlor, Emerald X7 & X10 (for smaller guitars).

The next question would be about price. Some of the guitars noted are in the thousands of dollars range and might be more than you want to spend on your first carbon fiber try. You might also want to keep an eye on the forum advertisements for a used instrument.

The third question would be about access to cf instruments. Rainsong, CA, and Blackbird can be found in a variety of places. Your best bet would be a field trip to Ted's place where you can try out a variety of CF guitars. Another fun field trip would be a visit to Blackbird in San Francisco.


You read the enthusiasm of this forum well. If and when you run across something that interests you, you can go to the search engine and find an evening's nice reading.

Good luck in your search.

[zmf]

Originally Posted by EvanB

Your best bet would be a field trip to Ted's place where you can try out a variety of CF guitars.

Yeah, I figured Ted's place. I'm in Wyoming, but already thinking about a short detour from Burbank airport when visiting family in Santa Barbara. I really can't proceed without first playing a variety of composites.

No particular affinity for nylon strings; prefer steel. Just that my Aria has never once in its long life been humidified, so it's the default road guitar.

[Captain Jim]

Originally Posted by zmf

Thanks, Folks. Duh. Here I am in a subforum I didn't realize existed. I should get out more often.

I sense a high level of enthusiasm here. Guess I'd better jump on the learning curve.

Welcome aboard! Wyoming is a beautiful state - we lived there for a year about 4 decades ago; and more recently, I drove cruise boats in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. I think you would find a carbon fiber guitar easy to care for in that climate.

I would venture that every CF owner here started out their carbon fiber journey like you: curious about the ability to laugh at the environment, and wondering how they stand up vs wood in sound/tone. You will appreciate never having to humidify again... as far as a "most like wood" - that gets discussed here frequently. I guess some folks expect them to sound less satisfying than wood - that certainly isn't the case. "Wood guitars" run the gammut from inexpensive wood laminates to boutique hand-crafted instruments topping 5 figures. While each is wood, they all sound different.

The carbon fiber manufacturers currently in business are making nice instruments. Just like wood, the tone varies with brand, model, and size. While I have my favorites, I can say that I haven't played a carbon fiber guitar that delivered a disappointing tone. Some are "crisper" than others, some a deeper sound - generally (to my ear) based on size. Yeah, kinda like wood guitars.

Before I bought my first CF guitar, I heard that model (a RainSong Shorty) described as "piano-like." I like the sound. Enough to move me toward owning other carbon fiber guitars. My favorite is an Emerald X20 - a punchy rich tone. For travel (and the couch), an Emerald X7 - great sound in a small guitar, and the most comfortable acoustic guitar I've ever held. I've played out with that guitar and received only compliments on the sound.

Plenty of great carbon fiber options, and some very knowledgeable folks on this sub-forum who can answer questions you might have. Bottom line for me: carbon fiber is a material not a tone. Each of my CF guitars sound good and each sounds like... a guitar. I still have 4 Taylors and a Gibson, but one of the two Emeralds are what I pick up first and most often.

Enjoy the CF search.

Jim

Originally Posted by Acousticado

Wow, what an adventure, John! Lucky you! Thanks for sharing. Nice to know that your Emerald was a real trooper, with such harsh conditions being a testament to the durability and stability of the infused woody veneer top.

G'day Tom, yes, the woody top being totally encapsulated is impervious to just about anything short of a hammer blow!
It was a great trip on which we did some amazing stuff. Everything from walking across salt lakes and hiking through remote gorges to rescuing a brumby foal from a river in the high country.

[Chriscom]

Money permitting, a CF guitar is in my future. One thing that kind of cracks me up relates to price--my main interest in CF was originally for busking and other outdoor environments so I don't have to worry about the weather, but as noted above you're looking at $1000+ on the very low end, thus something I might not want to take on random street corners. My current wood Martin gig guitar cost me "merely" $650 or so on a discount (solid sapele tonewood, Mexican factory, love it).

But my "nice" Martin is over $3000 so I don't mind spending money on these things!

I've spent a lot of time in this sub-forum and I think an El Capitan, Blackbird or Savoy attract me the most. And yeah that won't be for street corners.

But for a camping guitar, I really encourage the OP to try a Composite Acoustics Cargo, favored by so many in this thread, people who have far more experience than me in this area. I played it earlier this year and was really impressed.

What Chris said;

The Cargo has been the maiden voyage for many people on the CF forums. And with good reason. But watch out--it's a trap. The next thing you know, you might be looking at an Ox, or maybe a different cf beast.

The X7 is also a good starter CF; good sound, comfortable, cool looking. Whew! You have some decisions to make. Good luck.

[Kerbie]

Hi Z... welcome to the dark side! I also started my CF journey years ago on a CA Cargo Raw. It was a very fine guitar... incredibly durable, easy to play, great travel guitar. Its short, 22.75" scale made the 1.75" nut width almost acceptable to me. But when Emerald said they could build me a CF with a 1 11/16" nut, I switched to the X-7. My Cargo found a wonderful home with a friend who wouldn't trade it for anything! It's rapidly becoming his go-to guitar.

The X-7 just fits my hands better, so it's a keeper. Both are excellent guitars. I found the Cargo Raw a little more of a boomy bass-heavy sound. The Emerald is better in the mid-range and trebles and has a more balanced tone. And that balance is very appealing to me.

Great choices out there... I wish you a lot of luck finding just the right one!

[zeeway]

As someone else said it is a giant leap of faith, especially for a conservative person such as I, to pay out significant $ sight unseen for an Emerald X20...even after asking many questions here. But the end result was a big 'wow' for me when I first played my Emerald and every time since. It is very comfortable to play, and did I mention it has a grand sound. It arrived in a rainstorm, and was in tune...and while I have made some tiny tweaks to the tuning, if I had left it alone, it would still be reaonably in tune after many hours of playing in the two months since its arrival.

Go for it.

[Finger Stylish]

My Choice Rainsong

[Methos1979]

Originally Posted by zmf

I need a new guitar for camping. My 50 year old laminate Aria nylon just isn't cutting it anymore. My wife, mistress of polite understatement, has mentioned that it's not my best-sounding guitar. Most of our camping is high altitude and dry, so I was thinking carbon fiber.

I could listen to YT samples, but it's not the same as actually holding/playing a guitar.

What was your impression the first time you played a carbon fiber guitar?

Which carbon fiber sounds most like a wood guitar? Or which one sounds best in its own right?

Probably going after a 000 or smaller to save space.

Thanks.

To answer your questions in order:

My first impressions on CF guitars is pretty much what everyone said in all the research I did before my first purchase - sound is very good, very acoustic, but they all have their own sound. CF guitars have tone similar and yet different from wood guitars and even within each brand of CF guitars, their own sound from each other.

As to which sounds 'best' of the ones I've played, hard to say. I've owned four as of this writing and each one had strengths and weaknesses with the weaknesses being of a personal preference nature and not any sort of negative thing about the guitar itself.

I think the best thing I can do for you is to summarize what I've owned, what I liked and what I didn't like for each model. Here we go:

Emerald X20 Artisan (cobalt blue) - tone was great, big and full. Body size and shape also very nice, 000-ish in size but comfortable with the built-in arm bevel on top and bevels on the bottom. Offset sound hole was nice in that it directed a lot of sound directly up to the player. Did not like the scale (long), the C neck shape, the pickup system (B-Band) or the color. Note that all of those things come into play at the end of this post when I talk about the X20 custom I have on order!

Rainsong Shorty APLE - this is a limited edition Shorty model. They still make a similar model with some slight changes. This was a great guitar! The tone was again very nice and probably the closest to a wood guitar but still with its own character. The body size is very 000-ish but with a short scale neck that joins at the 12th fret which made for a very comfortable playing experience. Did not like the narrower string spacing (2 3/16") although I got used to it, the Fishman pickup system or the C neck shape.

Journey Overhead OF660 - this one was a pleasant surprise. Without a doubt the ugliest of all the guitars I've owned, as a travel guitar it was the best. The tone was really nice. A little quiet due to the small body size but plugged in this guitar really shined. They use a proprietary K&K-ish SBT pickup system that sounded excellent plugged in. The 1 3/4" nut and the 2 1/4" string spacing were perfect and the D-shaped neck was the most comfortable of all I played. It also has a Manzer-type wedge which made it even more comfortable to play sitting down. The neck breakdown system is excellent as is the backpack style gig bag it goes into. The only downside to this guitar for me was looks. The only reason I sold it was because I just didn't need that much portability. It's also the least expensive of all the CF guitars I've owned. I can easily see me purchasing one of these again if I ever do find that I need that uber-portability.

Emerald X7 Select Series Custom Shop - this was a spontaneous purchase to keep me happy until the X20 custom order arrived. The X7 is a small travel size guitar. Like the X20 above it's a great guitar that is very well made with similar offset sound hole and comfortable body bevels front and back. The tone and volume is quite loud for such a small body size guitar. The woody tops are beautiful and Emerald is great about making customs to your order. Dislikes for this guitar were the C neck shape (which I knew would be the case) and the LR Baggs Element pickup system. I'm just a K&K kind of guy.

Last is (will be) the Emerald X20 Custom Woody I've got on order. I love the X20 for the tone, look and body shape so I decided to do a custom order to change the things I didn't like about that first one. So I'm getting a cocobolo woody top with amber back and sides, a K&K Pure Mini pickup system, a short scale neck and a custom neck carve based on the Santa Cruz soft V which is my preferred. On paper it should be everything I love in a CF guitar.

Good luck with your search and welcome to the club!

[mot]

Lots of choices. i sort of fell into CF guitars in 2013 and I doubt I will ever get another wood guitar. The carbon fiber guitars are that good!

I have a Blackbird Lucky 13 and a red Emerald X20 Opus. Both are amazing guitars and either would be perfect for a camping trip. My X20 has been left for weeks in a car while I was traveling without going out of tune.

I am thinking of getting a Journey OF660 for travel if I get another guitar.

I played the Blackbird guitars, CA, and Rainsongs before getting the Lucky 13, but I bought my first my X20 without having ever touched a carbon fiber. I got it as I needed a beater then and it's ended up being my favorite guitar I have ever owned. I didn't expect that.

The bottom line is that you can't really go too wrong with carbon fiber guitars. Go play one if you can, but if you can't just pick one that seems about what you want that can be shipped to you (and returned). My guess is that you will keep it.

[DHart]

There are a lot of great impressions and comments in this thread. Here are mine:

At the gracious and generous invitation of fellow forum member kramster, I had the extended opportunity to play a dizzying array of CF guitars. I can't even remember ALL the guitars that I played, but I do remember 11 of them:

Rainsong CH-WS, CH-OM, and CH-PA
Emerald X20, X10, X7, and Amicus
Composite Acoustics OX-A and Cargo
McPherson Touring
Blackbird Savoy

During the playing extravaganza I was immediately most impressed with the Rainsong CH-OM, followed by the CH-WS, and the Composite Acoustics OX-A.

Purely for tone quality and balance, the Rainsongs were the most pleasing to me.

But the OX-A was also quite impressive and had a neck that felt almost like that of an electric guitar - really nice. With tone very much like wood acoustic guitars.

My decision was an easy one for me and shortly thereafter I ordered a Rainsong CH-OM1100NS from Ted at LA Guitar Sales. This guitar is the size of an OM/000, but with a short scale and a 12-fret to the body neck. I was thrilled with how it played and sounded when I received it and still today, after having it for a few months, I am absolutely thrilled with it. It is an incredible instrument with big, full, rich, and well-balanced tone quality. I LOVE it.

I have also purchased a new Emerald X7 Artisan which I am enjoying very much. It cannot begin to match the power and fullness of tone that the CH-OM1100NS has, but it is a smaller guitar (parlor size) and certainly can not be expected to compare sound-wise with an OM/000 size instrument.

I did spend an extended amount of time playing the Composite Acoustics OX-A and came away thinking that I would probably like to have one of those some day, as well. Really nice instrument. However, with 18 or so guitars, I can't begin to give good playing time to even the ones that I have now.

There is a thread that I started in the Carbon Fiber forum that speaks more about my experience trying out all of these instruments.

Knowing what I know now and IF I were to put MYSELF in your shoes, I'd order up a CH-OM1100NS and hold onto it for life. They play and sound that good. And the size is handy and compact, without being really "small". VERY light weight too. And the cream on the top is the very reasonable pricing on these fantastic instruments (contact Ted for pricing).

Our desert humidity is around 18-20% RH much of the year and the CF instruments are oblivious to that dryness!


Some compromise of some sort is expected with any instrument you might choose, but the CH-OM1100NS involves very, very little compromise.

I think this instrument strikes the perfect balance between full-size (dreadnaught) and small (Parlor) while offering a volume, dynamic range, and balance that is sure to please in pretty much any situation. Not too big, not too small, just right!

DHart;

Well said and well advised. I think the same thing could be said about a lot of cf guitars. The Ox, for example, is a keeper, a veritable heirloom. And then a Rider, or maybe an X of some sort. The big 4 cf makers are producing many worthy instruments, any one of which could be someone's ideal guitar.

[DHart]

Originally Posted by EvanB

DHart;

Well said and well advised. I think the same thing could be said about a lot of cf guitars. The Ox, for example, is a keeper, a veritable heirloom. And then a Rider, or maybe an X of some sort. The big 4 cf makers are producing many worthy instruments, any one of which could be someone's ideal guitar.

I hope you don't think that I'm implying that every player would or should share my preferences.

Certainly another individual may say the say thing (or any number of different things) about any number of different guitars. But I leave that up to them to speak about. I can only speak for myself and my direct impressions of the instruments that I played.

There are very nice instruments to be found in the catalogs of the "big 4". Each of us can only speak for ourselves, and that's all I seek to do.

I should add... no one else can choose a perfect guitar for anyone else. It's like choosing a girlfriend! This is something you MUST do for yourself. But it can help to know what impressions and experiences others have had.

[rob2966]

Just entered the world of CF myself. Ended up with a Rainsong CH-PA (Parlor) and I am loving it. I wanted a better guitar for camping and travelling to the cottage and this guitar is an absolute winner. It also occupies the guitar stand in the living room during the coldest winter months when the house RH is a bit on the low side.

If space in the car when camping was a complete non-issue for me, I would have seriously looked at the CH-OM ("Shorty") since it is essentially the CF equivalent of my Taylor 322ce 12-fret, which is an amazing guitar. However, I have been very pleased with the way the smaller bodied parlor sounds and when you consider the price it really is an easy option to go with.