Grand Design
Total Guitar|May 2019

We get the inside perspective on the Grand Pacific from its designer, Taylor master builder Andy Powers

Taylor Master
Grand Design

Can you explain the relationship between developing the Grand Pacific guitar design and the V-Class bracing system?

“The timing is interesting: right after we launched the [redesigned] 800 series in early 2014 I was thinking about what we do next. And we had just built the most Taylor of Taylor guitars; our iconic guitar. And so I had this idea about building instruments using this V-Class architecture, and this was actually the first guitar I had in mind with it.

“So I built one using a conventional dreadnought shape, and that really lit me up and got me thinking. I built another one and I thought, ‘Well obviously this isn’t a fluke: there’s something here. So let me make a shape that will do what I want this to do.’ What I was trying to get was a little more independent control of how the guitar would sound.

“Typically when we’re using an X-brace architecture in the guitar, you can make some changes and you can voice it the way you want, but it’s almost always a balancing act. If you add something in one place, you’re taking it away from something else; if you add a little more volume, you’re taking away a little sustain. It’s kind of this push and pulls.

This story is from the May 2019 edition of Total Guitar.

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This story is from the May 2019 edition of Total Guitar.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

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