We string them up like our electrics, with a 10-to-46 set and a plain G for one main reason: burning leads!” Baggs piezo-loaded bridge setup not only sounds great, it also enables the use of any gauge of strings and allows for quick-and-easy string changes. “Also, light strings just never feel right on a traditional acoustic, but the L.R. I also wanted to mitigate unwanted feedback issues and have more than one pickup for more common neck/bridge type tones, while keeping the instrument’s top plate reactive to players that may tap drumbeats on their acoustics. “The goal from the outset was to remove the details I found problematic with acoustics, such as hard-to-adjust intonation and string height, easy access to internal electronics or external placement of controls, and a comfortable design allowing upper-fret access. “It was somewhat of a tricky sandwich, to say the least,” he tells GP.

The 24.625-inch scale length and 1.687-inch width at the nut also keep things feeling familiar to fans of the Gibson-inspired template.Īs elegant as the Cielo Deluxe appears, an in-hand inspection immediately tipped me to several design challenges that were no doubt at the heart of the effort, and Baker is entirely forthcoming about several of the hurdles. 890 inches deep at the first fret – but extremely comfortable regardless, with a soft-V profile that leans toward a rounded ’59 C shape.

The 22 medium-jumbo 6105 frets are stainless steel, and unlike even most cutaway flattop acoustics, the Cielo design allows playable access to all of them on the plain strings. The body echoes these details in its tortoise outer binding and multi-ply purfling, double-bound tortoise sound-hole rosette, and tortoise pickguard and neck-pickup cover. Ringed in multi-ply faux-tortoise/black/white binding, it sports art deco inlays of mixed abalone and mother-of-pearl, with a mother-of-pearl b3 logo in its ebony headstock overlay. The latter is where the decorative enhancements of the Cielo Deluxe model first shine through. The neck is solid mahogany, with a sculpted heel that merges seamlessly with the mahogany of the body, and features a rosewood fingerboard. So I needed to get that guitar off the mountain for its survival and find a suitable replacement.

I had a very nice boutique acoustic that was coming nearly unglued once we relocated to Tehachapi, whereas it survived perfectly for almost a decade in all other places we’d lived. “Tehachapi, California, where we now live, is a high mountain desert town where it’s very dry and we experience over 24 inches of snow per winter. “The design was inspired by a special purpose,” he says. When I propose that the Cielo model is a little different from what most people have come to expect from b3, Baker explains its origins. But the Cielo Deluxe we’re checking out this issue comes from entirely elsewhere, while still – perhaps counterintuitively – screaming “Gene Baker creation” from top to bottom. After being named a Master Builder at the Fender Custom Shop following a tenure building for Gibson, then moving on to head up the acclaimed Premier Builder’s Guild, Baker needs no introduction. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.Building under his b3 brand and other banners that his guitars have worn in the past, Baker is far and away best known for alternative takes on classic solid-body electrics, an arena that his pedigree certainly reinforces. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Continue without accepting’ or ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices or learn more. Third parties use cookies for the purposes of displaying and measuring personalised advertisements, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we will also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences, and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.

Multiple guitar stands uk