Singing Quality

This latest acoustic from JWJ aims to provide a better blend between a singer's voice and the guitar, all via cunning lutherie. Let's take a look

- Words David Mead Photography Neil Godwin

The fundamental design of acoustic guitars has remained fairly static for many years. Take the dreadnought, for instance; that particular design came about more than 100 years ago and is still in use, pretty much unchanged, today. But recently we've noticed a distinct shift. Maybe it's the leap forward in amp, PA and particularly acoustic pickup technology that has allowed artists to use smaller-bodied guitars to achieve the effect they want, or perhaps it's the current generation of luthiers putting their own twist on tradition - it's hard to tell. We suspect it's a combination of both.

One such twist is before us today, in the shape of a new design from Rich Jones at JWJ Guitars. Sure, it may look like a dread with a Gibson J-45 somewhere in its family history, but the fact is, it's something a little bit more than that. Or, realistically speaking, something a little less, as this is a downsized version of the famous dread blueprint. And its voice doesn't correspond to a dread's familiar boom and bombast, either. So what exactly is going on here? Rich Jones reveals all on page 21, but the main reasons for going a little topsy-turvy on the established dreadnought formula are as follows. Simply put, the Chorale has been downsized to make it more comfortable to play, and revoiced so that it provides better accompaniment for vocals by realigning the low and mid ranges.

In practice, the first thing to be aware of is how much the Chorale has 'shrunk', when compared with a standard dread. A J-45, for instance, is 406mm (16 inches) at the body's widest point, while the Chorale is a slimline 375mm (14.7 inches). And the body depth has reduced from a regular 122mm (4.8 inches) to the Chorale's slightly slimmer 110mm (4.3 inches).