Description

Player’s Perspective

We’re proud to present this Martin Custom Shop Grand Performance with Venetian Cutaway that we collaborated on with our friends at Martin Guitars!

Starting with the venerable Grand Performance as the foundation, we opted for some exotic appointments that truly made this guitar special – Guatemalan back, sides, and headstock, Italian Alpine Spruce, European flame maple for the binding material, and a Venetian cutaway for greater upper fret access and a contemporary player’s look as well as highly elaborate and extravagant abalone binding and inlays all throughout the instrument. The guitar is finished in a beautiful Toasted Burst.

In terms of both sound and playability, this guitar is every bit as special as it looks. The gorgeously-figured, warm-colored Guatemalan rosewood of the body will retain the same tonal qualities of regular rosewood but add a mesmerizing new visual dimension to the back and front of the headstock – the depth of the grain when looking at it in the right light is truly stunning.

The classic combination of that body wood, spruce top, mahogany neck and ebony fretboard is Martin’s traditional combo of tonewoods for a reason – it has been the formula for the most balanced, pure acoustic tonal resonance since the Pre-War era. Along with the Grand Performance body shape, it will provide great volume, clear and full tone, and have a wide dynamic range conducive to both finger-picking, strummed chords, and single notes – and speaking of single notes, the classy “Venetian” cutaway makes this a true lead player’s workhorse with improved access to the upper frets for soloing.

Along with the typical array of Martin hardware, this guitar features the Anthem pickup system from LR Baggs for excellent plugged-in performance and recording.

For the players here at the shop, the greatest “Custom Shop” instruments combine the tone and playability that a certain model is known for with appointments such as the ones on this one that make it a true one-of-a-kind instrument and heirloom piece. As expected from the Custom Shop of arguably the most renowned and storied acoustic guitar builder in American guitar history, the playability, tonality and build quality are all top-notch.

This Custom Shop guitar had all of the woods and specifications selected by the dealer.