Seagull Artist Grand

Mfg. in 1998. Made in Canada. Solid rosewood back, solid spruce top, laminate rosewood sides (rosewood-maple-rosewood). Rosewood bridge and fretboard. Mahogany neck. Gloss finish all around. Gold Schaller style tuners. Beautiful instrument! Baggs ribbon transducer and EQ onboard.

Great guitar for fingerstyle, strumming and even flatpicking. Had a decent sound before I had Micarta nuta and saddle replaced with bone. Now it sounds incredible. Low E doesn't really boom, but it's getting better every day as it opens up. Sounds treat plugged in to my Crate CA-30 acoustic amp.

Fit and finish are excellent. My other main axe is a Taylor, and the fit and finish on the 'gull is comparable. Looks as good inside as it does outside.

Built like a stone axe. I don't play my guitar out of the house, but if I did, I'd take this one out with no backup.

Have only emailed a few questions to them, so I really can't say. My 12 string and this one are both out of warranty, so not sure I'd ever have to deal with them anyway.

I've owned a Baby Taylor, and have played a Larrivee Parlor. In my opinion this blows the Baby Taylor away, and is comparable to the Larrivees (which are only being made now in gloss finish, and go for about $1000). This model is discontinued, but if you can pick one up locally or on EBay, I'd highly recommend it!

small bodied, solid spruce top, solid rosewood back and laminated rosewood sides. mahogonay neck with rosewood fingerboard inlaid with mother of pearl seagull. Artist series made in seperate shop to main guitar " factory " neck is medium/wide with a matt finish on the back which makes it very smooth and easy to play.

great sound that has matured well, I have had the guitar from new over a year. Ideal for fingerstyle not so good for strumming as it can be a little harsh. Loud guitar with a very sweet tone.

I have not had the guitar set up since I bought it. The action is fine and the guitar stays in tune. The fingerboard is slightly dry but thi can be easily remedied. The spruce top is beautifully silked , nice thin gloss finish, overall quality is good.

Seems durable but I have only used it at home.

I have been playing about 25 years and own a Bourgeois OMC and a custom Tipin 000T. I love this guitar, it is easy to pick up and play anything on and altough not in the same league as my other guitars has as much to offer in its own way. I would not want to part with it and I believe they have just stopped making this model in an artist series so would buy one second- hand if this were stolen.

This is the high end version of the well recieved grand. The size and overall feel is like the original grand but the wood has been upgraded. Rather than the laminate cherry and solid cedar top of the grand, the Artist model uses a solid spruce top mated to (solid)rosewood back and (laminated) sides. The neck is the same as the grand (Mahogany) and the features are very similar, with the L.R. Baggs micro eq and a hard case listed as options. The finish is upgraded to high gloss for what that is worth, and the scale (on this instrument) is 24 3/4" with a nut width of 1 3/4, and 2 1/8 at the bridge. I should note that I have played about 5 diferent grands, not one of which has been completely identical, with variations in scale and nut width that kind of surprised me (from a 1 5/8 nut on one early model to a scale of 25 11/16" on another). This particular neck, however, is a joy to play and really kicks for comfort. I elected to get the hard case, as I travel a lot(this is an option that you will have to negotiate into your price), but I took a pass on the mic EQ pickup in favor of installing my own Fishman rare earth blend -more on this later.

I am a straight ahead fingerstylist, classically trained, who performs in an original songwriting duo with a female singer (my wife, fortunately) averaging 125 foreground concerts a year. I alternate between DADGAD (mostly) and occasionally Standard tuning and I am almost always plugged in, performance or rehearsal. I chose this guitar mainly due to its size, since it allows me to stand when I play (for reasons of energy flow, image, and audience interaction) and still maintain the hand positions I need to do what I do. In fact, I had picked up one of the original Seagull grands to give it a try and fell in love with the ease and ergonomics of it. This guitar was basically an upgrade of that first Seagull. As such, I expected the sound to be well balanced and full, with the same rich midrange and sustain that characterized the grand, but maybe with more prominint trebles due to the spruce. I also figured that since I modify the sound by using a magnetic pickup combo as well as effects such as reverb and delay that the acoustic sound would be fine however it turned out. What I wasn't prepared for was how much the sound matured and how unbelievably good it became as the guitar broke in. Every three weeks or so I get some time to myself in my bedroom to play unamplified, and each time I do a little shoot out with my exemplar guitar, a Lowden S-25, well played in. At first, it was no contest in favor of the Lowden, as expected of an older $2900 guitar -with the grand lacking in some of the complexities of the more expensive instrument. Within about three months (remember, I play on it a lot) the grand had come into its own, with rich, overtone laden trebles, full bass, and beaucoup killer sustain. It will never be as loud as the bigger guitar, but it is now every bit as much fun to play unplugged. If you like the classic "new age" sound ie: Pierre or Alex or the softer side of the winfield kansas crowd, this may be the piece for you. I am also very satisfied with the plugged in sound, and I get a lot of comments from audiences and other players. I usually run the Rare earth through a basic art tube preamp into a mackie 1202 into a crown K2 amp and out through EAW speakers. Very nice. The guitar pickup combo also works well through the same preamp into a Fender Acoustasonic SFX amp for smaller rooms although I dial out the mic since the amp colors the sound with warmth and presence (probably a good thing for Fender...). A tip- if you split a rare earth blend running the magnetic into a tube pre, and the mic into a compressor/pre (like a joe meek) you can get a fantastic sound for recording direct (in my case into a Roland VS unit) with good isolation from other sources (like my wife's vocals for example) I will definately consider recording our next CD with this setup!

As you might gather from the lengthy entry above, I like this guitar a lot. With that said up front, the fit and finish sucks. I am surprised that LASIDO (Canadian company that does Seagull, Godin, Simon & Patrick and some others) let a flagship guitar from their artist series out the door like that. For example, the rosewood back is not properly bookmatched, with the seam running at a slight diagonal across the back. The two upper bouts are subtly different sizes (enough to notice), the neck is slightly off center and the bridge is consequently off center as a result. In fact, since the pickup that I use is sound hole mounted, I was forced to take a rasp to the hole to center the magnets in the rare earth properly. Despite these rather big boners on the part of their "crafstman", the guitar still plays great (due to a very nicely shaped neck and fretboard) and the sound is, as mentioned, stellar. (perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in that...). Again, I bought this guitar as a workhorse for road ratting it, and I tend to close my eyes in performance anyway...I give it a three -and that only because the action is glorious, but for a retail price of around a thousand bucks, gimmee a break.

No problems here, I use it all the time without a backup. Climate seems to have no adverse effects on the setup, the neck is very stable from city to city and tuning to tuning. Acoustic guitars tend to be hammer and anvil simple and this is no exeption. No real fret wear or finish wear (although I play with fingers, no pick scratches here). The light weight is a bonus Set after set and at load in and out.

I rip on LASIDO for quality control, and in my experience, they deserve it. However, when they make a mistake and you call them on it, they jump to it admirably. A story: I purchase a Godin Multiac Duet in 1998 for travel (the artist grand wasn't out then) and when it arrived, the neck was a mess, to much relief on the treble and not enough on the bass. It also had high frets at several locations. My tech called BS on it and since it was a bolt on (as incidentally is the whole Seagull line including the grand series), I called the company to see what could be done. At 100+ concerts a year, I can't fool around waiting for ground shipments from Quebec. To LASIDO's credit, they set my tech up as a warranty center, shipped the neck out instantly and I recieved it about a week later. I was without the guitar for one afternoon! I haven't mentioned the various issues with my grand to them and I won't since it plays and sound great and I don't feel like breaking in a new one, but I am confident now that if I raised a stink, I would get another guitar. I have to credit Joey in RA's for stepping up when needed.

I play a lot of guitars in a lot of stores throughout the western region. If someone ran off with this one, I would order another instantly. I love the sound, it is so easy to play that I can do some things on it technically that I can't do on a bigger guitar like my Lowden. If you want a parlor sized fingerstyle instrument for performance or recording, you can't go wrong here. I would suggest, since you will probably be making a special order to get one that you write in a right of refusal/replacement subject to workmanship evaluation. The only thing I would ask lasido to consider is possibly a cutaway option. All in all, a way cool little guitar for bedroom or coffeehouse / theatre circuit use. If you value sound / playability above all else, as I obviously must, you will love the bang for buck that this guitar gives. (I like the original grand for the same reasons if you only have a couple hundred dollars by the way...) I should probably add that despite some fierce irregularities in the construction, It is still a pretty instrument, spruce, rosewood, glossy finish and all