I recorded this last night in response to a thread in the Acoustic Guitars section about DADGAD instruments (in which RickS brought up Jim Tozier's book).

The arrangements that Jim presents in the book are great and they're also comparatively easy to play ... which is always a bonus.

Anyway, here's the video:

http://vimeo.com/5090003

Good job. What a nicely balanced tone from that guitar.

Sounds beautiful -- but I did notice your hats are becoming a bit more mainstream

Mike,

The Matsuda sounds great! I went back a couple of weeks ago to watch your L-4 video and it was GONE!!!

Eric, I pulled the L-4 video when I sold the Bacon & Day (because the sale of the Bacon & Day meant that the L-4 isn't going anywhere).

David, yeah ... it wasn't intentional. I just wasn't up for searching for a better hat that night. I will do better next time. I promise.

Rick, the thing with the Matsuda is how responsive it is. I don't know if you can tell from the video but I am BARELY playing it. The construction is very different from that of traditional builders. I talked with Julius (Borges) about it and he noted that Michi's guitars are built with very light tops and extremely tall braces (which obviously is in direct contrast to Martin-type builds). Michi told me I could use mediums or new mediums on it as long as I only played it in DADGAD or other dropped tunings (it never leaves DADGAD for me), but that if I use standard tuning I definitely need to use lights.

So I have it with mediums on the four outermost strings and lights in the middle.

The guitar definitely is more different (can there be varying degrees of "different"? ... I think so) than any guitar I've ever played. It feels like you could build a house with it. Or kill someone with it. The neck is substantial and it's heavy ... built a little like a drum, I guess, with a very heavy bottom but a light top. Feel-wise, it's more like a tightish-feeling rosewood CJ than any other Collings build. But it's a lot more responsive. If you so much as touch the strings it goes and goes. Doesn't particularly like being played hard (not unlike a Froggy), but there's no point in doing that anyway.

All that's to say that Michi's build makes achieving "balance" comparatively simple.

I have played a few other DADGAD-type guitars (whatever that means) since buying this one at the end of last year. With most of the ones I play, I think ... wow ... this is really nice. And then I get home and pick up the Matsuda and realize that there is not a better guitar for this tuning on this or any other planet.

Hyperbole? I seriously don't think so.

Thanks for the comments, guys.