I thought I might kick this little blog off with a video comparison I just completed this week… I have 4 amazing Martin guitars - a 2021 HD-35, a 2007 OM-18V, a 2014 CEO-7 and a 2021 D-18. The uninitiated often ask “why do you need all those guitars?” And the answer is: they are SO different from each other. Each one really has its own individual voice.
I thought it might be interesting, and maybe even useful, to try to demonstrate what those different voices are. It's a surprisingly hard thing to do. In this video, I performed the Jim Croce song “Dreaming Again” 4 times, once on each guitar.
The microphone I used is an ADK Munich M7 Large Diaphragm condenser. It's placed pretty near the camera - about head height, aimed midway between my mouth and the soundhole of the guitars, about arms-length away. I did my best to keep my chair in the same place and hold the guitars the same way to make sure that any difference in volume and tone had to do with the guitars and not the microphone.
This video starts with a brief introduction, then a composite video where I cut back and forth between each guitar as I play the song. Then I share the full version of the song on each guitar. The cutting back and forth is kind of a breakthrough here, I think - I've never seen a video do this before, and I've heard a lot of feedback that this is uniquely helpful. I'm planning on doing more of these to compare other variables - like picks, bridge pins, strings… There are a lot of elements that we all know make a difference, but we rarely hear comparisons that make them really clear. I want to change that!
Anyway, here's the vid! Let me know what you think in the comments!
-Jud