Frets Magazine Review

Frets Magazine, Summer 2006 Review

Gold Tone GRS
Designed for Gold Tone by noted resonator marker Paul Beard-and carrying his signature-the GRS (list $899/street$729) is easily the heaviest guitar in this roundup, and its literal heft follows through to the figurative as you delve into its details and design. From the bone nut to the ridged cover plate with removable hand rest, from the gloss finished, golden-walnut-stained mahogany neck to the rich dark -chocolate of the bound rosewood fretboard. The GRS looks and feels a rung up the ladder from what we've expected so far. The guitar is made in Korea and assembled in the USA with the addition of several American-made Beard parts, including a hand-spun aluminum Beard cone.

This Gold Tone also differentiates itself in having a 12th fret neck joint and a longer, slope-shouldered body design. The shape-which echoes that of high-end models from National and others-sets the GRS apart from the more standard, concert-bodied guitars. But this difference is more than just cosmetic: The neck joint and body style give the guitar an extra inch-and-a-half or so in body length compared to the Regal and the Johnson, and set the cone in a larger reverberant chamber. The neck has a chunky, full, but palm-friendly feel to it, and the nut has been cut to allow plenty of room between strings for conflict-free fingering, without putting the E strings so close to the edge that you're constantly pulling them over the fretboard.

Performance
At first strum, there are hints that the extra effort put in here design-wise, and the addition of some upmarket parts, are going to pay off. The GRS has the deepest, fullest, most mature voice of the bunch. There's loads of ring and sustain, and a gorgeous bass/treble balance with, if anything, a slight favoring of the deeper tones that flow from the f-holes. While newcomers are often drawn to the novel zing and sizzle of the cone sound from a reso, that alone can get a little grating over time. Personally, I like an instrument that exudes more of the silky lower frequencies with a fairly linear overall balance. The Gold Tone definitely falls in that camp, while retaining enough sparkly aluminum cone sizzle to really cut through the mix.

Indeed, it's also the loudest of the bunch, which speaks of a successful design all around. I'd say this instrument even approaches the tonal territory of the Delphi, and if it's a hair short in terms of succulent, velvety richness, I'm guessing it has the potential to mature over time as the cone gets played with.

The GRS wears medium-gauge strings with a fairly low action, which makes it easy enough to fret but requires a light touch with the slide, and makes behind-the-slide fretting techniques a little tricky. The setup works to an extent for lap slide, but players who find themselves using it across the lap far more upright might eventually want to modify it with a slightly higher bone nut.

Verdict
In this ultra-competitive price range, the build quality and sonic performance of a metal-body resonator guitar steps up considerably with each jump of roughly $150, with attainment of that "real reso sound" following pretty closely the amount of cash you're willing or able to lay down.

The Gold Tone GRS is the clear standout tonally, and is the most thought-out design of the group too, but the Johnson sounds pretty decent for the money, and also-given the current setups of each-makes a good choice for players who might like to dabble in lap-style playing while still being able to tackle the guitar upright for bottleneck slide and standard fingering. The Regal is ultra-affordable for a steel-bodied reso, and at least cops some of the characteristic zing and twang, although taking the National Reso-Phonic Delphi for a spin after some time spent with the RC-1 feels a little like switching on the hi-fi after listening to your old LPs through the stylus vibrations alone. Even so, the RC-1 is a fun instrument, and with a street price of well below $400, it offers even those on a tight budget an opportunity to explore the funky cry of resonator tone.

Amped Up: Gold Tone GRE
It's ironic that, while the resonator was developed to help acoustic guitarists get heard on live stage, live performers have been wrestling with the difficulty of making a reso sound like a reso almost since the dawn of amplification. As with any nuanced acoustic instrument, good miking affords the best means of capturing genuine resonator tone-but that option isn't always available, or convenient. Many players today demand a plug-in-and-play solution, and to that end, Gold Tone has introduced the GRE (list $999/street$799), a thinline electro-acoustic partner to the GRS.

Like the GRS, the GRE is also designed by Paul Beard. It has the same general specs and design as the GRS, but has a body depth of only 2 1/4" versus the acoustic sibling's 3 1/4" size. The GRE carries a passive piezo pickup mounted in the biscuit bridge, plus a magnetic lipstick tube pickup in the neck position, with a stereo output jack to send the signals down the provided Y cable to separate amps or channels, where they can be EQ'd or treated as desired. In addition to the pickup system, the GRE carries material upgrades in the form of an ebony fretboard with snowflake inlays; curly maple heel cap and binding; and a stained figured-maple headstock facing. So the extra $100 buys you a lot with this guitar.

Unplugged, the sound is nearly as full and rich as that of the GRS. There is a little less depth in the lows, and slightly less volume, but it's a truly impressive acoustic instrument. There's a shade more string height here than on the GRS we tested, so bottleneck playing doesn't require quite as much delicacy, and even lap-style playing goes pretty smoothly. Plugged in, the dual-pickup system offers a plethora of sonic options. I was able to attain dynamic and very useful tones through a pair of standard tube guitar amps; a tube amp and a solid-state acoustic amp; DI'd to two channels of a mixer for recording or feeding a stage sound system; and even in mono through a Y plug into the single input of my little DR. Z Z-28 combo. There's no switching or controls of any kind on the guitar itself, so all things related to tone and level must be performed with outboard gear, but at this price it's hard to argue with that, and onboard electronics would be tricky to access and service in any case.

The "electro reso" idea isn't a new one: National Reso-Phonics Resolectric (list $2,100), a long-standing favorite in the field, is a solidbody design with a dual pickup system and full control complement, while Johnson carries the very affordable Swamp Stomper (list $439), a wood-body resonator with a single cutaway and a single neck-position magnetic pickup. But the Gold Tone GRE is a rarity as a ready-to rock electrified metal-body resonator guitar, and offers a boatload of tonal possibilities for the price.