John's Guitar Blog

Although I love my Larrivee OM-50, I’ve been wanting a dreadnought (or similar size/shape) for the big bass and volume that I can’t get with the OM size. After deliberating for months, I narrowed the field to a Santa Cruz Guitar Company (SCGC) Vintage Artist and the Martin HD28-LSV. Both have their strengths and very few weaknesses: The SCGC can handle a light touch, puts out a lot of volume, and respectable bass. The Martin puts out a LOT of volume, has HUGE bass, a surprising presence in the high end (thanks to the large sound hole), but doesn’t quite have the dynamic range that the SCGC has. Since I planned to keep my Larrivee, a jack-of-all-trades guitar wasn’t what I was looking for but the SCGC sure comes close.

In the end I figured it made sense to get a Santa Cruz since, you know, I live in Santa Cruz. So I walked into Sylvan music ready to buy. I’ve never bought a guitar this expensive before, and the prices I saw on the Internet were quite a bit lower than the sticker price in the store. While I would never buy a guitar like this off the Internet and I don’t expect my local guitar shop to meet those kinds of prices, I wondered if they could come down a little. When I asked if they could come down a bit, a funny thing happened. The salesperson gave me a deadpan “No” and a look that just seemed to dare me not to buy it. Extra strings? Strap? Picks? Nope, I guess he wanted to make this decision very easy for me.

So, I walked out of the store and across town to the Martin dealer, Union Grove Music. I asked the same question about coming down in price, and instead of dismissing it out of hand, the salesperson entered into an interesting dialog with me. He told me about how this guitar isn’t made any more, and Martin’s equivalent replacement costs $5K, so I’m getting a good deal with the sticker price. I told him about the prices people were buying them for when they were available (thanks Harmony Central!) and eventually we found a middle ground: he knocked $300 off the price. He also told me everything I could ever want to know about the Martin company and their guitars.

So, I’m the proud owner of a Martin HD28-LSV and I have no regrets. It’s a battleship of a guitar (hey, where do you think the dreadnought gets its name?) and takes some extra effort to play, but the sheer power is enough to make it fun– strumming a G chord hits you in the chest like the tailpipe of a Harley Davidson. And now I know what they mean by the “Martin Mystique”. The tone is warm and single notes have subtle complexities that make it great for lead as well as rhythm.

When I came home I plugged in the mic and immediately wrote and recorded two songs with it:

It Took a While and Squish. Both of them are for my wife Jenny.