baden d and a style
Baden D and A styles Baden’s D and A styles manage to be innovative without being overtly ‘futuristic’. Can the sound live up to the looks?
F
ounded by TJ Baden, a former senior VP of sales and marketing at Taylor guitars, Baden Guitars is an enigma wrapped inside a mystery. The unmistakably design-led guitars echo the company website, which is long on looks and short on information! Penned by European luthier Andreas Pichler, the guitars have a fresh and unusual look, but the lack of construction details and other minutiae may prove a discouragement to many guitar fanatics.
Build Quality And Features Everything about these two guitars screams ‘design’ at you. The D style has the look of a dreadnought which has had all the hard edges worn off, while the A style’s upper bout looks almost like halves of two different guitars! In both cases, the lack of adornment lends a very clean look, and far from detracting from the expensive appearance of the guitars it accentuates it. The woods on the D style are of the highest quality, the Sitka spruce top finely
and evenly grained, whilst the dark-stained rosewood is nicely bookmatched. That darkness is echoed by the rosewood binding, almost indistinguishable from the back and sides themselves. This simplicity is taken to the extreme elsewhere, with a plain rosewood fingerboard on the mahogany neck, a rosewood boomerang-shaped bridge, and a rosewood facing to the headstock. So unadorned is this acoustic-only guitar that even a strap button on the endpin was considered too much of an interruption to its Zen-like purity. Even the soundhole rosette is pared down to the slimmest rosewood ring and a tiny bone inlay, with the resulting guitar looking as though it would be very much at home in the minimalist Scandinavian-style home of an Apple Mac user. The construction is impeccable, and whilst a peek into the soundhole suggests that the bracing is rather more prosaic and predictable than the outward appearance, it certainly makes an impression. The A-style jumbo guitar is more conventional, if still classily simple. The most notable feature
Rosewood headstock facing.
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of the A style is the cutaway: rather than the typical Florentine and Venetian cutaways most guitars boast, the Baden almost appears to have the shoulder of a much smaller guitar on the lower side. The mark of the success of this arrangement is that you don’t notice it until it’s pointed out to you, and whilst examined in isolation it looks a little odd, as a part of the whole it works very well indeed. Both Baden models are available in a variety of woods, and this A style is equipped with the cedar and
mahogany option (cedar as a top wood is not available on the D style). Cedar is broader grained and more uneven than spruce by nature, and this piece is of excellent quality. The mahogany neck and rosewood bridge, fingerboard and headstock facing seem to be a Baden standard, but where the rosewood was a theme almost to the point of monotony on the D style, the A echoes its mahogany back and sides in the binding and soundhole rosette in a very pleasing way. Once again the quality of the guitar, luthier
built in Vietnam, is exemplary; let nobody tell you that the Far East cannot turn out excellent guitars. Where the D style is all Canary Wharf minimalist chic, however, the A style has a more homely feel, and I really warmed to the looks. This model is fitted with Fishman Aura electronics too, meaning that with an endpin jack you also get a
strap button, as well as another on the heel.
Sounds And Playability The slightly outlandish shape of the D style feels, if anything, even bigger and more intrusive than a typical dreadnought. It’s a deepbodied guitar and the lower bout
“What’s really impressive is the dynamics: strum it hard and it projects impressively, but back off and the tone sweetens, whilst retaining the punch at the low end.” September 2009 Acoustic 57
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baden d and a style
seems to lift the arm higher than I’m used to. It’s only an issue if you’re looking for it, but it could become uncomfortable after a while, especially for smaller players. The neck, however, is wonderful: not too slim, but not chunky either, with a satin finish, it simply vanished beneath my hand, which is the best you can ask from a neck. It’s also a very light guitar for its size, which was a pleasant surprise. In sound terms, the D style is a real treat. It’s as direct as you would expect from a spruce and rosewood combination, with plenty of pop and punch, but it’s very flexible. What’s really impressive is the dynamics: strum it hard and it projects impressively, but back off and the tone sweetens, whilst retaining the punch at the low end. Played this way, the attack of the wound strings is so immediate and crisp that you can get lost in listening to it, which would mean missing the way it underlies the sparkling of the top end. The guitar’s tone is still impressive when fingerpicked, but not captivating in the way it is when strummed. It is, however, a guitar which could conceivably fulfil all your needs, providing a capable, well-balanced fingerpicker along with a great strummer at all volumes. The A style, whilst looking more conventional, also feels a little strange in the hands. The depth and size of the body don’t seem to be an issue in this case, but the guitar feels as though it’s sat a little too far back when played on the lap, which caused me to twist in a slightly uncomfortable way. Whether this is due to the strange cutaway I’m not sure; it looks as though the waist may be a little further down the body than normal. The neck is the same delicious item as fitted to the D style, and impresses just as much here; the guitar just wants to be played. With a cedar
soundboard, and such a large one to boot, I’d expected a really mellow tone and was surprised by how comparatively lively the A style was. The guitar seemed, once more, quite light for the size, and I wonder whether this was also contributing to the unusually lively tone in each. The A style is certainly mellower than the D, but to my ears is in a sort of tonal hinterland between typical spruce- and cedar-topped guitars. This is no bad thing, and taking the A style on its own merits, rather than in comparison with others, it sounds great. There’s a richness to the treble tone, and the wonderful blossoming harmonic quality that cedar tops often have in the mid range. Surprisingly, the tone didn’t capture me in the way that the D style did, however, and I sometimes felt I could detect a very low-level vibration when strumming hard, as if the pickup were slightly loose. I couldn’t, however, hear this well enough to be sure. Overall, it was far from unpleasant, though, and lived up to the billing of a cedar guitar by being a warmer, more pleasing picker than the D style.
baden a Style
baden d Style
Price: £1,049 Manufacturer: Baden Made In: Vietnam Body Size: Baden A style Top: Western red cedar Back & Sides: Sapele mahogany Neck: Solid African mahogany- Khaya ivorensis Fingerboard: East Indian rosewood Frets: 20 Tuners: Chrome ping 14-1 Nut Width: 1 & 23/32 inch. 25.5 inch Onboard Electronics: Fishman Matrix Infinity Strings fitted (Gauge & Brand): D’addario EXP 11 Left Handers: Yes Gig Bag/Case Included: Deluxe hard shell case
Price: £1,099 Manufacturer: Baden Made In: Vietnam Body Size: Baden D style Top: Sitka spruce Back & Sides: East Indian rosewood Neck: Solid African mahogany- Khaya ivorensis Fingerboard: East Indian rosewood Frets: 20 Tuners: Gold/Ebony Ping 14-1 Nut Width: 1 & 23/32 inch. 25.5 inch Onboard Electronics: None Strings fitted (Gauge & Brand): D’addario EXP 12 Left Handers: Yes Gig Bag/Case Included: Deluxe hard shell case
Conclusion
Contact Details
These are handsome, well-built guitars which stand out in a crowd. Whilst the D style’s aesthetics don’t quite do it for me, they will surely wow some people and, tonally, it’s a wonderful guitar. Conversely the A pushed all the right buttons visually, but despite an all-round good performance, didn’t quite cut it sonically for me. The Badens are extraordinarily good value for money, their performance comparable with guitars twice the price, and if you’re looking for something a trifle different, they might just be for you. Sam Wise
440 Distribution T: 01132 589599 Info@440distribution.com www.badenguitars.com
Contact Details 440 Distribution T: 01132 589599 Info@440distribution.com www.badenguitars.com
What we think
What we think
Pros: Great-looking guitar, good spec for the price. Cons: An almost undetectable buzz. Overall: Try one. The buzz may have been a one-off or my imagination, and it’s a great instrument otherwise.
Pros: Wonderfully tonal dynamics, unusual looks if you like them. Cons: Unusual looks, if you don’t like them. Overall: Immensely impressive for the money; few guitars can match up at this price.
acoustic rating out of five
acoustic rating out of five
build Quality Sound Quality value for money
build Quality Sound Quality value for money
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