alchemy acoustic labs

Archive for May, 2010

We offered to do one guitar for one member of the online Collings Forum community free of charge. The recipient selection process took some time, but in the end we decided to go with one of the moderator’s guitars. Elambo is an audio engineer, studio musician and the furthest thing from an AAL cheerleader we could find. We wanted an objective opinion. We’re posting our results and opinions before Elambo does, in an effort to be as forthright as possible. Let the chips fall.

The Julius Borges OM-28 was one of our favorite guitars we’ve ever played or had in our labs. The build quality and playability is just phenomenal. It was already optimized for volume, versatility and projection by design when we received it.

Post AO1 process, it did not come up as dramatically in amplitude (volume) as some other guitars we’ve processed. It had more increase in sustain than volume. But where we felt that the process enhanced its sound the most was in the evening out of the notes, filling in the bottom end in the lows and low-mid ranges. It truly opened up the guitar in the way that age and playing (a lot) would do.

We’ll post updates to this guitar as the story continues to unfold. For now, here are some audio and video files chronicling the event.

Audio Files:

Elambo’s Borges (Before A01 Process  01)

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Elambo’s Borges (After A01 Process  01)

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Elambo’s Borges (Before A01 Process  02)

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Elambo’s Borges (After A01 Process  02)

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Legendary Austin session guitarist David Grissom (John Mellencamp, Dixie Chicks, Bob Dylan, Buddy Guy, Chris Isaak etc.) talked with us at the 2010 Winter NAMM show about having one of his guitars processed. In early March, Collings shipped us his D2H to get the AO1 treatment.

From the moment it arrived, we all liked the guitar very much, but according to David, it was his least favorite of his three Collings dreads. We heard the opportunity to help it reach its full potential and were eager to let the process do what we expected it would.

You can watch the video below (or on the Videos page) of Jim Relja and us examining the guitar before and after the process. The process added much more sustain and it really filled out the frequency range in the lows and low-mids.

One of our usual go-to reviewers, Jim was knocked out by both this guitar and by how it transformed after being processed.  “I’ve never heard sustain like this on a guitar. This is ridiculous…”

We sent the guitar back to Collings and waited for David to get back from the road to check it out. His immediate responses were good, but he waited a few weeks to give us his full review:

“The process has made a noticeable change in my guitar. It always sounded good, but was my least favorite of my 3 Collings Dreads. Now it seems louder and punchier, and doesn’t “cave in” at all when played really hard…..and holds it’s own with the other guitars which happen to be exceptional. Thank you again.”
David Grissom
Austin, TX
April 15, 2010

Audio files are HERE