Taylor 352ce 12 String Grand Concert Electro Acoustic

Taylor 352ce 12 String Grand Concert Electro Acoustic Overview

The Taylor 352ce 12-String Electro Acoustic guitar has a 24-⅞” scale length and has a Sitka spruce top, which is the most common spruce wood in use today. Sitka spruce is good for volume and will age nicely over the first four or five years of the guitar’s life, sounding better with time, delivering a crisp articulation.

The back and sides are made from Sapele, which is now commonly used as an alternative to mahogany and belongs to the same family. It is similar to mahogany but slightly darker. It sounds very sweet, is responsive to a lighter touch and blends really well with other acoustic instruments, with natural compression.

Taylor has used various voicings based on the classic ‘X’ pattern embraced throughout the industry. The big breakthrough has been Andy Powers’ creation of the V-class bracing.

The V shape channels the energy through the guitar in a way that holds the centre of the top more rigidly than the sides, which respond with a rocking motion (not actually visible to the eye, of course).

The result is an improvement in volume up the neck, better intonation, an audible change in the way notes blend further up the ‘dusty’ end of the fretboard and one assumes a more stable area behind the bridge.

The re-emergence of the 12 fret guitar has been pioneered by Taylor. The shift of the bridge that comes from moving the neck further down across the body changes the tone of the guitar. It is warmer and has increased sustain.

The neck is made from tropical mahogany and is topped with a 18-fret West African Crelicam Ebony fretboard, which comes from Taylor’s own ebony sawmill in Cameroon where they grow sustainable, high-quality ebony to use only on Taylor guitars.

12 string guitars feature double courses of paired strings. The plain strings are tuned in unison and the wound strings are partnered with strings one octave higher in pitch. Paired strings create volume and a ‘chiming’ sound that sounds like a chorus pedal. Or maybe it’s better to say that a chorus pedal artificially creates a 12-string like sound. Notable 12 string players in history include Doc Watson, Roger McGuinn and even David Bowie.

The ES2 pickup is different from the standard under saddle piezo system, which is under constant tension from the strings. This tension has a negative effect on tone, according to Taylor, and so they place their pickup on the side of the saddle, tensioned by 3 hex bolts which can be adjusted to calibrate the pickup response.

The Taylor 352ce is completed with a black pickguard, Italian acrylic gemstone inlays, Taylor nickel tuners, a gloss top finish, and comes with a Taylor Deluxe Hardshell Brown case.

Taylor guitars come with a 12-year warranty with 2 years covering the electronics. This is activated by registering your details to Taylor’s site. Once this is done you will also receive Wood & Steel, Taylor’s quarterly gazette.

Fancy an upgrade? Check out the Taylor 562ce.