NEW GEAR
NEW GEAR
See the video review
at AcousticGuitar.com
Bourgeois Aged Tone OM
Vintage-inspired OM with new top-aging
technique delivers great looks and rich tone.
By Teja Gerken
MAINE-BASED LUTHIER DANA BOURGEOIS has stood
at the forefront of the vintage-inspired steel-string
flattop field ever since building his first guitar in a
dorm room in the mid-1970s. In the years since, he has
collaborated with maker, player, and dealer Eric Schoenberg and C.F. Martin and Co. on the original batch of
Schoenberg Soloists, a project frequently credited with
bringing the OM (orchestra model) back to prominence in
the 1980s. (The orchestra model is a 14–fret, 000-size,
long-scale guitar with a 13/4-inch-wide nut originally built
by Martin from 1929 to 1933.) Bourgeois employs a
team of about a dozen luthiers, and the guitars have
attracted such high-profile players as Bryan Sutton, Ricky
Skaggs, and Ray LaMontagne.
Always on the lookout for ways to add an extra dose
of “vintage” to his guitars, Bourgeois began experimenting with a specially treated spruce a couple of
years ago. The result is Bourgeois’s Aged Tone series,
which includes a variety of dreadnoughts and OMs. I
had a chance to check out an Aged Tone OM built with
Madagascar rosewood back and sides and an Adirondack spruce top.
New Aging Process
Bourgeois says that the things he
values most about vintage guitars
are their quick response, dry sound
(with a good relationship between
fundamentals and overtones),
balance, and projection. Even though
he is known for nailing all of these qualities in his guitars on a regular basis,
he’s clearly happy to have found
another ingredient to assist his
quest. The spruce in the Aged
Tone series is treated with a
process called torrefaction,
in which the wood is heated
in an oxygen-free environment at a relatively low
temperature. This process,
which is undertaken prior to
Bourgeois receiving the
tops, reduces the oil, sugar,
and resin content of the wood,
reducing mass and weight and
increasing stiffness—resulting
in similar chemical transformations,
AcousticGuitar.com
Bourgeois says, that occur in wood
over decades of air drying. Developed in
Finland, the process was originally used
on flooring, building sidings, and outdoor
furniture, where it enhanced stability, durability, and appearance. A number of electric-guitar makers, including Anderson,
Shur, Music Man, and others, have been
using torrefied maple necks. Bourgeois
also uses a new kind of finish on the
Aged Tone series. Extremely thin, this
cyanoacrylic finish combines the lowdamping factor of vintage nitrocellulose
finishes with the durability of a modern,
catalyzed finish.
Adirondack Meets Madagascar
For the guitar I received for review,
Bourgeois paired an Aged Tone Adirondack
spruce top with back and sides of Madagascar rosewood, a premier alternative
to Brazilian rosewood. As a small shop,
Bourgeois is able to be highly selective in
the materials it uses, and the woods used
on our review guitar are nothing short of
spectacular. Though it doesn’t have the
straightest or tightest grain (traits that
some find attractive, but have little or no
effect on tone), the top is perfectly bookmatched, with the center seam all but
invisible and some areas with beautiful
medullary rays. The top may look like it has
been treated with some sort of aging toner,
but this darkening is the true color of the
wood itself, a result of the Aged Tone
process. The back and sides of the guitar
are made of some of the most gorgeously
colored and figured Madagascar rosewood
I’ve come across, without being so flashy
that it would look out of place on a vintageinspired instrument. Matching Madagascar
rosewood is used for the headstock’s
veneer, where it adds a touch of class to
the front view of the guitar.
Although the woods may look stunning,
Bourgeois clearly chose them for their tonal
attributes. You can get a good sense of the
sound of this guitar simply by picking it up.
As on a great vintage guitar, even the
slightest knock on the body seems to
sustain, and there is an incredible sense of
life that is impossible to ignore even when
you’re simply handling the instrument.
The other materials used on the guitar
are also top-notch. The ebony fingerboard
and bridge are dark black with no visible
imperfections, the mahogany neck (which
has a gentle V shape) is rich in color, and
even the internal braces and other parts
were clearly selected with care. And the
OM’s craftsmanship matches its materials
with flawless execution, beautiful finish,
and lovely details such as a zipper-style
backstrip and herringbone purfling.
Shining Bright Sound
OMs are often praised for their versatility,
and, put simply, there was nothing I threw at
this guitar that it couldn’t handle. With its
13/4-inch nut width and wide 25/16-inch string
spacing at the saddle, the guitar has immediate appeal to fingerstyle players, who will
also appreciate its quick response and ability
to produce considerable volume without a lot
of effort. But the Adirondack top also delivers
the huge dynamic range and generous headroom the wood is prized for, making the guitar
great for flatpicking as well.
I have played a lot of OMs built with
Adirondack tops and rosewood-family back
and sides, both vintage and new (I own a
custom-shop Martin OM with an Adirondack
top and Indian rosewood back and sides),
and I’m often surprised at the wide tonal
variation among these guitars. The
Bourgeois was one of the brighter examples
of this guitar type that I’ve played. And by
bright I don’t mean brash or unpleasant
in any way, but with singing trebles and an
From Acoustic Guitar, January 201, issue 252, © 2013 Stringletter, David A.
Lusterman, Publisher. All rights reserved. For more information on Acoustic
Guitar, contact Stringletter, 501 Canal Blvd., Suite J, Richmond, CA 94804;
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6 SONGS TO PLAY
GUY CLARK “Dublin Blues”
SUZANNE VEGA “Luka”
TRADITIONAL “The Water Is Wide”
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Notes.
at a glance
SPECS: 000 body size with 14-fret neck. Solid
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Adirondack spruce top. Solid Madagascar
mahogany neck. Ebony fingerboard and bridge.
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rosewood back and sides. X-bracing. Bolt-on
assertive overall tonal quality. The lack
of dark, muddy bass tones means that it
would work very well with a microphone,
either onstage or in the studio. The guitar
had an impressive stack of overtones, but
it wasn’t so rich that the sound became
cluttered. Even when I played note-heavy
Irish tunes, such as a D A D G A D arrangement of “Banish Misfortune,” or such
complex jazz tunes as Duck Baker’s
arrangement of “Blue Monk,” this OM
never sounded cloudy.
Besides playing the guitar at home,
I also took it to an unamplified gig at San
Francisco’s Bazaar Café. As I performed
solo-fingerstyle tunes, as well as a few
duets with other acoustic guitarists with
whom I played single-note lines with a flatpick, the guitar continued to impress with
its clarity, while delivering the volume and
punch necessary to compete with other
instruments in a purely acoustic setting.
Expectations should be high for a guitar
in this price range, and I’m happy to report
that the Bourgeois Aged Tone OM delivers
in every way. If you’ve been looking for a
high-end OM with vintage qualities, this
one should be on your short list of guitars
to investigate.
ag
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T-BONE WALKER “T-Bone Shuffle”
. . . and more
JANUARY 2014
F O R E V E R Y P L AY E R I N A N Y S T Y L E
GEAR REVIEWS
BOURGEOIS
Aged Tone OM
ROLAND
AC-40 AMP
THE
HOWLIN’
BROTHERS
NASHVILLE’S ROOTS-ROCKIN’
FOOT-STOMPIN’ STRING BAND
PIERRE BENSUSAN
LESSON
EXPLORING
DADGAD
LESSONS
Fingerstyle Arranging
25.5-inch scale. 13/4-inch nut width. 25/16-inch
string spacing at saddle. Aged Tone finish
FLYING WITH
YOUR GUITAR
(cyanoacrylate family). Waverly tuners. Light-
+ FLIGHT CASE ROUNDUP
gauge D’Addario EXP strings. Made in USA.
PRICE: $6,995 list.
Bass Line Basics
Fluid Fingerstyle
Circle of Fifths Licks
TEXAS
SONGWRITING LEGEND
MAKER: Bourgeois Guitars: (207) 786-0385;
GUY CLARK
bourgeoisguitars.com.
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January 2014 ACOUSTIC GUITAR
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