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Traditionally, flatpickers play dreds. Very few forum guitars are dreds. Does that mean that these guitars are built primarily for fingerpickers? I do understand that any guitar can be played by any player, but ultimately you play the guitar that fits your style.

Ten years ago it was all dreds, today it's anything but, except for me it seems. I still love dreds.

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I plan on mainly building dreads. Might build some small jumbos

That use to be true, but it seems that a custom guitar can be build to match a playing style, regardless of shape. I'm a flat picker but prefer to play smaller guitars or ones that don't look like dreads as I'm just not attracted to the dread shape. A GA style guitar or even SJ can be as boomy as a dread, depending on how it's braced/built.

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Dreads are just the most mass-produced shape available I am currently working on adding one more to the pile). In the future when I'm building something custom, why not get off the beaten path in order to further emphasize the fact that THIS guitar is very different from THOSE guitars.

Don't get me wrong, I'll play any guitar in front of me and a dread is no exception. Most people play chords and sing songs. They typically aren't as obsessed with quality/intonation/tone as someone that plays solo fingerstyle guitar. Many players aren't even aware of the differences in quality, they just see the brand name. This is why Martin can put their name on their new Mexican line of plastic guitars and people will pay $900 for that pile of crap without batting an eye. I literally laughed in a Guitar Center salesman's face one time when I was there testing an amp while he pitched this pile of crap to me. It was made of "synthetic Rosewood" whatever the hell that is.

I intend to do dred's simply because I'm partial to that shape. I might do various sizes, but they will all have the "standard" dred shape.

Yeah, me too!!

I make mostly dreads, though I have made a couple OM's too. I don't like the dainty and small feel of the OM, so I'm back to dreads again. Can't beat the nice fat sound.

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I'm a flat picker and play dreads most the time, but i build OM guitars as well. My first build was a scratch built dread and that's my go to guitar still. I use my smaller plates for other builds, that way nothing goes to waste.

There's alot of fingerstyle players around. I also see flatpickers using smaller guitars. In the past a dread was... pretty much necessary to be heard in a bluegrass type setting, but advances in pickups, sound systems and even mics make it possible for a smaller guitar to be heard, even around Banjos.

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Some of it depends where you live I guess .. I am almost 100 guitars in, and have only made two slope shoulder 12 fret dreads in 10 years, no true 14 fret Martin Ds ... none on the horizon either, although I do have a J45 type in progress ... I prefer guitars with "shapely size .. tellin me no lies ..."

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

At the 2009 Healdsburg Guitar Festival Ervin Somogyi gave a lecture on different types of top bracing. It was just prior to the release of his books on guitar building. He decided to have a well known player demo one of his guitars before he spoke. I expected it to be one of his OMs. But it was a dred.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
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