Rosewood Titans
The Taylor 712ce is one of the most powerful rosewood titans in the whole wide world of acoustic guitars. One of Andy Powers’s first projects as Taylor’s design guru was to redesign the 700 series, and his enhancements are spectacular. Each 712ce has a host of beautiful understated cosmetic appointments: Douglas fir rosette and edge trim, koa binding, abalone fretboard inlays in Taylor’s new “Reflections” pattern, and a heat-treated wood fiber pickguard. Ultimately, they look earthy yet elegant, and they push the 712ce series to a new level of aesthetic greatness.
But, the 712ce isn't just a pretty face, because there’s a lot going on underneath the hood that gives it maximum sonic horsepower. They all feature Lutz spruce tops, which is an uncommon wood with an incredible voice (so uncommon, in fact, that Taylor was the first manufacturer to use it in a production model guitar, although in-the-know single builders had been using it for a while). Lutz spruce is a hybrid between White spruce and Sitka spruce that only grows in the Alaskan panhandle and central British Columbia, and it exhibits what tonewood experts call “hybrid vigor.”
This means that it is as stiff as Sitka spruce, but with the lower density of White spruce. So, 712ce has lots of power, projection, and headroom while remaining responsive and articulate. With the piano-like richness of rosewood, Lutz spruce creates an intoxicating sonic cocktail for your eardrums.
We’re proud to showcase this rosewood titan, and we invite you to experience the myriad visual and sonic delights it has to offer. Once you do, we’re sure it will be an inspiring companion on all your acoustic adventures.
Grand Concert Greatness
Of course, the tonewoods are only half the equation. The other is body shape, and the Grand Concert body suits the 700 series extraordinarily well. It offers a host of strengths to both fingerstyle players and strummers. Guitars with this shape produce punchy midrange response, well-defined low-end, and plenty of that classic Taylor sparkle and chime. Their articulation is incredible, and their woody attack captures every detail and nuance of your right-hand dynamics. When you dig into them, more and more overtones pop out of the top as the sound becomes more piano-like and full, like a box full of lush resonance. This is because the Grand Concert's smaller body has less headroom, which makes it easier to get the top moving and get some natural-sounding compression.
A V-Classic
Now, we have to talk about Taylor's new V-Class bracing! It's an elegant solution to a problem that has plagued luthiers for decades. For years, acoustic guitar builders had to compromise between volume and sustain. Flexibility equals volume, and stiffness equals sustain. Obviously, a piece of wood cannot be rigid and flexible at the same time, so builders had to go for one or the other.
Andy Powers wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. After much tinkering, V-Class bracing was his elegant solution to the problem that has plagued luthiers for centuries. As the name implies, V-Class bracing features two long pieces of wood that make a "V" shape together. The bracing is quite thin and flexible near the rear bout, but it becomes thicker as you get closer to the soundhole.
So, you get volume from the flexible parts of the bracing, and sustain from the rigid parts! Many areas of the guitar neck that typically sound weak (ninth fret on the G string, for instance) have just as much presence, resonance, and sustain as the low E. As a result, the 712ce sounds supremely balanced and sculpted. When you hear one played live in the room, you'd swear a mix engineer had already done a bunch of post-production work on it. And, it gives the guitar piano-like note separation and crystalline clarity even when you play fancy jazz chords!
Intonation Station
V-Class bracing also does wonders for the guitar's intonation. Are you ready to have your mind blown? When I visited the Taylor headquarters El Cajon, Andy Powers explained that an acoustic guitar's intonation is not necessarily just the sum of the typical adjustments like saddle height, nut slots, and neck angle (though they do play a part). The way that the
actual guitar itself vibrates also has a lot to do with how in-tune it sounds.
Andy told me to picture it like this: when you take close-up slow-motion footage of a guitar's top with a high-speed camera as someone plays it, you can see the top move vividly. On a traditional X-braced guitar, the top vibrates in a disorderly, disjointed manner. This can cause a guitar with the perfect saddle height and neck angle to sound out of tune when you play a big open chord.
By contrast, guitars with V-Class bracing vibrate in a much more orderly manner. The graduated braces compel the energy from the player's attack to move from the thin outer part of the bracing to the thicker inner part in an efficient manner. If you were to take a high-speed shot of a V-Class top, you would see it rock back and forth evenly in a pleasing pattern. Because of that V-Class magic, the 712ce sounds so in-tune that it's scary.
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