Color it Red

Picea rubens

Since I was a child, I have deeply admired Martin guitars; specifically, the venerable D-28.  Even though all my instruments are double-courses and I no longer play single-course instruments, I do plan on adding a Martin D-28 to my arsenal in the near future.  Why?  Because the D-28 voice just drops me to my knees every time I hear it.  Nothing sounds like it.  I won't try to verbally describe its voice as such an undertaking would be futile.  Suffice it to say that I have always wanted a D-28, and I want to add that voice to some of my recording projects.

Recently, during a discussion over coffee of various Martins, an artistic collaborator friend asked me if I liked Adirondack spruce on D-28s.  It's a simple question, but not a simple answer.

What's known in luthiery circles in the US and Canada as Adirondack spruce is more commonly known outside of the luthiery world as red spruce.  The genus classification of Adirondack/red spruce is picea rubens.   Picea rubens grows, and very well, in the Carpathian mountains of Central and Eastern Europe.  Red spruce grown in the Carpathians is known in the luthiery world as Carpathian spruce.  Once in a great while you'll hear a luthier refer to it as Carpathian red spruce, and that's accurate.  Regardless of where picea rubens is grown, it's still red spruce.  But in the luthiery world, red spruce from the northeastern US/Canada is called Adirondack, and red spruce from the Carpathian mountains is known as Carpathian.  

Side note: my Roberts model C1 KK series 17-string Contraguitar has a Carpathian spruce top, as does my Santa Cruz KK series 12-string Alto guitar.

Disclaimer: all Martin history that follows is based on my own experience.  I don't claim to be a Martin historian, so don't quote me or assume that I'm any kind of a Martin expert.

Martin used red spruce, known as Adirondack spruce, never Carpathian red spruce, on the D series from 1934 (the first year of the D-28) until 1946, when they switched to Sitka spruce.  They switched because Adirondack spruce was nearing extinction in the US/Canada, and they could no longer get tops sets that were wide enough; enter Sitka.  Over the past 10-15 years, the Adirondack spruces that were planted back in the '30s and '40s are now mature enough to create top sets wide enough for guitars.  However, the current Adirondack has wider grain than I've seen on any vintage Martins, and in most cases, the grain is also wider than most Sitka.  My experience/listening dictates that wider-grain tops have more bass response, more volume, and sound more open than tight-grained or fine-grained tops.  Hence, I greatly prefer and gravitate to wide-grain tops.

Perhaps due to its old-growth status, or due to the growth patterns and environment in the Carpathians, in my experience, red spruce trees in the Carpathian mountains tend to have tighter grain than US red (Adirondack) spruce.  One of the luthiers that has made instruments for me loves Carpathian red because it's much stiffer than Sitka, which is also true of Adirondack.  Stiffer tops require less bracing = more volume and wider frequency response.  German, Italian, and Swiss spruces (picea abies, picea excelsa) are a topic for another day.

I've only played maybe three D-28s with red spruce tops, and they were all pre-1946 models.  Those Martins are rare and fetch a 5- or 6-figure price.  At that time, Martin scalloped the bracing as a matter of course.  It was in the mid-'40s when they went to straight bracing, but I don't know if it coincided with the move to Sitka.  So all pre-1945 (ish) D-28s were really defacto HD-28s.   The "HD" (herringbone D) nomenclature in modern times refers to scalloped bracing, as back in the 1930s and '40s, Martin used a herringbone purfle on the top border, and old D-28s with Adirondack tops (scalloped bracing) all had that herringbone purfle, as that was what was used.  When Martin went to straight bracing, they also changed that top purfle to a straight purfle.  It's common to hear hardcore Martin collectors/players refer to the pre-1946 D-28s as "herringbone," or "bone" D-28s.   If you bought a D-28 before 1946, it had Brazilian rosewood back/sides, Adirondack top, scalloped bracing, a small maple bridge plate, and herringbone purfling.  Most, if not all, also had Advanced X bracing; more on that later.  From 1946 to 1970, D-28s had Brazilian back/sides, Sitka tops, and straight bracing.  In 1970, Martin moved from Brazilian rosewood back/sides to East Indian rosewood back/sides, due to the increasing scarcity of Brazilian, and changed the small maple bridge plates to large East Indian rosewood bridge plates.  Many luthiers and players consider East Indian rosewood to be inferior to Brazilian, but I am not one of those people.  I consider them to be equal but different.  In fact, for a D-28, my preference is East Indian rosewood.

1937 Martin D-28

In 1976, Martin introduced a new model into their Standard Series called the HD-28.  This was a D-28 with scalloped bracing and a herringbone top purfling.  30 years after they stopped scalloping braces, they reintroduced it on the HD-28, and the reasoning for the 'bone purfle should be self-evident.  As a kid, I was always totally knocked out by D-28s.  I was friends with the two gentlemen that ran the Martin shop in the city where I grew up.  One day when I was 15, I was in the shop to pick up a set of strings.  One of the two gentlemen there knew I loved D-28s, and told me that they had just received a new model from Martin called the HD-28.  He didn't tell me what was different about it.  I sat down with it and played it a bit and thought wow, this is incredible.  I didn't know why it sounded "that way," I just knew it greatly surpassed any D-28s I'd played before this one.  After I played it, he explained to me that the HD had scalloped bracing.  Another clue to scalloped bracing in a modern (post-1976) Martin is a stamp on the interior center backstrip reading USE LIGHT OR MEDIUM GAUGE STRINGS ONLY.

Cut to 2022: George Gruhn's shop in Nashville routinely orders D-28s and HD-28s with Adirondack tops.  The few vintage D-28s I've played with red spruce tops sounded very good to great, but it's difficult to attribute that all to red spruce.  Prior to 1970, all D-28s were Brazilian rosewood; Martin moved to East Indian rosewood in 1970 due to the increasing unavailability of Brazilian.  Most guitarists and luthiers will tell you that Brazilian sounds "better."  "Better" being subjective.  So were those vintage 28s awesome because of the Brazilian?   Or because of the red spruce?   Or because they're 80 years old and are super dry, built with old-growth tonewoods, and opened up far more than any other modern 28?  Or because of a combination of all that?  No way to tell, really.  I've played a few custom Santa Cruzes with red spruce tops, and they all sounded great.  However, the ones I played were either Brazilian or Cocobolo, and I think Cocobolo rosewood is just magic, so some of what I was hearing was due to that.

On the other hand, I originally fell in love with the D-28 voice that was East Indian rosewood/Sitka/straight-braced.  I fell far more in love with HD-28s that were E.I. rosewood/Sitka/scalloped bracing.  And even further in love with the "reimagined" Standard series HD-28s because Martin reintroduced the advanced X brace on those in 2018.  Advanced X is a topic for another blog post.  Modern HD-28s also have the small maple bridge plate, which is tonally my preference.  As is the advanced X, and I very strongly prefer the advanced X.

Adirondack red spruce

So.  It's a long story to say that I don't know if I'd prefer red spruce on an HD-28.  The real truth is that I'd need to hear it and compare it with a couple of Sitka HD-28s.  And of course the grain width of those Sitka tops will be a key factor, too.  I love Carpathian red spruce.  To me it's more balanced than Sitka which can slightly tend to be darker in the upper registers.  Then again, that smoky darkness in the upper registers is often a hallmark of D-28s/HD-28s and one of the elements in that voice that I love.   However, current Adirondack, or second-growth (US-grown as opposed to Carpathian red spruce) is all very wide-grained, so that is very tempting to me based on what I like to hear.  Of course in the world of tonewoods, there are always trade-offs.  In my listening and playing experience, Adirondack tends to be slightly more strident and brighter than Sitka.  All things being equal, and they never are in instruments, but if they were, my usual preference is Sitka for HD-28s.  Though I am open to trying some of the recent HD-28s with Adirondack.

Additionally, the Reimagined series of HD-28 established in 2018 is also my tonal preference.   The post-2018 HD-28s I've played have uniformly been stunning, and I'll be most interested in that series.

More to come.

-kk