NGD: Taylor 914ce with cedar top!

[davwir]

congrats.. great combo, beautiful guitar for sure!

[Cindy]

Beautiful guitar! I love the striped look of the cedar, too! If you want a little more volume, try a set of Elixir PBs on it. Those boosted the volume of my engelmann topped 914ce. Enjoy the new addition to your family!

[gdeleo]

TOTALLY AWESOME!

I hope you get great pleasure from you new guitar.

[zeebow]

thx everyone. the thread on the other site didn't even get any replies, so no pics for them! lol

[Edward]

Michael,
yer killin me with that pic!  Reminds me of my living room floor if the nephews/nieces leave a stuffed animal out (hahaha, at least my kids are beyond the stuffed animal phase ).

zeebow,
I dunno how I missed this thread as I am a great devotee of cedar.  Congrats!  Many of your observations about too big/too bassy, or imbalanced tone, of some of the guits you mention I can only heartily agree.  Cedar is a lovely tone wood, brings just the right mids to the table, which IMHO defines the lion's share of the guitar's voice, and has become my favorite topwood (though admittedly, I am curious about adirondac since that other thread got me thinking ...always a dangerous thing for me ).  But cedar and RW together: bam!  That's my fav, as well.  The depth of the RW and its tight/focused timbre really creates such a wonderfully solid foundation for the cedar to overlay all those lush midrange tones on.  And the top end has sparkle and definition; not glassy or overly brilliant which is where I wince at some Taylors, but a crispness to the notes that is both present and very pleasing. 

That you combined a cedar top to a 914 never occured to me.  But once you talk about your journey, it makes perfect sense!  And man did yours turn out well.  Congrats on a real beauty you have there.  But even more so for getting the tone that you were striving for!!! 
Oh yeah, and thanks for giving us over here pics. 

Edward

[AugustWest]

Zeebow - that's a beauty you got there, Congrats!  Love the grain on that top.   

I concur with your observation about cocobolo... I recently test drove one of the '11 Fall GS limiteds and was completely underwhelmed by it.  It lacked volume & had zero low end.  Also, last Nov I got to play a $5k+ Custom Coco Dread at a Road Show.  Again, beautiful to look at, but nothing impressive about the tone... just, meh.  My GA4 sounds waaaaay better & boy does it have plenty of volume!

Enjoy finding the right tunes for the new guit!

[Go Navy]

Zeebow:  when you get tired of that 914ce, I'll buy it from you so don't bother to advertise it! 

[bo1142]

Absolutely beautiful guitar!  Congrats.  And thanks for the pictures...I can never get enough pictures.

[thedak]

 

Very nice

[davwir]

I concur with your observation about cocobolo... I recently test drove one of the '11 Fall GS limiteds and was completely underwhelmed by it.  It lacked volume & had zero low end.  Also, last Nov I got to play a $5k+ Custom Coco Dread at a Road Show.  Again, beautiful to look at, but nothing impressive about the tone... just, meh.  My GA4 sounds waaaaay better & boy does it have plenty of volume!

Im not sure you can judge all Cocobolo based on the ones you played.. Guitars are like cars, some examples of the exact same model same just seem to be better.. The GA Fall Limited I picked up has ridiculous tone, volume and bass.. It convinced me right on the spot, in a shop with all the highest end stuff you could want.. But I played a few other ones elsewhere first that didn't do it for me either, though..
I happen to like a GA4's as well, but wound up returning one I bought online during Amazons Black Friday sale (for a super cheap price), just because it wasn't a very "special" one at all, either..

[zeebow]

thanks for posting the tonal descriptions of all the Taylors you've played &
for sharing the pics of the 2 that followed you home, zee

the tops on both guitars, the rosewood & ovangkol look great &
the 'fire' of the inlays on the 9 are exceptionally nice accents -
i believe i can imagine pretty well how your guitars sound,
based on your reviews & because i've had a couple of guitars
that had fairly similarly grain-structured tops (both cedar & sitka)

congrats & double congrats  

car forums
horsepower too ... oh boy
please feel free to share about the cars too, later, at your leisure 

been a long day here, too ...
have a good evening, er morning, zee

lol, dude you're posts are so funny. do you have a pic thread of your guitars?

i'm well over my car hobby - i'll look for some old pics and i'll throw it in the misc section here. it's a period of my life i don't ever want to relive - i dont regret being into cars, but i'm relieved it's over.

the taylor 414ce was purchased last year. 8/9/10. i performed at my wedding w/ the 414ce, i'm really embarrassed at it - was my worse performance ever (from my year of practicing).

i broke my finger and tore a ligament on my middle finger on my fret hand, a month before the wedding. it did not heal in time, and i could hardly apply pressure to the strings, and i couldn't bend my finger more than 45 degrees, which made my performance difficult.

i also had to constantly look down at the fretboard, b/c i couldn't "feel" where my fingers were, since i felt like my middle finger was dead weight. that really threw me off vocally too.

wife loved it though, i'll consider posting in another thread, but to this day, i'm so upset that it wasn't perfect!

[zeebow]

congrats.. great combo, beautiful guitar for sure!

thank you, i really appreciate your positive remarks!

[zeebow]

Beautiful guitar! I love the striped look of the cedar, too! If you want a little more volume, try a set of Elixir PBs on it. Those boosted the volume of my engelmann topped 914ce. Enjoy the new addition to your family!

thank you, taylor did a fantastic job.

i will look into PB's - i have never heard of them until this forum. what differentiates them? i have only played on lights.

my friend had elixir mediums, and i had a hard time (relative) applying proper pressure to get consistent clean chords

[zeebow]

Michael,
yer killin me with that pic!  Reminds me of my living room floor if the nephews/nieces leave a stuffed animal out (hahaha, at least my kids are beyond the stuffed animal phase ).

zeebow,
I dunno how I missed this thread as I am a great devotee of cedar.  Congrats!  Many of your observations about too big/too bassy, or imbalanced tone, of some of the guits you mention I can only heartily agree.  Cedar is a lovely tone wood, brings just the right mids to the table, which IMHO defines the lion's share of the guitar's voice, and has become my favorite topwood (though admittedly, I am curious about adirondac since that other thread got me thinking ...always a dangerous thing for me ).  But cedar and RW together: bam!  That's my fav, as well.  The depth of the RW and its tight/focused timbre really creates such a wonderfully solid foundation for the cedar to overlay all those lush midrange tones on.  And the top end has sparkle and definition; not glassy or overly brilliant which is where I wince at some Taylors, but a crispness to the notes that is both present and very pleasing. 

That you combined a cedar top to a 914 never occured to me.  But once you talk about your journey, it makes perfect sense!  And man did yours turn out well.  Congrats on a real beauty you have there.  But even more so for getting the tone that you were striving for!!! 
Oh yeah, and thanks for giving us over here pics. 

Edward

thx edward. i also looked into adi, but learned that you have to do BTO to get that top. i was so nervous about spending the cash, and the option sheet had options that i did not know how to properly evaluate. i couldn't find a adi top for over 6 months, so i gave up.

i read about the modify a model program, so that's what i did conversely, i tried to modify a 714ce to 914ce like appointment, but it almost cost almost as much, but it lacked the cv bracing. the cindy inlay alone adds a significant increase in price to modify a 714ce.

the tone is absolutely perfect to me, but when people ask me is this "better" - my answer is always the same. it's subjective to the type of sound you like.

[zeebow]

Zeebow - that's a beauty you got there, Congrats!  Love the grain on that top.   

I concur with your observation about cocobolo... I recently test drove one of the '11 Fall GS limiteds and was completely underwhelmed by it.  It lacked volume & had zero low end.  Also, last Nov I got to play a $5k+ Custom Coco Dread at a Road Show.  Again, beautiful to look at, but nothing impressive about the tone... just, meh.  My GA4 sounds waaaaay better & boy does it have plenty of volume!

Enjoy finding the right tunes for the new guit!

thx!

i'm trying to learn songs from my favorite band, boyce avenue. they are a huge band on youtube, and my inspiration for finding taylor guitars. now i'm hooked!