Full Acoustic Blowfish (with audio examples even)

Reid Powell

This guitar is for sale.

A note from the owner:

"Blowfish ‘Acoustic’ -- very thin archtop chambered body with cutaway. Top is sitka spruce, back and sides are highly figured mahogany. Ebony fretboard with Kanji inlay of “The Journey” at 12th fret. Electronics are one floating magnetic pickup and piezos in the Timtone proprietary bridge. Tuners are LSR micro-tuners.

For a guitar with no sound holes, it sounds amazing acoustically sound (great for quiet practicing) and a its variety of electronic sounds make it a jazz box, Latin fingerstyle instrument and even good for pop/light rock with the right amp tweaking.
Very light to play on your knee or with a strap. Excellent condition with no dings or fret wear. Small black volume knobs added (larger original ones are in case). The case is Gorilla-tough rectangular flight case; no problem travelling with this baby.

Asking $3550.(or best offer) and I will ship it to you (Purolator/FedEx/UPS)."

Here is the natural progression and current state of the art in Timtone acoustic tech.

I sweated bullets on this one and am happy to say it was worth it. I figure we have one of the only acoustic instruments in the world that has a full rounded forearm rest on a full acoustic Spruce top. No more numb fingers and forearms.
As well as the fore arm rest this may also be the only acoustic anywhere that has a bridge that is fully adjustable for both height and intonation.
Think of it, an acoustic that will always play in tune even after string gauge changes, truss rod adjustments and action adjustments. If the top moves and your action gets higher, just adjust it lower.
This guitar plays like a well set up electric. Low action. No more action you could drive a car under. This guitar will also support fairly light string gauges….compared to traditional acoustic gauges.

-Sitka Spuce top. Highly figured Honduran Mahogany Back.
-25 ½” scale length.
-Two inch deep body.
-The back has my new matching cavity plate. I use the very same piece cut out to make the cavity cover. This process requires big time NASA-like technology. Ask me, and I will tell you….but then I will have to kill you.
-Honduran Mahogany and Ebony neck. Taper laminated.
-Ebony fingerboard with book matched flame Maple binding.
-Custom Chinese Calligraphy inlay. Meaning “The Journey”.
-New Wide Gumby style 3 and 3 headstock. This one has LSR tuners. The head plate is book matched Texas Firewood Mesquite shaded to look quite dark and to create a faux binding. I shaded the Timtone decal as well to give it a nice vintage look. The effect is very nice in ‘real life’.
-Special arch top style Timtone floating pickup. Attached to the neck.
-Piezos.
-Two controls: Mag volume and Piezo Volume.

-This guitar weights five lbs.

Although I did not expect this instrument to have a ‘loud’ acoustic voice, it is surprisingly loud enough. It would be much louder with a sound hole or F holes. It is noticeably louder when played with the cavity cover off.
The point of this instrument is not to be played or performed as a full ambient acoustic, but to add the acoustic element to the plugged in tone. I am very pleased with the results.
Blending the mag pickup with the piezos provides a surprisingly vast array of sounds to play with. This guitar could be used by anyone from a pure jazz player to country to fingerstyle and blues.
I do have some control over the voicing and could go in several different directions.

Here is what Reid had to say about the Blowfish after playing it for a few days:

“As soon as I wrestled open the big sturdy (and very heavy) flight case housing my brand new guitar, my first word was "WOW!!!" What a beautiful piece of art. The top spruce with its medulary rays (and a small knot that gives it true character) glows like sunshine, and the mottled back and sides of mahogany are smooth as glass.

Playing my Timtone Blowfish for the first time with no amp was my second big surprise. I don't know how you do it -- but this is a Timtone after all and advertised as an acoustic model, something that Tim does not do that often -- but the guitar has a very mellow tone for an instrument with a very thin body (2") and not a sound hole of any kind to be found. It sings.

Then to plug in my trusty Polytone Mega Brute amp and put the fish through its electronic paces -- a special Tim designed floating humbucker at the neck position and piezos in the bridge. Nothing fancy, just two individual knobs, one for the mag another for the pizza -- um...piezos. Each pickup gives the Blowfish its own sound, and mixing the two offers a myriad of tones.

Aesthetically I get a very oriental feel from this guitar, probably a combination of the Chinese Kanji character ("The Journey") very neatly inlayed at the 12th fret of the ebony fingerboard, and the quite unusual (and a bit tricky to get used to) satin black LSR micro-tuners in the oversized 3 x 3 "Gumby" ebony veneered peg head.

Strapped over my shoulder the guitar is very light and my left hand finds the frets with easy. It is almost as though Tim had measured me for the body like a bespoke three piece suit from Seville Row. The neck is another nice piece of mahogany with very nifty flamed maple binding and a cool three-way stripe.

Tim is a luthier who should be better known, but for all us pleased Timtone owners it is probably better that he likes to hide in the BC hills. As well as a 1st class luthier, Tim is a great guy -- listening quietly and patiently to all my inane questions while my Blowfish was being built by his own near-surgically adept hands. He knew I know diddly about guitars and how they are put together, but Tim listens to every query and answers them all with a chortle (I still have trouble pronouncing "piezo").

I've owned guitars since 1964, from Japanese plywood horrors with action your could slice cheese on (this was before the Japanese learned how to make pretty good US copies) to a fine used Benedetto archtop, but my first Timtone (yes, there will be a second -- my name is already on Tim's list) is both my first hand-made guitar, and one than I find myself wanting play every day and make myself sound better doing so.

There is a small issue of the fourth set of strings we finally got set up on the Fish (as I said, those LSRs are tricky at first, and not happy with wound G strings), but even with those the guitar is a gem. New strings are on their way to me and I'm sure I'll find the perfect match.

Thanks for a fine instrument Tim, and for becoming a new friend. All I wanted to do when I first stumbled onto timtone.com was find a long-lost college buddy (btw Tim, Paul is sooo jealous of my Fresh Fish..), and here I am a couple of years later with a brand new friend, a new Timtone all my own, and TT#2 waiting in the wings. Life is a kick, ain't it?”

rp

Here are some recorded audio samples of this guitar. They are .wma files that should play right from your browser in whatever audio player you have on your computer. If you are on a dial up modem, you might be out of luck. If you would rather have a compressed MP3, let me know and I will send you the set....or upload them so you can download them ~;0)

Clip One: (1:35)I am explaining all about this guitar and how it was recorded.

Clip Two: (2:32)Playing this guitar in a drop D tuning.

Clip Three: (5:04)Playing this guitar in standard tuning.

Clip Four : (3:06)Playing this guitar and recording (with a mike) the acoustic nature of the guitar. Using no onboard pickups.