New Martin Guitar With Micata Fretboard -Play It Or Use It To Eat Your Dinner -Lol! (Martin Guitars DC-16RGTE)

Member Name: Caveat-Emptor

Product:	Martin Guitars DC-16RGTE
Date:	21/09/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fine Instrument, Fitted Pickup, Active Preamp, Stunning Sound

Disadvantages: Man Made Micata Fretboard (As Used To Make Kitchen Knife Handles Etc!!)

My review of the Martin DC-16RGTE Guitar
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Introduction
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CF Martin & Co (usually shortened to just 'Martin') are one of the most renowned makers of acoustic guitars in the world; along with brands like Gibson and Taylor. However since the Martin Guitar Company was established in 1833; Martin are by far the oldest of the large scale guitar makers (or you can call 'em luthiers if you want to be posh -lol!).

Martins latest offering is the DC-16RGTE acoustic guitar with pick-up fitted; making it an electro-acoustic guitar (and hence a lot more useful for the gigging musician as it simply plugs in to the PA system or amplifier etc), so unlike many Martins you don't need to mic it up live.

I used work in music shops setting up, selling and repairing guitars, I have far too many of them still but even to this day can't keep my hands off a new model (guitar that is, not the glamorous catwalk variety -lol!!). Being a big Martin fan, I couldn't wait to get my mitts around a DC-16RGTE...


Features
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Like most Martins the DC-16RGTE isn't particularly 'fancy' to look at. There are no fancy fret inlays (just the usual dots) so common on even budget instruments today, or pretty binding around the edges of the instrument, but this is of course no budget instrument (as the £1500 price tag confirms -lol!).

Although it's not an eye catching instrument, from the perspectives of playability, tone, projection and longevity the DC-16RGTE is in fact beautifully made.

The back and sides are rosewood; a very hardwearing and great sounding wood often used for fretboards funnily enough. Rosewood is a good choice for acoustic guitar as it adds a warmer edge to the sound...

The 'top' (the front board of the guitar -which has the circular sound hole, and is most responsible for the tone and volume of an acoustic guitar) is made from Sitka Spruce (one piece, no laminate), so the sound should mature nicely over time.

The machine heads (tuners) are the little button type (chrome) which aren't quite my favourites (bigger the better on a dark stage, I say :-), but they work flawlessly.

There's a body cutaway to allow higher fret access on the treble side -which is a bit of a double edged sword; on the one hand you can access higher frets more easily (though arguably it's a once in a blue moon experience for most acoustic players as very few pieces of music for acoustic guitar require such access), on the other hand having a 'cutaway' does reduce the body size and symmetry, so it has a slightly negative effect on the instruments acoustic tone, volume and projection.

My view is that I'd rather have the tone quality than the cutaway (I've always got my electric guitars for high fret access -lol), although I'm not wildly fussed either way, as cutaway designs are very common on electro-acoustics nowadays.

The saddle, bridge and nut on the DC-16RGTE were all well fitted, and accurately slotted so no problems there. Scale length is around 25 and a half inches, so is somewhat longer than a Gibson acoustics' scale length. There's no such thing as a perfect scale length -but Martin's longer scale means the guitar sounds more punchy and has more impact (on the down side you have a bigger finger stretch for difficult lower fret chords as fret spacings are a little further apart).

The pick-up fitted to the DC-16RGTE is a high quality Fishman Aura, which lives under the saddle and is connected to an active (takes a 9v battery) preamp on the side of the guitar (so you can make easy tone/volume adjustments), and the preamp is in turn wired to the industry standard ¼ inch jack socket.

So far so good -lol!! But I was a little surprised to find out the fretboard wasn't the usual rosewood (ebony is occasionally used for fretboards too), it felt a little different, and not brilliant but I couldn't quite put a name to the fretboard 'wood'...

After a few enquiries I discovered that the fretboard was made of micarta. Ermm... micarta??? Never heard of it!!! I thought it was some new Brazilian hardwood I'd never heard of or something -lol!! It turns out, very disappointingly, that micarta is actually not wood at all; it's a man made plastic like substance 'sometimes used to make cutlery knife handles and such like. I can't say I'm impressed :-(

Sound-wise the DC-16RGTE sounded excellent acoustically (though a little 'stiff' which is exactly what I'd expect from a new high quality guitar -they always sound better after a few years of playing them). Switching to the amplified sound; through a full range PA speaker the Fishman pickup sounded very articulate and clean with very little background hiss from the preamp.

The preamps tonal range was exceptionally good, and would enable excellent tone shaping against all but the most extreme venue acoustics. All acoustic guitar pickups sound slightly brittle (I'm afraid this doesn't get better with time -lol!)...

...but many players use them because of the convenience of being able to 'plug in' live -rather than being 'tied' in one position on stage because of microphone placement; and while a pick-up never sounds as good as miking up (with a world class capacitor mic), it does still sound very good with a little careful EQ'ing (from the pre-amp).


My Verdict
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The DC-16RGTE is a finely crafted (although relatively bland to look at) instrument, and I should love it -especially with the useful addition of a Fishman pick-up... but the truth is I don't.

At the back of my mind that man made micarta 'plastic' fretboard is bugging me! Martin built their great reputation on crafting fine instruments from natural materials - and while I don't criticise them for trying new innovations - a plastic fretboard is a bridge (or in this case -fretboard ;-) too far for me -lol!

Don't get me wrong; this is a fine instrument, it sounds and plays well -but would I buy one if I had £1500 spare (if only -lol!); NO... I'd opt for a guitar with a rosewood or ebony fretboard instead, and if I had any money left over I'd buy some micarta handled cutlery to remind me why I didn't buy a DC-16RGTE after all :-)

Thanks for reading my review and I hope you found my review helpful and interesting!!

Best wishes,
Caveat-Emptor

Summary: A Great Instrument Let Down By A Really Weird Choice Of Fretboard Material!