Tagged As: Breedlove Guitars
Question:
I'm looking into a Breedlove nylon string guitar. Has anyone played one of these? They have a 1 3/4 neck, but I'm wondering how thick the neck is. I personally hate chunky necks and like a thin neck. It suits my style of playing. My other guitar is a Parker because of the thin neck. I'd appreciate any info on any kind of Breedlove and playability and neck width. They're expensive guitars and this one has to be custom ordered.
Answer:
The Breedlove nylon strings have a thin neck with a slim profile. I just sold one of these because the neck was too narrow for me. You'll probably like it just fine. I've seen Breedloves but never the nylon and I'm concerned about buying it blind. Do you have any other insights or advice? Did you like the sound? Hope I didn't insult you with my hate remark. I once bought an electric with a thick neck and had trouble playing it. I have a Gibson J185 which I would think has an average to thick neck profile and I like it a lot. I want a Nylon for the soft and more sensuous sound. Dorgan owned one once but Draper says T-butt couldn't play very well. He didn't think it was the guitar's fault. I thought the sound was very nice, though it doesn't project like a classical guitar. But I guess that's what the electronics are for, right? I bought it for two reasons: (1) I started playing pieces that required wrapping my thumb around the neck and fretting notes on the low E, which I couldn't do on my standard classical guitar. I have small hands, so getting around that fat neck had always been a problem. (2) It's an incredibly beautiful and well-made instrument. Later on I got myself a telecaster, and I realized that I didn't get tension in my neck and upper back when I played ... which I did when I played acoustic, thicker-bodied guitars. I had also returned to playing more of my classical repertoire, and I found that the fretboard was simply too narrow for technically intensive pieces. Even with extra hard tension strings, I kept pulling the high E string off the neck. A few times I even inadvertently pushed the low E over the edge. Upon close inspection, I could see that the high E string is slightly closer to the edge of the fretboard than the low E. On all my other guitars, the spacing looks equal ... to my eye, anyway. So I went in search of a classical crossover guitar with a 1-7/8 fretboard and a slimmer body. I ordered myself a Carvin CL450 that has a 2.5 deep body with 14 lower bout, along with Fishman electronics. The fretboard is 1-7/8 with a 20 radius. This is 1/8 wider than the Breedlove, with a flatter radius. (Don't know what the radius of the Breedlove, but it definitely is more like that of a steel-string guitar.) I had the model where the neck joins the body at the 12th fret. Anyway, if you're not playing classical repertoire, the 1-3/4 neck may not be a problem for you. But even though you may not be able to get your hands on the Breedlove itself, do try to check out other crossover classical with the narrower neck. Wechter makes one, among others. The Breedlove is far too expensive an instrument to make a mistake. You may want to check out the Breedlove user group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Breedloveguitars/). At least 2 of the members have nylon Breedloves. When you join the group, just do a search on nylon to see what's been discussed already.
Add to favorites