alchemy acoustic labs

Archive for March, 2010

When one of your biggest problems is that every time your business partner goes out he comes back with a new lovely guitar – well let’s just say there are worse problems to have.

We’re extremely lucky to have one of the best-stocked high-end acoustic guitar shops in the country, manned by one of the most knowledgeable, passionate guitar dealers in the business, right here about 5 miles up the river from our headquarters. We have no connection with Steve from Acoustic Music Works, (other than being regular customers) but I can tell you his hand-picked instrument selection is unsurpassed.

We see our share of off-the-charts high-end guitars through here and I have to say that Bourgeois makes some of the finest playing instruments available.  Frank chose this gorgeous Bourgeois Advanced Slope D Premium Madrose from Steve’s stock because of its stunning tone and beauty. This is a player’s guitar.

This video is another casual behind the scenes discussion with Jim Relja playing and reviewing the guitar directly after it had been AO1-processed. the guitar has since opened up even more in the 4 weeks since this video was shot. You’ll hear one of our returning customers, Pat, asking Jim questions about the process in this clip.

Some days I have the best job on the planet.

Get instant news updates, videos and photos as soon as they’re released  by becoming a fan of AAL on Facebook. Click HERE or on the image to go to our new Facebook page.

We’ve got a lot going on right now, but this also qualifies as news. In case you haven’t seen it, we’ve been part of a rather lengthy and spirited thread on the Online Collings Forum.  I have enjoyed participating in it and answering as many questions as I can. We have had a few guys from the forum call and schedule guitars to be sent in. This is the first of them. The guitar belongs to “Maui” in Hawaii and it was sent at probably the greatest personal expense so far (Calton cased guitar to and from Hawaii to Pittsburgh is not cheap) The thread on the forum is now 25 PAGES long and has been viewed over 7400 times at last count.  With all those things in mind, we really felt like we were on the hotseat on this one so we recorded everything including our before and after commentary. As we have done all along, we’re not going to publish emails here but  we’ll be happy to put anyone interested in the process in touch with the guitar’s owner or the player at any time, as long as they are open to being contacted. Please keep in mind, this is a more casual, shaky-cam style video intended for entertainment  – not  a discerning audiophile demonstration. There are new MP3 files of this guitar HERE and better quality .wavs are available upon request.