Martin Guitars Custom Shop D-28

An Acoustic Icon

Attention, all acoustic guitar aficionados! The Wildwood team is brimming with excitement about our latest collaboration with the Martin Custom Shop: a new run of Custom Shop D-28s! Why are we so geeked? Well, two of our favorite things in the entire world are basking in the glorious sound of a great Martin and providing our customers with exceptional value, and this run of Martins allows us the opportunity to do both! Let’s take a closer look and see why these guitars have won our hearts in record time.

Big Tone. Big Value

When we spec’d out these guitars, our goal was to build mighty guitars that could slay all comers in the acoustic arena while keeping them at a reasonable price point. So, we took some of our favorite standard Martin models and made a couple choice tonal tweaks to set them apart from the pack.

When we considered what type of sound to go for, the discussion was short and the decision was unanimous: we should try to emulate the tone of . While our desire to keep the price point low trumped our desire to deck these guitars out with vintage-accurate appointments, we do believe that our choices regarding tonewood and bracing have imbued these guitars with the spirit of a vintage Martin.

Awesome Adirondack Action

To cop this vintage-style tone, we asked the folks at Martin to equip these Martins with Adirondack spruce tops and bracing. It’s no secret that we love Adirondack spruce to an unhealthy degree here at Wildwood, so let’s dive into the reasons for our obsession with this stellar tonewood.

Adirondack spruce produces a plethora of pleasing timbres. From the get-go, it gives the guitar a woody, percussive attack with piano-like roundness and an exceptionally wide dynamic range. You can coax plenty of different sounds out of a guitar with an Adirondack top simply by altering your right-hand technique, so it really facilitates expressive playing!

Part of the reason for this is the otherworldly amount of headroom that Adirondack spruce offers. Every acoustic guitar’s top has a point at which it cannot get any louder. Once you hit that point, the top is “maxed-out” and playing harder yields more compression rather than more volume.

For guitars with Adirondack tops, that point is much, much higher than normal. So, you can really hit hard with your right hand without losing any clarity. Think of it like this: if electric guitar players prize amps that can “go to eleven,” acoustic guitarists prize Adirondack spruce because it can go to quadruple-fortissimo. Nevertheless, it is still quite expressive and open-sounding at lower volumes.

Making a Great D-28

The Martin D-28 and Adirondack spruce are a match made in acoustic guitar heaven. Adirondack’s natural clarity brings focus and precision to the enormous, piano-like resonance of the rosewood back and sides, making the guitar sound like a wooden cannon capable of leveling entire cities with its awe-inspiring acoustic power. Speaking of heavenly things, we asked our friends at Martin to equip these guitars with forward-shifted Golden Era scalloped 5/16” bracing to maximize dynamic range and provide a truly inspirational playing experience. Though these guitars are still wooden cannons, this bracing configuration gives them a greater capacity for subtlety and nuance than you might expect from a muscle-bound dreadnought!

Feel the Joy

Playing a Custom Shop Martin is a singularly joyous experience, and we could not be happier to share that joy with you wonderful Wildwoodians. We know that these Custom Shop D-28s will prove themselves to be steadfast companions on your acoustic adventures, and we cannot wait to see how they inspire you along the way.