Acoustic Guitars Types: Everything you must know

0:02 [Music] this is papay Eastman guitars hey this is Paul David hey uh so super weird question but um I need some guitars sure how many do you need well um all of them who on Earth is cre enough to bring me every guitar there is my name is papan atart I'm responsible for the uh the guitar and manal IND division of the E music company and uh well that's the

0:50 best job one can have in this series we're looking at acoustic guitars there's going to be two episodes in the first one we're looking extensively at body shapes how it affects the tone the benefits the downsides the characteristics what shape is best for what player and of course we're directly comparing them to each other in the second episode we're looking at the woods used to build the guitars we're comparing Rosewood to Mahogany to Maple and from Sitka to ader De and to European Spruce torrified versus non- torrified you name it we've got it and let me say the differences are just astonishing to hear the first advice you get you go into a store store you see a guitar that speaks to you and the first one that you pick up it might disappoint

1:35 you then you know you have to go for another but first trust your eyes so these guitars probably scope 95% of all the guitars sold nowadays and just having the option to play these guitars back to back comparing them directly in my studio just gave me so much insights insights that I love to share with you so first there is a quick Roundup of all the models we're playing today followed by a more in-depth look and back toback comparisons of all the body shapes all of them let's go there's always going to be a body shape that will suit a certain style of playing some are more versatile some are very very distinct in one thing that they can do really well if we start with for instance the smallest body shape that we have here is the Parlor The Parlor is probably also the oldest

2:20 body shape it has extremely good definition it's well suited to play with your fingers finger style uh imagine yourself sitting on a front porch the sun goes down you play the blues you do some Robert Johnson songs The Parlor is your [Music] guitar but it's only a small step from a parlor to a double O the double O immediately will have more overtones will have uh more Highs but there's more it's more versatile but it lacks that very very specific bluesy sound that a parlor

3:05 [Music] has so so then from the double O the next step is going to be the the orchestra model or the triple o perhaps at this very moment in time the most popular body shape around the world as it it presents uh The Best of Both Worlds you can really play it well with your fingers it's very delicate and at the same time it's also suitable for strumming [Music] from the the orchestral uh model we go to the dreadnut and the dread knot is is probably if you wake someone up at night you say Okay draw a guitar then this is the guitar shape they will draw because it's the most used and and especially uh

3:54 most singer songwriters that are on stage Froning a band play The Dread because it's so well suited to have a pick and strum the guitar if you have a a g chord there's very little that can beat a G chord or an ecort on a dreadn [Music] guitar then there's the love baby the love baby between the OM and the dreadnut which is the grand Auditorium uh invented by Bob Taylor and the grand Auditorium offers the best of both worlds so there is a little bit of the OM and there's a little bit of the of the the dreadnut all merged into one guitar so it's very [Music]

4:44 versatile all the guitar shapes that I mentioned they are all originate from probably from Martin apart from the grand Auditorium that originates from from Taylor uh but Gibson had a thing to say or two uh about great sounding acoustic guitars too so if you look at the slope shoulder it's so that the shoulder is rounded and yet there's a slope shoulder [Music] dread and there's a slope shoulder small body [Music] guitar those guitars have very different tonal quality than the other shapes so

5:31 it again not better or worse but very different the last body shape is the jumbo it's big it's it's it's the biggest and boldest uh body shape there is perhaps the coolest one I mean if you strap it on unless you're very small but if you strap it on you immediately feel like you feel like Elvis you know that's one of the most famous guys if you see him standing out there with the Gibson sj200 [Music] the reason why we're here with eastan we have all different we buildt all different body shapes all from the same woods from the same wood suppliers built by the same people so the comparisons that you are doing are really giving the most objective view on the guitars I I

6:19 think this is probably the most straightforward comparison you're going to see let's start small let's start small start with the Parlor so the Parlor guitar one thing I love about the Parlor is the way you hold it when sitting on the couch I mean probably everyone spends their evening on the couch so why not do it with a guitar on your lap and I feel like The Parlor is so comfortable it is absolutely probably uh the guitar with the most projection it really speaks to The Listener so it's very very comfortable that way so being at home playing with your fingers or with a pick it is it is so distinctive you have that one note you know that one note that really got to you yeah the thing about parters for me when you play one note on

7:06 just let's say the B string just one note nobody nobody cares about one note on on an acoustic guitar right but I mean and that is just so much more uh audible on a small body guitar like a paror than for instance a bigger dreadn guitar [Music]

8:21 I don't know what the difference is but it just moves me in such a different way on a parlor playing one note or just you feel this is enough to make the body move and when the body moves that's where the magic lies for the guitars at least that's and it's also kind of where where the history of acoustic steel string guitar started with small body guitars Victorian guitars were very very small with a lot of projection so the Parlor and also when we look at the kind of guitar playing that we we enjoy and how it all started pop music rock music it all started with Blues I mean sitting on a front porch playing a parlor guitar Robert Johnson Some Devil tunes and we talked about projection let let me give one [Music]

9:12 example I mean I hear all the notes very clearly but what even is projection yeah it's it's kind of like having more Focus to your sound so the the sound is coming straight to you as the listener and every note has its own distinctive sound to it The Dread knob really Blends everything together to a cord where the Parlor lets you hear the single note ah yeah and that's why finger style playing is more suit absolutely [Music] absolutely sweet so if we go one up from

9:58 the part where do we go we go a little little bigger very very similar but still there is difference and you can immediately hear the difference yeah wow a little bit more spark on top but somehow also a little bit less um low end to it I feel like there's there's probably less low end and there's more mids and highs so the the the the range of tones is a little bigger bigger okay and also a little more versatile so every time you you go bigger on a guitar you also kind of lose a little bit of that very specific sound and it adds more to it so you get more more frequencies actually so this is the

10:44 speaker and we're making a more wide range speaker yeah [Music] [Applause] so you can play chords you can strum on such a guitar but the sound is a little bit more boxy than if you go to a bigger guitar but I do love though if you strum

11:30 on the smaller body and you you play like [Music] a that is wonderful yeah because there is so much definition in the sound you hear all the little nuances the little Melodies Meandering through the chords and I think that really works well on the smaller body guitar and also it's already mixed for for in your song because there's little to no low end in the sound so you can just throw it in the song and yeah and if if you compare that with the the the double O to The Parlor then I really think that with able o you can start using the pi of course you can with the Parlor there's no reason why you shouldn't but to to to get the most out of the guitar yeah yeah makes sense all right the double O is the next one a triple o yeah triple o or

12:16 om I mean there is a there is a difference between an OM and a Triple O the OM is probably one of the most uh popular body shapes right now as it as it combines so many different you can strum you can play with your fingers and the the the body is very very comfortable uh we don't have a Triple O here but the OM and the triple o are very very very similar it's only the scale length so the neck scale length that is different um but it's it's in in sound it's yeah to my ears it's more or less the [Music] same yeah

13:02 [Music] you hear the strumming on an OM is so different than on a dou immediately the boxy sound which is also kind of cool but it's not perceived as the best sounding way for for for strumming immediately here you get all this you get the highs you get the lows everything's there and and the chord is being formed in a more natural way the sound is more glued together all all the strings are like like M everything becomes [Music] one and it's loud yeah it's louder yeah exactly and when you play single lines the note still has a lot of definition you

13:47 [Music] see and it's funny that you hear Paul playing and his playing is different on this guitar than on the other two so immediately a body shape also kind of pushes you into a certain direction because the guitar the body shape demands you to play it a certain way to get the best out of it yeah I I always feel like you got to buy the guitar for the guitar player you want to be so if you want to be a Strummer in a band you don't buy a parlor if you want to play finger Style Blues on a porch you better buy a parlor because the guitar will accommodate your playing style better all right so this is the OM a beautiful instrument beautiful I think if you want to buy one maybe and want to do a little bit of both this

14:33 might be a very sensible choice but uh I feel like we can go forward right woo here we go to the big guns same boots Rosewood back ins sides Spruce stop Paul I was thinking just just if you if you strum an eord yeah sure on the and we do exactly the same on the Dre KN oh let me do it one more time without gasping that's what this guitar is built for yeah when you play that low string you feel the body pumping you feel air moving around you the whole room fills with

15:20 sound you hear one huge thing just wow and play that E chord the ultimate chord of Freedom play that E chord on a guitar as the first thing you do on an acoustic guitar because that gives you a comparison immediately you hear the characteristics of that guitar of that body shape [Music]

16:18 the dreadnut really was invented because everybody was struggling with the Beno player there were no Pas back in the 30s and the 20s of the previous centuries so if you want to be heard the guitar had to be bigger the small body guitars couldn't cope the mandolin was very loud the banjo was very loud the fiddle was loud so they had to come up with a with a big guitar which is the dreadnut it feels big in the hand not the most comfortable shape on the [Music] couch and less less versatile of course if you I mean you can play finger Style on this very well but the tones there's a lot of low and there's a lot of high there's not that much mid and the mid is

17:05 what you need for finger style so the smaller bodies are more suitable for that kind of playing when I play that same note I played on a parlor that moved me so much on a dread knot it doesn't do the same for me because you feel the instrument isn't really reacting to the note itself it needs it needs more push now you start but uh that's where the dreadnut really shines but if I'm not mistaken uh jump one Higher what we now should be looking at is is the love baby I described it before it's the love baby between the dreadnut and the OM and it's the grand Auditorium am I right in saying it's more modern it is more modern because it's it's probably I mean it's it was uh more or less invented by

17:51 Bob Taylor the the grand Auditorium body shape and obviously this has a cutaway yeah um for shredding and there there and there's a couple of things on this guitar that are different from the rest there is a sound Port there's a bevel it's a more modern guitar because we wanted to give this guitar also a more modern look because of the fact that it's it is a more modern guitar but it has a perfect balance between the OM and the dreadnut that's why we call it the love baby of those two okay so it's perfect for strumming it's perfect for finger picking it's basically the perfect guitar well if you want to go versatile it is [Music]

18:40 okay yeah it's also the kind of guitar where electric guitar players very easily switch to it feels very comfortable and you can go high [Music] [Applause] [Music] so that's the grand Auditorium yeah cool I get where this is coming from and I get the people that it's serving and that's a very welcome addition to the whole spectrum of body shapes most of these guitars we we've spoken about uh whether it's uh Martin traditional or it come Bob Taylor his name has been has

19:26 been named but now we also don't have to forget that there is this the Big G company Gibson who made some incredible uh or invented some incredible acoustic guitars uh often refer to as the slope shoulder we call them the SS's the slope shoulders so here we've got such an example the e20ss it is a dread knot slope shoulder guys this is the shoulder let's compare that to the square shoulder and you can say wow that that doesn't make a big difference in sound right but I would be wrong probably because Let's uh play a chord well the thing the thing that is that is so brilliant about these slope

20:12 shoulder models is that there is more natural compression H everybody who's ever recorded an acoustic guitar knows that it's always hard to struggle with the lows yeah so when you have a dread knot there you always have to look for the right place with the microphone to record it properly and not have the the the low uh overwhelm the rest of the sound for some reason and nobody exactly knows why or at least I don't but there is there is a smaller upper bout on the guitar which apparently has that creates that natural compression which makes it perfect for recording Paul if you would play a G chord yeah and you would really pump the low the G [Music]

20:59 then you hear that that low is not out of control but you can control it your right hand really controls the low on that SL shoulder [Music] yeah can to do the same with that [Music] one it's hard to get rid of this yeah and it's wonderful the low if you record then it can get in the way [Music]

21:58 [Applause] [Music] this was not the only uh body shape that came from the G company from Gibson they also had like the L model a smaller body guitar yeah and uh our version of that is this one the O SS so the E20 SS so

22:44 it's a slope shoulder uh it's different from The Martin style dou o obviously as you can see different in body yeah and different in sound a little more pronounced ways yeah 14 threat this is a 12 threat guitar so that also has has an influence on the sound [Music] yeah yeah beautiful I think the uh the Double O slope shoulders are a little more versatile so they are uh uh less boxy where I don't say boxy in a

23:32 derogatory way I don't want to mean anything negative with that but boxy is specifically what you want when you play finger style this one you see being used a lot by by singers fronting a band playing a guitar like that because it it's also very comfortable on stage because the body is not that big you don't have a lot of problems with feedback stuff like that [Music] and we gave this one a slaughtered headstock but you can also find them with a a a just a pedal hat stock just regular wow super interesting I love hearing all those body shapes back to back I never had the chance to compare them this straightforward as I did today

24:17 the one thing that you always have to expect from a guitar that when you play it that it inspires you to play more to write that song that you were looking after or that you suddenly that that that cover song that you were practicing on suddenly falls into place and you can do it yeah we we have left the odd one out the biggest one this is the only guitar that has really different woods from the rest uh the jumbo the biggest body shape hence jumbo yeah let's compare it to the smallest to show you how big the jumbo is wow and to also show the difference in the woods you see that all the other guitars that we had all had the Rosewood backs this is maple Maple beautiful

25:05 Maple it has a much lighter tone to it and because the jumbo is so incredibly big it's a 17inch body when you strum it it naturally has a lot of Low's so if you would use the Rosewood on a jumbo there is a lot of low there and give one example yeah this sounds like sort of a mixed guitar coming out of out of my speakers like I record a guitar and yes it's like a little bit of low cuts a little bit of high boost this is also not too much mid it's it's pretty scooped in the middle [Music]

25:52 right what kind of player would would usually prefer a ybo yeah I I I think I think the guy who really likes his quarts who really likes to strum uh there is there is there is this picture of young Elvis playing an sg2 200 it it is the kind of guitar is a fleshy guitar it's also guitar with the most beautiful inlays not for not for any reason but it is a kind of guitar that really really has a lot of visuals and it's it's a it's big and bold maybe also for those that are a little bit shy and want to hide behind the guitar yeah absolutely oh you can you can and there's there's when you come to jumbos I would Al also say if you're looking for a 12 string because all the guitars that we have

26:38 discussed are all six string guitars uh the jumbo for some reason is really really good on a 12 string version ah yes [Music] everybody loves a 12 string it's not the kind of guitar that you play on every song every day all day long but it has it it it mesmerizes everybody you just have to play this chord and everyone knows let's upop but everyone knows what I'm talking about it's just a beautiful sound it's just insane here it is mahogany and we're going into the woods later in a different video but the mahogany in

27:24 comparison with the 12 string the 12 string has a lot of high because the the top strings are are [Music] doubles beautiful the 12 string let me put it back yeah and I think Paul we're we're going to need one of your coffees again yeah and then the discuss all we learned today about the body shapes because wow I'm going to rewatch this video for myself at least a couple of times because really hearing the nuances in the differences in the body shapes wow there's so much to learn and next time

28:10 I'm visiting that shop I know exactly what to look for well thank you papine from Eastman guitars uh just huge shout out to them for delivering 16 guitars to my studio thank you for having us Paul well it's my pleasure and thank you for watching yeah thank you for watching and also make sure to check out the next video which is going to going to be about the different Woods that we use on the guitars different tone Woods that's a Hot Topic guys so make sure to check in and see you next time cheers thank you