Stanford D5/12 PAD

This is a 12 string dreadnought guitar with german spruce top and quite an exotic kind of wood for back and sides called Padouk. I think it is an african wood, my luthier tells me that it appears to be of orange colour as long as there is no laquer on it.Now it has a redish sort of colour, something between mahogany and rosewood whereas the wood grain looks more like rosewood. The neck is made of two pieces of mahogany, very straight and more the slim sort of neck,good playability.20 frets, medium size.The guitar is all solid.When I bought this guitar it had satin finsh for top, body and neck. Because I didn't like that look I handrubbed top and body to something like a medium gloss finish, which looks much better.Tuners are Schaller with white pearl knobs, very nice.

I like playing Leo Kottke tunes like busted bicycle or watermelon, so I was looking for a long scale 12 string ( at least 65 cm, 25,8 inches) so it can be tuned down one and a half step and I wanted a guitar that would produce these shattering bass frequencies which pleasently give a massage to your stomach while your playing. Well, the Stanford really does exactly that. Also playing in open tunes and sliding works good, although The high e-strings could be a little louder.

When I bought this guitar from " der Gitarrenladen" in Weingarten/ Germany the action was very low with almost no string-buzz exept from the bass strings when strummed very hard.But the intonation wasn't correct. I tried medium gauge D'Addario Phosphor Bronze strings and it got even worse.My luthier recommended to vary string length by making a new, bigger bridge insert and just giving every string the exact length it needed. That helped and wasn't too expensive too. so now I'm all satisfied with intonation and action.

This guitar is kind of sensitive to change in string tension, I think this is because it's built very light, in fact I was surprised when I took it up for the first time.After restringing it, the guitar allways needs about 24 hours to get back to it's normal condition but then works fine, even though I sometimes change tuning three to four times while playing. I've tried this in live shows too and it really works.I use a guitar humidifier and keep the guitar in it's case to prevent it from drying.I hope this will do the job so I can have fun with it for a long time.

I exchanged several e-mails with the Furch company who actually make these guitars under the label of Stanford. They always replied within one or two days and seemed very friendly people. What is really great: you can have almost every thinkable custom option in your Stanford guitar and the price is still far below the big American names. But: if you order one, you'll have to wait for at least half a year. These instruments are all handmade, all solid and not too expensive, ergo many people want them...

I'm playing guitar for about 25 years now, I own eleven guitars, three of them being 12 strings( a seagull S 12+ and a Maton M 125).I had a fishman piezo-pickup installed and use a framus acoustic amp for live-playing, good sound with this line-up.If this guitar would get lost I would buy the D5/12 Vintage version because it looks even more beautiful, the sound couldn't be much better.I think the sound and playability make this guitar a real inspiring instrument. This is something that happens very rarely and I'm absolutely happy to own one of these.