Taylor T5z Pro Review

What a beautiful thing

Being cursed with small hands and arthritis I have always struggled playing acoustic guitars because of the thickness of the neck. I took the Keith Richards approach and used a capo but was never satisfied with that so I used my electric for everything. I heard Taylor was starting to dabble in creating acoustic guitars for electric players. Wow ! I said to myself that would be… read more great if they can really pull it off. I thought if anyone knew it would be my sales rep Randy Akins. I called Randy and he confirmed what I had heard and told me about the T5z. I did a lot of research , read countless articles and watched every you tube video out there and decided to pull the trigger and bought the T5z pro. When it arrived I immediately went to work unpacking , inspecting and marveling at this beautiful thing before my eyes. I started to play unplugged and the neck truly felt like an electric pretty close to a les Paul slim taper . The sound unplugged was not great but not bad and I expected that but when I plugged into my audio interface I was at awe. The sound was beautiful the tones I was hearing as I switched through the pickups were blowing me away. You know the feeling when the creative juices start flowing that"s what was going on. I then ran it through my helix and tested it on some of my high gain patches and with some minor tweaking the ax was screaming. I ran it through an eleven rack , a tc helicon voice live 2 and directly into a PA and the guitar and sound passed with flying colors. I played the guitar for 3 straight days no less than 6 hours per day it was very hard to put it down. On the 3 rd day I popped the high E string and without thinking I grabbed a set of Martin light acoustic strings and slapped them on. Un plugged the strings improved the tonal sound but it did not feel right in my hands then I realized the strings that are shipped with the guitar are electric strings ellixers medium lights I think. Anyway I had some electric Ernie ball super slinky light strings slapped them on and that was the ticket. I will be using the elixir medium lights as soon as they arrive as feel the light strings are too light for the guitar I wasn"t crazy about the tone or the feel. In closing some important things I should also mention about this guitar. Although it may sound great it will not replace the tones of a genuine acoustic guitar. This guitar is what is called a hybrid guitar made to do it all. I highly recommend this guitar to anyone that has shied away from playing and enjoying an acoustic guitar , is serious about tone experimenting and has short arthritic hands that cannot handle play a traditional acoustic hope this review was helpful

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Incredibly Versatile and Playable

If your set list is eclectic, this guitar can do it all. The differences between setting 4 & 5 may be subtle in the video, but they're dramatic in person. And setting 1 sounds like a high-end acoustic even through a small electric guitar amp set clean, of course. Crank the amp gain on setting 5 and Blues/Rock like Zeppelin and Joe Walsh comes effortlessly. Back to clean and setting… read more 3 and you've got a big-sounding hollow box for smoky jazz. I have about 20 other high-end guitars, from Gibson reissues through Flying V to MIJ George Benson, and this stands in admirably for all of them. And it's incredibly playable, comfortable, fitted and finished. Only minor negative is that it's ultra-lightweight body makes it neck-heavy. Just choose the right strap and shirt (for friction) and you'll never notice, except how effortlessly you can adjust between cowboy, jazz, and barre chords. Sounds good enough unplugged to just mic it, if necessary.

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Worth Every Dime

This guitar is everything the video claims, and more. The tonal pallete is almost too broad to be believed, even without running through two amps or any pedals. Run it through a new Super Champ with amp modeling and a foot switch and you've got the equivalent of at least ten guitars. Add the impeccable fit, finish, and almost unbelievable playability and you just can't do any better,… read more or even as well. I have 15 other guitars, including a 2003 Gibson R8 and a Japan-built George Benson. This thing takes top seed, hands down.

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