Ryan's Gig Guide - August 2019

Aug is here and it is the perfect time for playing acoustic guitar obnoxiously loud at your mates BBQ.This month is an acoustic special; we will be taking a look at a new breed of acoustic guitars by Finlayson. So, who is Billy Finlayson? Despite having a name worthy of a SpaghettiWestern film, he is a hardened luthier and renowned repair man. Billy has seen just about everything that could go wrong with a guitar and he will know how to fix it. Deeply dedicated to the field of guitar design, Billy knows how to create a guitar that will last. By implementing his knowledge, he has conceived designs that will not end up straddled over a luthiers workbench seeking repair any time soon. Hand made in Godin’s facilities in Canada, this brand of guitars is the love child of a Billy Finlayson and Robert Godin.A pair of like minded individuals that are passionate about making great guitars. Robert Godin has put his name behind many guitar brands in the past but he does not use his facilities to make guitars for anyone else, so this is a very special and unique range of instruments. It is no easy feat giving a piece of wood a voice. Acoustic guitars are the epitome of compromise and balance. If you make the instrument too rigid you sacrifice its ability to resonate and therefore thwarting its soul purpose, to sound great. So the less rigid you make it, the more resonant, but there is a fine line.Take away too much structural integrity and the results could be cataclysmic.A guitar more self destructive than the artist themselves. Luckily the brilliant mind of Finlayson knows how to avert these structural pitfalls and give every piece of wood the ability to resonate and sing. This is theWhitney Houston of the guitar world on a budget. Billy decided to use Adirondack Spruce bracing on all his guitars.Adirondack is the strongest of the Spruce family and it can be stripped back thinner than Axl Rose’s patience allowing the top to move more freely.The tops are all Solid Canadian Spruce which allows all those tasty overtones and vibrations to best form. An exclusive feature to Finlayson is the integrated neck system. In its most basic form this system means the neck tenon runs all the way to the sound hole. “Big wup, a little extra wood” you say? But it makes a phenomenal difference. Billy noticed that a common problem acoustic guitars face over time is movement around the neck joint due to humidity and temperature changes.The extension of the neck tenon helps to keep the guitar in playable condition when these changes inevitably occur. How these changes in climate affect a guitar should be stressed strongly to every guitar owner. Much like going into an adult toy store looking for a larger version of twister to play with your mates only to find out the store is not what you initially anticipated, there are certain environments where your guitar will feel extremely uncomfortable.The optimum humidity for your guitar to live in sits between 40-50%. If the room is too humid your guitar may begin to swell and if the room is too dry then cracks may begin to form in the wood. The temperature ideally should stay fairly consistent between 21-24º. It is ok to expose your instrument to conditions outside of these guidelines but not for excessive amounts of time. Obviously every room’s climate is different and your guitar has a tolerance it can warp and move between. Luthiers have been building the ability for adjustment into guitars for decades, which allow you to tweak your guitar to keep it at optimum playability. Finlayson’s Dual Action truss rod takes this adjustment an extra step further, allowing adjustment both forward as well as the more common backwards adjustment in case your instrument ever requires it.The alternative is a costly repair due to its time intensiveness. REVIEW: Finlayson Guitars By Adam Roberts Exclusive to... www.ryansgigguide.com 30 rgg Aug 2019