Acoustic Guitar Magazine | 7 years ago
It’s unusual to have one as a main instrument, but 12-string guitars have a distinctive sound that makes them undeniably cool to have around. Artists from the Beatles to the Byrds to Blind Willie McTell have all shown the stimulating sonic flavors inherent to 12-strings. With fully strummed open chords, their six pairs of resonating strings—four in octaves and two in unison—provide delightfully shimmering sounds, while yielding a sparkly sheen to fingerpicked passages.
If you’ve ever been on the fence about having a 12-string of your own, it might be that you’re put off by the bulky size and hefty construction that the added string tension seems to require. With bigger bodies and cumbersome headstocks, many 12s are uncomfortable to play. And in a band setting, the fullness that comes from these guitars is sometimes a double-edged sword, as it can overpower other instruments.
In 2016, Taylor Guitars addressed many of these issues with the small-bodied 552ce and 562ce 12-strings in the company’s mahogany-bodied 500 series. Now Taylor has introduced the mahogany-topped 362ce and spruce-topped 352ce. These 12s have the same small Grand Concert body size as their predecessors, but are a bit more affordable.
By way of first impression, I found both instruments exceptionally comfortable, with cozy bodies, smooth contours, and a delightful hand feel. The 362ce gives off a vintage vibe with its satin finish, edgeburst-stained mahogany soundboard, and tight-grained Tasmanian blackwood back and sides.
With this tonewood pairing, Taylor aims for a clear, focused sound and naturally compressed response for a balanced output across the tonal range. Indeed, the 362ce sounds warm, controlled, and shimmery, in both the octave and unison string pairs—without being overpowering. By contrast, the 352ce, with its gloss-finished Sitka spruce top and satin-finished sapele back and sides, has a brighter and livelier sound, with a more pronounced dynamic range and sparkling overtones.
With a body width of just 15 inches and depth of 4-3/8 inches, each instrument felt great to hold. Both balanced well on a strap but were just a touch neck-heavy on my lap, though not in any noticeable way as long as my strumming arm was in playing position on the lower bout. The necks both have an inviting satin finish and somewhat shallow, hand-fitting shape that makes fretting easy all the way up to the neck heel. Each has a 12th-fret neck junction, but thanks to a Venetian cutaway, all 18 frets are within easy reach. The shorter necks and smaller bodies—not to mention scaled-down headstocks—make the instruments seem compact compared to the typical 12-string.
The nickel tuners have an aesthetically pleasing bronze hue and are easy to adjust, despite the headstocks’ economical size. Haunted by flashbacks of difficult-to-tune 12-strings, I was pleased not only with how well both guitars stayed in tune, but also with how easily they went back and forth between standard and dropped tunings. Other nice touches include ebony bridge pins and a convenient battery compartment, snugly situated below the bottom strap button.
