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Getting your priorities right when choosing a guitar.
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Thought I'd start a thread on preferences regarding guitar smells 😜
I have a Taylor with an Urban Ash body and a spruce top. I love the smell of this guitar. The fundamental base notes consist of a dry forest on a hot afternoon, Whilst the top notes cleverly combine this with sweet candy floss and a subtle hint of maple syrup. Not overpowering or cloying but with a lingering finish that stays with you long after the last chord has faded away.
I also have a Dupont that smells like a wet cardboard box. The base notes consist largely of damp socks and fish. In the top notes I can detect a hint of bin juice and my late dogs breath. In fact the only positive things I have to say about this guitar are that it plays and sounds amazing. I may have to sell it 😐️
Comments
Back in the late '80s and early '90s Gibson was adding coconut oil or some such essential oil to their acoustic finishes at the Bozeman plant. I remember smelling those sound holes while shopping for an acoustic, they were reminiscent of banana boat suntan oil.
I once bought an old Takeharu d hole gypsy which stank to high heaven. She smelled like an old musty wardrobe so she was christened "wee stinky".
Getting your priorities right when choosing a guitar!
One lifetime is not enough.
@crookedpinky Just be thankful you didn't have to call it Stinky Wee! 😂
I almost always perform the nose test whenever I pick up a new guitar; feel the neck and the action, do the nose test, then strum. That's pretty much the sequence. Just like whiskey or scotch tasting: swirl, smell, sip.
The Martin flattop I have has Indian RW back and sides and it's incredibly aromatic. Never came across anything similar. Smells as aromatic as a sandalwood or something like that might. When I bought the guitar, I thought it will go away as the guitar is ageing but it never did. The maple on my selmer style Ivanovski is just like any other furniture wood smell. At least there is no funk. My Strat though, now that is the funkmaster. Smells like an antique book store. But it's a good funk, like Laphroaig.
My guitar doesn’t have much of a smell, but I’ve always yearned for some guitar aromatherapy.
So every now and then I spray a hit of my wife’s expensive Pamplalune perfume in the old soundhole.
Aaahhhh! Wonderful!
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Hahaha.
The best smelling guitars are made of spanish cypress. That wood is incredible. If you leave one in it’s case for a week or more so the smell builds up then open the case you get a real fix. Ramirez line the sides of their A1 traditionals with spanish cypress. It’d be great if gypsy luthiers did something similiar cos it doesn’t make much difference what woods you use in laminated backs and sides. Spanish Cypress is the go to wood for flamencos which require a drier brighter sound with a fast attack.. Not dissimilar to what gypsy players like. Generalising here of course.