review TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE Street Cred Taylor’s latest environmentalist strategy involves the use of a new wood, Urban Ash. How will it stack up against the established timber elite? Words David Mead Photography Neil Godwin 78 GUITARIST AUGUST 2020 GIT461.rev_taylor.
AUGUST 2020 GUITARIST GIT461.rev_taylor.
review TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE £3,239 CONTACT Taylor Guitars PHONE +31 (0) 206 676030 WEB www.taylorguitars.com What You Need To Know 1 What’s ‘Urban Ash’ all about, then? Also known as ‘Shamel ash’ or ‘evergreen ash’, the trees are found in cities across Southern California, providing shade, windbreaks, wildlife habitats and so on. After 70 years or so they reach the end of their cycle and need to be removed.
TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE review The 324ce’s back and sides welcome in a new recruit to the timber brigade, but its top is the more familiar mahogany But times have changed. We’ve never been more acutely aware of dwindling resources where wood is concerned, and the recent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (aka CITES) mandate on rosewoods served as a muchneeded wake-up call for the industry. Lesson learned.
review TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra 1 1. Our review model is fitted with a set of Elixir Phosphor Bronze light gauge strings 2.
TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE review 2 austere appearance. There’s an armrest atop the guitar’s lower bout, mirrored by the bevelled cutaway diagonally opposite. There’s no binding to the rim of the body, Taylor electing to offer a chamfered edge as an alternative, a simple ivoroid purfling providing the body’s only other decoration. Under the hood we find Taylor’s trailblazing V bracing pattern, which the company is rolling out across its range and so it’s no surprise to find it here, too.
review TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE VIDEO DEMO http://bit.ly/guitaristextra 4 3 3. Live performance is ably handled by Taylor’s Expression System 2 pickup and preamp 5. The preamp’s battery compartment is hidden away underneath the jack socket/endpin 4. A set of Gotoh 510 Antique Gold tuners adds a touch of class to the guitar’s headstock 6. The 324ce’s voice is sweet and well balanced without any unnecessary mush in the midrange This is a very wellbehaved guitar.
TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE review TAYLOR BUILDER’S EDITION 324CE 6 is present as part of the sound picture? It definitely has a few of the qualities of mahogany and we don’t know exactly what the V bracing is bringing to the sound party, either. But whatever it is, we like what we’re hearing. The 324ce is equipped with Taylor’s Expression System 2 and, plugged into our AER Compact 60, it proves its worth with little or no colouration to the purity of the guitar’s acoustic sound.
