I have just spent a couple of very ego-boosting days at the Uppsala VI International Guitar Festival. My EGS guitar was finished with only days to spare, still smelling of linseed oil, and it was with some nervousness I showed up on Friday to exhibit it. Those of you that have followed the progress know that there are many experiments going on at the same time: ergonomic body shape, fanned frets, trapezoidal neck profile (contact Rick Toone for more information about this neck profile) , carbon truss rod, Lace Alumitone pickups, semi-hollow body, and the list goes on. Most visitors of the exhibition stopped to look twice and were intrigued. Those who looked closer and actually tried it said without fail something along the lines of: “That wasn’t as strange as I thought it would be” and then moved on to: “It’s actually really comfortable”. But this is only after dropping their jaw at the weight of 1850 grams (approx 4 lbs). And after commenting on the amazing sustain. Yes – putting 10 lbs of solid wood on your shoulder is not the only way to obtain it. Some other comments were:
- “It’s almost like it plays iself”
- “It’s so fast in its response!”
- “I could sit here all day and play”
- “It’s fun and like nothing else”
One comment that isn’t necessarily positive in all players’ ears was that “A ‘slow’ guitar like that one [a Gibson ES335] kind of prompts me to play faster. This guitar [the EGS guitar] is almost intimidating, because it responds so quickly.”
Anyway, until I work out how to get video clips in the right format and so on to put it on YouTube, here is a Windows Media clip of some players. There is a lot of ambient noise and it’s recorded with the built in video camera microphone, but I think it still shows the concept. I am working on more of a presentation video that I will post shortly.