1997 Gibson Advanced Jumbo

This is my main guitar featured in nearly all my videos. It was a gift from a friend of mine with whom I played a lot of music together. And the guitar, which we bought back in 2011, blew us away completely from day 1. We ordered it from a guy in Texas and for $1,500 this was probably the most guitar for the money I ever heard. It sounds like a $15,000 guitar. Still to this day, everybody who plays it, says it's the best acoustic guitar they ever heard and want to buy it!

It's not in perfect condition. It has a lot of dings, scratches, and whatnot. My friend installed the Highlander IP-2 pickup system in this guitar and drilled the hole pretty poorly, so it has some dings and scratches even down in the jack area.

After 24 years of constant playing and recording, the fretboard is extremely worn with deep grooves where fingers would go and has worn frets. But I don't want to refret it yet. I was told the guitar has a Brazilian rosewood fretboard, which is a nice surprise.

In 2020/21 winter the weather was so bad and conditions so severe that the guitar got its first crack in the top in 24 years and the first time in 10 years it happened to one of my guitars. However, it was an easy repair and my local luthier did a wonderful job gluing it back together. He didn't even use any additional wood veneers, it only left a visible lacquer crack on the top and that's all. Luckily, the sound remained intact.

I'm happy to own this guitar and I hope everybody enjoys the great sound of it through my videos as much as I enjoy playing it. But my absolute favourite part about this guitar is the mother-of-pearl arrows and diamonds fretboard inlays. To me, it's the most beautiful acoustic guitar neck in existence and I don't think that any other guitar would make me want to record my videos the way I do it.

On this guitar, I usually use D'Addario XT 12-53 Phosphor Bronze strings. However, in my videos, you can hear many other brands. I used Martin Retro strings for a while and Ernie Ball Earthwood strings among others. I'd suggest using as many strings as possible and finding your favourite.