- 14 hours ago
Richard Barrett and Jamie Dickson try out two new budget-conscious but US-built 'Special' versions of the classic J-45 and Hummingbird acoustics that both come in for south of £2k. Putting the guitars through their paces and examining the features that grant the guitars the classic sound of these famous famous designs while offering tempting value for money.
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MusicTranscript
00:14I'll see you next time.
00:55hey I'm Jamie with guitarist magazine and I'm Richard and today we're going to
00:59we've got two really cool new acoustic guitars from Gibson now everyone loves the sound of classic
01:05Gibson acoustics especially Gibson dreadnoughts like the guitars we have here the limiting factor
01:12for most people is that quality doesn't come cheap classic sounds don't come cheap typically from
01:17Gibson and mostly if you wanted a J45 like this one or a hummingbird like this one you'd be paying
01:23well north of two grand for it now however Gibson have brought out these two guitars which is the
01:28hummingbird special and the J45 special yeah so what have we got here Rich well we have the
01:35same ingredients tone wood wise that you would have in the more full fat counterpart solid sicker
01:43spruce top solid mahogany back and sides now the neck is another wood related to mahogany now I
01:49think that you might have mentioned it earlier and I've forgotten what it was well so it goes by a
01:53couple of names but a sepo is is one and it's kind of a mahogany analog as you say and
01:59so they've put
02:00the money into genuine mahogany for the back and sides solid as well isn't it right and I would say
02:07that the sepo it doesn't seem at all kind of out of place it looks it looks like kind of
02:11mahogany to
02:12the to a casual glance I've got to say and I've played both of these I think they sound great
02:16yeah they sound really good I mean and arguably with the solid top you could say they're just going to
02:21get better and better yeah the more they're played I mean what else was I going to say
02:26Indian rosewood fretboards on both of them Indian rosewood bridges grover tuners tusk nuts so you
02:33don't have to do any messing around with graphite or lubricants and and they're ready to go they
02:38come with a LR bags um element bronze pickup right right which is just there's a discreet
02:44sound hole volume control there which is so so really what they've done is which I think is is
02:49they've done quite shrewdly is they've said okay what are the things that make um a Gibson acoustic
02:55sound good and what are the things which are you know in the full fat um traditional versions what
03:02are they what are mainly cosmetic you know nice to haves rather than must haves yeah and I think
03:07with these two guitars we've got the must haves rather than the nice to haves and um that's been a
03:13that's enabled them to bring it down to um a price point that you won't have seen probably before
03:18on guitars like this uh new this is 1899 and that's 1699 yeah so okay they're not they're not
03:26cheap they're not budget guitars but equally that's a proper pucker j45 it is and I must say
03:31that as as someone that was brought up I mean I grew up seeing people play the original j45s and
03:37things like that on the tv and seeing the beetles and things like that um and quite a lot of
03:42the
03:42guitars that were available that looked a bit like that yeah it sort of ended when you pick them up
03:47and
03:47you saw the geometry of the neck body and bridge and you really would have to work at it and
03:52what
03:53is really lovely about this is the neck angles the string height and there's plenty of saddle left
03:59because everyone knows that as acoustic guitars age they start to belly a little bit which is
04:03perfectly normal but can often mean neck resets and things like that well these are decades away from
04:10anything like that yeah they play beautifully so they do indeed so I mean if we go over to the
04:16hummingbird because the hummingbird was a more ornate guitar to begin with I would say I feel
04:20like the j45 is a is almost like a better recipient of this kind of treatment because it looks more
04:26like it's more expensive counterpart it does and actually you've got real pearl dots on that one
04:30for example whereas this has got um celluloid kind of parallelogram um inlays whereas the real one
04:35would have like um pearl proper pearl um and I would say it does look a bit more visible that
04:41they
04:41where they've cut corners on that just because of that um I mean one thing I'd say about that as
04:45well I mean I absolutely agree but I wonder as with a lot of new guitars that have traveled
04:50across the world and everything you often end up getting them out of the box and thinking that
04:53fretboard could do with a little bit of oil it probably yes fine at the factory whatever and I
04:58wonder whether the uh an oil might just give a slight extra luster to the yeah to the inlays on
05:04there well that's a that's an interesting point because um another way that Gibson have um saved a
05:09little bit of money um on the on the ticket price of these is that it's a satin it's a
05:13nitro finish so
05:14it's a thin skin nitro finish which is good yeah we like that on acoustics it lets them resonate it's
05:18traditional but there is satin so that means they haven't done all of the extra hand work of buffing
05:24them to a high polish which is which is again time is money so yes indeed yeah the sort of
05:29extra coats
05:29and the extra buffing I think it looks nice on on the j45 it looks very natural I think yeah
05:34yeah and
05:34I can see that over a period of time that you could probably polish it and it might gloss up
05:39a little bit
05:40and look quite vintagey yeah I think you do have that option obviously you have to proceed carefully
05:44um but with a bit of polish and elbow grease if you wanted to bring the pot the gloss up
05:49a bit
05:49yourself at home you would probably be able to do that as long as you subtly yeah did that did
05:54that
05:54carefully so um again on the the hummingbird we've got this this classic sort of scratch plate design
06:01here which is yeah that sort of tells you exactly what it is immediately doesn't it it does indeed
06:04and um just a little bit of jargon busting we often hear the term square-shouldered and round-shouldered
06:11dreadnoughts um these are the perfect embodiment of that aren't they just yeah yeah so I've got
06:15round-shouldered as you can see which feels nice and ergonomic I do like it I like it I like
06:20the look
06:20of it yeah I mean I like both to be fair but yes there is something very appealing about this
06:24on
06:24with this finish the whole package is very much quite appealing isn't it and and on here obviously
06:30square-shouldered um these these aren't I mean this is more like a martin kind of shape we think
06:35of a d28 that's kind of a square-shouldered uh dreadnought they're both dreadnoughts which
06:39again to the uninitiated is the has become the default kind of acoustic size hasn't it but but at one
06:46point it was the biggest acoustic you could you could buy yeah before the sort of jumbo um guitars
06:52came out yeah and I mean I'm going we're going back all the way to the sort of 1930s and
06:56before really
06:57but uh once these had kind of come out um one of the characteristics of dreadnoughts is when you're
07:03strumming they have lots of bass push you know they have a real full loud sound so should we listen
07:09to some sounds here yeah yeah in fact one thing that struck me if just I'll give this a bit
07:14of a
07:14harder strum because I dare say the viewers will already have heard us doing some finger picking
07:19at this point in the video and I just wanted to point out that this is so versatile yeah that
07:23you can
07:23absolutely sort of come in really light with the picking or
07:41to me it's got a really nice contained bass sound but I can feel it here but it's got that
07:48bit of
07:48thump I think one of the things I'm looking for in a Gibson dreadnought is a certain sweetness you know
07:53yeah they're not strident they're not painful to the ears they're not all about volume there's a
07:58sort of sweetness and a balance and I really hear that yes and I will say I've played custom shop
08:02j45s you know which on paper are a lot more expensive a lot more you know uh high cachet guitars
08:09that I haven't liked as much as that one I've sounded quite dull and actually I agree I mean I
08:13suppose
08:14it's it's it's a sort of controversial thing to say in some ways but anyone who's ever been shopping
08:20for a guitar with a few quid in their pocket and um you definitely do get good ones and I
08:27won't say
08:28bad ones but you get standout ones don't you yeah yeah that's right and those are the ones you should
08:33always look for and I would advise that with any acoustic guitar or indeed any guitar full stock
08:37do we hear a little bit strumming on this one as well yeah
08:55I feel like I'm hearing a little bit more brightness and a little bit more clarity
09:00I guess so but what I would say is because I couldn't help myself you know when I arrived here
09:05and we got these out yeah I had a bit of a play on both of them and um it's
09:09quite different hearing
09:11someone else play yeah especially when you're playing it harder like that and there is that
09:16body and depth to it but yes I know what you mean about the brightness and I definitely felt that
09:20when
09:20I was playing it yeah but there is that sort of thud and I can't help feeling that these would
09:26record
09:26well sometimes you get an acoustic where it's lovely to play and you really the resonance feels great and
09:31then the first thing that you have to do with it when you pull the track up when you've recorded
09:35is
09:35kind of shelve away some of that yeah that bottom because it's too much yeah and these feel like
09:39they'd record really well I think so yeah definitely I mean it's
09:47they're not lacking but it's just they're balanced no no not at all and I think the other thing is
09:52I
09:52don't feel there I don't like stodgy acoustics you know where where there's there's there's feels like
09:56there's a good amount of separation there's a lot of air in that in the sound I mean give us
10:00another little
10:15I've turned into one of those annoying people that keeps wobbling I need to stop apologies
10:32and you can hear immediately playing that I don't I don't know what the originals were played on
10:37I think actually I was going to say Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here that was actually a Martin I
10:40believe
10:40but um uh nonetheless that whole sort of songbook of classic rock acoustic guitar leaps out these
10:48I personally love that mind you that that kind of thing it's my vocabulary still now in 2025
10:56I also think of the you know songs like America's horse with no name and things like that
11:01we have the copyright thing but I can sort of wait a couple of minutes and then
11:09E minor is such a good chord to check out an acoustic with I think
11:13I think also some chords really can sort of reveal whether an acoustic guitar is any cop you know quite
11:20quickly as a rule of thumb you know you start with these I like the fact they sit in tune
11:24nicely
11:30yeah
11:30yeah
11:31yeah
11:38and that's all the way up the neck as well which is a really good sign actually
11:42there's nothing worse in an acoustic guitar than you have a really promising tone and then you start
11:47getting I'm just like nothing will ever see yeah yeah didn't you have that old one once and I kind
11:51of
11:51was lusting after it to look at but you said I had to move it on because it wouldn't play
11:55in tune yeah
11:55well that's the thing I mean that was a very a very well-worn 70s J45 which is a different
12:00proposition to this again this is more after the sort of 1940s kind of pattern really and which is
12:05which is kind of the golden era I think what do you think about the prices I mean you know
12:09these
12:09guitars at 1699 and 1899 are up against I think like some of Martin's kind of more simply appointed
12:18versions of triple O's and things like that yeah I mean 17 series things and I'm not sure if the
12:24Martin are they using solid woods all round I think I believe so I mean I'll add the caveat that
12:30I
12:30haven't got the spec sheet in front yeah I don't know them off by heart so I mean I think
12:34that
12:34to pay to have the option to pay what was probably about a grand less for something that is essentially
12:41the same guitar yeah I think is a really good thing yeah um and I suppose if you're a Gibson
12:48person or a Martin person I mean I do genuinely like both but there is something about a Gibson acoustic
12:54yeah I must admit they have their own thing don't they and another thing that we should mention is
12:58one of the key differences between um the majority of Martins not all and these is these have the
13:04shorter scale length or this one certainly does the J45 has 24.75 inch um scale length um which is
13:11a
13:11little bit shorter arguably a little bit easier to you know yeah and it has a certain sound as well
13:16I
13:16think that a longer scale I mean people talk about the difference in scale lengths on electric guitars and
13:21you know that a longer scale might give possibly a little bit more bass end but a bit more top
13:27as well
13:27it sounds stiffer and it feels stiffer um though I have to say the the tuning because that's one
13:34thing I would expect to maybe suffer but it hasn't suffered on here at all um it plays really in
13:41tune
13:41and there is a slight softness about it which I think may contribute to what you were talking about
13:47a few minutes ago yeah the other thing I like about these is um guitarists being guitarists we do move
13:53guitars on we do sell things when we want to get something new and I I do think one thing
13:58appeals
13:58to me about this you know Gibson you know whether you like Gibson or you don't it's it's an undeniable
14:03heritage brand and thing they they will hold their value yeah well yeah you'll sort of depending on the
14:09time frame you'll get back what you paid won't you yeah and there and thereabouts you know and
14:14so I think I personally I think they sit price wise and actually quite a nice price point because
14:18they ain't cheap but I feel like you know um there's something you could save for most people
14:25could save for over time and it's not like it's not like if you were considering buying um you know
14:31like um a really high end um I don't want to keep using Martin as the example but think of
14:38any maker
14:38that does a really ornate thing yes yeah absolutely 10 15 grand plenty of them around aren't there I mean
14:43like maybe Taylor or something like that if you were going to go good good example yeah like a high
14:48end you know 900 series Taylor or something like that is a good chunk of money yeah um and and
14:54probably some of those guitars are ones that most people wouldn't ever own in their lifetime because
14:58they're just prohibitively yeah not prohibitively expensive but they are expensive for most people
15:03these I feel are within a they're comparable price wise to things like um uh American Pro Fender
15:10electrics you know yes yeah so I mean you've got your Grover tuners the tusk nut which is a good
15:15thing you know that's that's nice to have that rather than have a sticky plastic thing solid woods um
15:21Indian rosewood appointments you've got the pickup I mean these are not something that they're making
15:27for a couple of hundred quid then selling for a couple of grand are they these are these are proper
15:30instruments no that's right and and while they look at look a little bit down spec'd um in certain ways
15:37not not in think ways that stick out like a sore thumb but if you know what you're looking at
15:41you
15:41can go oh yeah they've sort of taken that down a bit but they don't sound down spec'd do they
15:45which
15:45is the key thing no definitely not great well I think these are really nice actually so um
15:52you know they're classics they've got got all the money's gone in all the right places and you can hear
15:57it which is the best thing about it I mean if we're going to be really realistic about this I
16:01prefer
16:01I prefer this finish yeah then yeah that's a good point is this this sort of sunburst um cherry
16:08sunburst is especially in a satin can come out a little bit tending towards garish depending it's
16:15all subjective yeah some people might love it and I apologize to those people I think but I think for
16:20that reason the one that looks most comfortable in its own skin at that price point the cheaper
16:23of the two is the j45 yeah they've really nailed the color and the way the burst is yeah yeah
16:28so I would
16:29say two great guitars you pay your money and you take your choice but um you're getting a lot of
16:33what matters in an acoustic guitar with both of these instruments so I hope you've enjoyed watching
16:37our review of them and if you have liked what you've seen hit like and subscribe and you'll find
16:43many more reviews of this kind on our channel
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