This review was created by the folks over at Acoustic Guitar magazine. They created a fantastic video to accompany this review, we encourage you to view it here.
From the April 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY GREG CAHILL
With the recent introduction of the all-myrtlewood Breedlove Concerto, the Oregon-based guitar company became the first large-scale US manufacturer to incorporate this intriguing tonewood in a production line of instruments. But the Concerto also is distinctive for another reason: Breedlove owner Tom Bedell and his team of guitar designers have created a new body shape—which tapers from an impressive five inches deep at the endpin to just under four inches at the joint of the hard-rock maple neck—that produces a big, beautiful sound when coupled with all of that cool, coastal myrtlewood.
The result is impressive, given the complexity of the Concerto’s tone. “Two years ago, we began the journey of designing a new guitar body shape that would have a bigger sound than dreadnoughts and deliver a more complex, textured tone,” Bedell told AG recently. “The breakthrough came when we embraced the unique variability in every tonewood set, replacing cookie-cutter, standard wood dimensions with frequency-tuned tops and backs. “I still can’t get over how incredible these sound.”
Simply strumming an open-D chord produces a richly textured sound rife with warm overtones the likes of which I have not experienced in a production guitar. “Myrtlewood is a phenomenal tonewood to have at our disposal—because the wood is visually stunning and every piece is unique, the tone is a luthier’s dream,” Devin Percell, Breedlove Global Sales Director, has noted in a written statement.
“In short, tonally, if rosewood and maple were to have a baby, it would be Myrtlewood. You get all of the accentuated clarity in the high notes without the chime as well as the dynamic presence in the low end.”
The cost of the Breedlove Concerto, built in Bend, Oregon, is $1,799/street.
