A small-body nylon string with a Sitka spruce top, sapele back and sides, soft cutaway and Taylor ES-N electronics.
The Taylor 2012 312ce-N Sapele/Spruce Nylon String Grand Concert Acoustic-Electric Guitar features the richness of the solid-wood acoustic experience of the 300 Series. Sapele shares mahogany’s lively tonal response and, together with a gloss-finish Sitka spruce top, rings out with a brightness and clarity that give these guitars a definitive Taylor voice. Black binding flanks sapele’s ribbon-like grain, with large pearl fretboard dots adding a traditional touch.
Grand Concert (GC)
Body Width: 15" / Body Depth: 4-3/8" / Body Length: 19-1/2"
A smaller bodied guitar ideally suited for fingerstyle.
The small-body Grand Concert debuted in 1984 to meet the needs of a new wave of adventurous acoustic fingerstyle players. In contrast to the traditionally darker, boomier voices of bigger body styles like dreadnoughts and jumbos, the GC’s compact size and tapered waist kept the overtones in check. It was also more comfortable to play while sitting down, and the guitar’s slightly wider neck gave players more room for complex fingerings. The GC’s smaller sonic footprint also fit cleanly in a mix with other instruments when tracking in the studio and with a band on stage, making it a useful tool for professional session and side players. The current generation of GC models continues to accommodate fingerstylists with finger-friendly traits like a shorter 24-7/8-inch scale length, which makes fretting easier and adds a slightly slinkier feel on the strings due to the lighter string tension. If you feel more comfortable with a small body or favor controlled overtones, a Grand Concert is a great option.
Sapele
Origin: West Africa
An alternative tonewood that joined the Taylor fold over a decade ago. It’s sometimes mistakenly referred to as African mahogany because it closely resembles the West African wood khaya, which is commercially known as African mahogany. Sapele is a highly sustainable, relatively fast-growing wood. Tonally, it does everything that mahogany does, with a little extra treble zing. Taylor will be able to offer it for a long, long time.
ES-N®
Like the the ES-T, The ES-N is a single-source, under-saddle transducer, but the preamp design and tone controls were customized to complement the nylon-string voice. Standard ES control knobs enable plenty of tone-shaping and preserve the natural design aesthetic.
