Guild Orpheum Slope Shoulder Dreadnaughts...

About two weeks prior to the NAMM Show, our Guild rep, David Balmer, stopped in to pay us a visit. He stopped in to give us a sneak peak at some really special guitars that will be on their way to us in the hopefully not too distant future.

The guitars he brought with him were from the Guild Custom Shop in New Hartford, Connecticut and master luthier Ren Ferguson. Most people know Ren as being the very well respected architect of Gibson's acoustic resurrection in Bozeman, Montana. Ren has moved on, though, and is now fully engaged in projects at Guild.

His first offerings for Guild? The Orpheum Slope Shouldered Dreadnoughts.

David brought both versions of the guitar; a 14 fret and the other a 12 fret. The idea behind these, according to David, was to build the guitars that Guild would've built in, say, the 1930's, had Guild been around back then. Of course, what this approach allows is a complete disregard for convention. These were, for the most part, a blank slate. The Orpheum models are designed to evoke that bygone 1930s-era golden age of acoustic guitar design and construction.

The idea, essentially, was to "recreate" something that never actually existed, and I guess such an endeavor could be either wildly successful or woefully disappointing, depending on who was at the helm.

So, with Ren Ferguson at the helm, what's the verdict?  

Touchdown.

The 14-fret is a very nice guitar. The one we got our mitts on featured solid Mahogany back and sides and a solid Adirondack Spruce top.  

Money:

The Ren Ferguson 14-fret prototype...

If you don't love a slope-shouldered Dreadnought, you have no soul...

As nice as that one was, David's visit was only going to get better. Next up was a slope shouldered 12-fret Dreadnought. I could probably carry on for days discussing all of the ridiculously great things about this guitar, but I'll just say that the general consensus amongst the PMC Broadway crew is that this guitar is simply stellar.

I love a 12-fret guitar. There's just something about the tone which reaches out and punches you square in the chest when you play it. I suspect Ren Ferguson knew this when he designed this guitar, because it's pretty clear that he wasn't going to be satisfied with a simple punch in the chest. Instead, he went for a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick  by making it a deep-body Dread.

Man:

The Ren Ferguson 12-Fret slope shouldered Dreadnought... knee deep in tonal nirvana...

There have been rare occasions in my life when I played a guitar, and all instantly seemed right with the world. The clouds parted and the sun shone. Angels sang as doves flew on high.

Okay, so that might be a bit dramatic; my apologies. But this guitar is epic. I've seen and played a lot of really nice acoustic guitars over the last ten years. After a while, you stop getting instantly impressed. For me, if a guitar wants to impress me, it's gotta' work at it. Well, that just wasn't the case with this guitar. I picked it up, strummed a G chord, and I was hooked; instantly and irrevocably hooked.

It's with a tip of the hat to the esteemed Mr. Ferguson when I say "Yes, please".

The new Guild logo for the Orpheum Slope Shoulder Dreadnoughts...

Engraved tuner buttons complete the "attention to detail" vibe of these guitars...

Jason, our Assistant Manager, can't seem to get enough of a good thing...

Some of the cooler specs? Well, how about hide glue construction? How about a bone nut and saddle? How about bone bridge pins? Attention to detail is evident throughout these guitars, which is what one would expect coming out of a combination of Guild Guitars and Ren Ferguson.

If the production guitars are anything even remotely similar to the prototypes we had the privilege to examine, they're going to jump onto the top of the heap in terms of both playability and tone.