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Ditto. They are on my Goodall and are fantastic. If there’s any sound difference, it’s to the positive, not the negative.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
I can’t walk outside to my car without coughing and I’m 100+ miles away from one of the large fires. There’s a couple smaller ones nearby but not close enough to worry. After a school event two days ago we came out to ash on our car. I can only imagine what it’s like nearby the fire.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Yes, by all means don’t take any chances.
Down here near the bay area the smoke is thick tonight. I can’t even go outside without it burning my eyes. I can only imagine what it’s like further north of here.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Why not try Santa Cruz strings? I’d recommend their low tension set (opposed to the medium tension ones). They sound wonderful and last a long time.
I loved how the JP lights sounded on my SCGC 00 when I had them on. I’ve tried several other types of strings too. I found I didn’t like monels on it and I had these copper-wrapped Cleartones (or was it Newtones? I can’t recall exactly) that were just too weird sounding. So far the JPs and the SCGCs have been best. I’d say third up would be Elixir PB nanowebs. If you wanter brighter, you might also try the 80/20 version of the Elixir nanowebs.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Three for me. I still have two of them.
My first encounter with SCGC guitars was a used one in Guitar Center. I think it was an OM. I didn’t think it was very good. That particular one was probably abused, maybe over-humidified, or under-humidified. It was kinda dead sounding. I’d heard good things about the brand so I didn’t let that impact my judgement, but it was my first experience with the brand. I eventually ran into a second one at Guitar Center and that one was much better but it was the wrong guitar at the wrong time for me so I didn’t buy it.
Then I wandered into Sylvan Music in Santa Cruz and played every SCGC they had and really liked a 00 EIR/Sitka they had. It was the best sounding guitar I had ever played. It had soul, it was vibrant, and it was easy to play (best neck I’d ever hand in my hand). I didn’t buy it that day because I hadn’t brought enough funds and lost out as someone else did, and it was only a week later that I went back to buy it. I left depressed.
Some weeks later I found a 00 Adi/Hog on Ebay and won the auction. It came with worn out frets and I think 10s on it. It didn’t sound great, but somehow I could sense it had a lot of potential. I was upset about the bad frets but decided to get it fixed instead of challenging the seller about it. I got stainless steel frets put on it and I carved a new saddle out of bone and put that in (the old one was badly chipped). What I got was, and is still, better even than the 00 I first played. It’s gorgeous in looks and sound and so easy to play. Why can’t all guitars be this easy? But I still wanted one that was rosewood-backed. I love rosewood. Had to have one.
I found a 00 EIR/Sitka with a slew of upgrades in Wisconsin but it was $6200 and I decided to wait for something to show up elsewhere for a bit less money. One never did (SCGC 00s don’t come around often on the used market) so I went back to Sylvan and bought a 00 Skye (yes, I know it’s just as pricey as the one I mentioned I didn’t buy, I had a moment of weakness that day). But, the the wide nut width eventually drove me to sell it, that and the fact that Cocobolo, while a superb tone wood, didn’t quite scratch the rosewood itch for me: I had to have rosewood. A few weeks after I sold the Skye (to a super nice guy back east who adores it) a 00 in EIR/Sitka showed up on Reverb with all kinds of upgrades. Turns out it was the $6200 guitar I had seen months ago, having been sold as part of a lot to a guy who was liquidating them as NOS (no warranty). It was selling for far less money this time. I made an offer for even less and it was accepted. It’s on my wall and I adore it. Both of my 00s have the wider 2 1/4 bridges, beautiful rosettes, upgrading binding, hide-glue Adi braces and the non-slotted headstocks: I do not like slotted headstocks. I do not understand or appreciate their attraction. They were each made in 2014 and 2015 and, as it turns out, were both custom orders to the same shop in Wisconsin, who always does custom orders (well, not any more it seems) with specs that happen to be just what I like best.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
And from me a hearty thanks for sticking around and continuing to build these wonderful instruments that have so caught my fancy.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Oh, my, that’s stunning. Makes me want to drop one of mine off and have that put into the fretboard.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Welcome and thanks for your service. My family is full of servicemen and women too.
A Taylor GC is sized about like an 000 guitar. An SCGC 00 or Skye would be ever so slightly smaller I think. A Firefly smaller still and I’d recommend you put hands on that one before buying as it’s real short scale and pretty small. Nice guitar, but you really gotta play it first. Single-0 size is nice too but sometimes they have really thick bodies, which you will want to be aware of if this is a consideration. Single-0 guitars have a unique sound and I like them a lot too.
A 1929 000 would be the closest to that Taylor you have (except it will likely have a longer scale), and in my opinion has more texture and depth than typical a Taylor. I don’t dislike Taylors, I just like SCGCs more.
I think a safe bet for you is anything from an 00 on up to an 000 or OM. The 00s come in 24.75″ scale, the Skye in 24.9″ scale and most 000 and OMs are something like 25.125″ scale. I feel you on the small hands. While I wouldn’t call my thick hands small, they do sport fingers that aren’t especially long, which has led me to stick with 24.75″ scale guitars and never again look at anything else. The longer scale is just not comfortable for me and if your fingers aren’t long, maybe not you either, and you’re already used to 24.9″, which is what the GC Taylors are set at.
Other notes: The Skye is a pretty unique sounding guitar with that Adi top married to a Cocobolo bottom. Make sure the sound is what you want before buying. Eric makes it sound incredible of course. An 00 in EIR or Mahogany sounds a bit warmer in my opinion, the mahogany especially (I have both types of SCGC). The Skye has this mid-range and treble clarity though that I haven’t heard duplicated elsewhere but I ended up selling mine due to the wider nut, which, BTW, it has and you need to be aware of that too. The more you play the various models the more you understand their individual personalities. So my final advice is to play as many as you can because it’s tough to know exactly what will strike that chord in your soul until you hear and feel it directly.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
My opinion is that the ivory should stay on the animal. You will be just as happy with bone.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
Those are very pretty. What is that top wood? I can’t quite place it in mental library.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
This post got me curious. I just put fresh SCGC lows on my two 00s so I played the 2nd fret A note to see if it sounded weird to me. Seems perfectly normal on my two guitars. I have had experiences where certain brands of strings don’t sound good on one guitar but sound great on another. For example: I like John Pearse PBs on Gibson acoustics but they made my Martin 00-28 sound dead.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
I will humbly suggest my favorite wishful combination (as if it were for me personally). I’d like the back and sides to be the 100-year-old mahogany and the top to be aged Adirondack. The fretboard would be Brazilian and the neck would be mahogany as well. Why? Because I think that combination would sound otherworldly.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
I tried the mediums on one of my 00 guitars and found it sounded kind of duller. I feel the lows vibrate the 00 size better and make the guitar feel and play more lively. So, like you, I wasn’t happy with that change. I’ve been trying other makes of strings too and I haven’t found one yet that I could say is better, which isn’t terribly surprising. John Pearse PBs in 12 come close but you have to let them break in for a few days. Still, I won’t put the JPs on there again since they don’t bring anything new or better to the table.
I heard that SCGC used to come with Elyxr strings before they developed their own. I’m tempted to try them just to see what they sound like. Generally though I have never been fond of that string brand but curiosity might win out and I’ll try them too.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
I don’t blame AGF for moderating some of the nastier discussions out of their database, but they always go too far. You can’t even put something like *%&$ in a post because of its allusion to expletives. You can’t even make any allusion where you have to fill in the parts and just might come up with something spicy. I got seriously chewed out for that. The moderator called what I wrote profanity when there wasn’t any words that any person would call profane. He didn’t like that “brass” sounded like… well, you know. You can’t even mention the moderators in a post. I got chewed out for that. A responder to one of my posts misunderstood my wording and thought I said one thing, to which I replied that I had meant something else. I got accused of starting a “food fight.” It goes on and on. Every other post I responded to or wrote got edited or deleted and then I’d get a nasty message from a moderator.
Guitar players are a varied bunch, but we’re also mostly adults who like to have adult conversations. If a forum is catering to children, fine, then they should keep it appropriate for that audience. But a forum that caters to people who play guitars in bars and occasionally have to defend themselves with their guitars; people who are generally over 30 and rarely under, don’t want that kind of oversight. And I certainly don’t want some guy talking to me like I’m a child because I’m having a conversation that would never raise an eyebrow anywhere else. So I left and I will never go back.
They might have 108k members but the number of those members that post isn’t that large. A vast majority of the posts are so washed out by the rules and moderations that they are stifling and boring to read. Anyway, enough about them. Time to play.
Santa Cruz 00 — Goodall 000 — Martin 00-28
