Taylor GS Mini Acoustic Guitar is relatively small but will sure catch your attention. It’s not just a travel-size guitar because it has a customized acoustic sound that you can easily amplify especially with good-sounding pickup. How can you not love this guitar?
Taylor GS Mini Review
Just as the name suggests, the GS Mini is a down sized GS shaped guitar. It was designed in a Mexican factory and launched in the United States but is also available in the UK. It’s more of a travel guitar.
Build
Taylor GS Mini Acoustic Guitar was launched in 2006. This guitar cuts about 51mm off the scale length and 86mm off the entire length. When it comes to the width, we lose an estimate of 48mm and 5mm from its depth. It’s relatively compact as compared to a full-scale length acoustic guitar albeit bigger in terms of depth.
The GS Mini has a long scale length that is slightly longer than that of the Big Baby. It has laminate sides and back with a solid top that are both unbound which means you should expect a few wears and dings on the edges of the body after a while. It has few decorations – black/white and black edge top purfling along with an inlaid white and black sound hole rings.
It’s very clean internally although the X-bracing top and other different struts are quite square-edged. It doesn’t have a back bracing owing to the pressed bulbous laminate curve. Taylor GS Mini additionally features a thin satin that works remarkably well in enhancing the typical resonate feel. However, it doesn’t offer protection against road wear.
A single ply faux pickguard made of tortoise shell helps protect the top from any kind of wear. However, you might need to explore other alternatives if you prefer an all gloss, pristine and shiny guitar because Taylor GS Mini is not it.
The build sharpness extends all the way to the neck that uses the brands NT system to attach it to the body. What’s more, the unbound ebony is incredibly clean and beautifully precise with a simple pearloid dot marker on the surface and small dots on the sides. This acoustic guitar’s standard wire is sort of employed – slightly under 2mm width and 1mm high.
Taylor GS Mini is installed cleanly and also fettled with rounded, smooth crowns. In terms of profile, the neck features a soft V along with a narrower nut width that makes it feel electric although it has an entire 56mm string spacing on the ebony bridge.
The set-up is equally immaculate. There’s the NuBone nut that’s a relatively affordable Graph Tech’s Tusq material derivative. It’s well cut and the NuBone saddle provides good intonation and the height of the treble bass string continues its electric-like playability. The Elixir medium gauge supplied Nanowebs helps ensure the feel is firm with enough power to drive the top despite the short scale.
In addition, the short scale length is easily adjustable although a relatively wide nut width alternative will make finger style guitarists more comfortable. The tuners are perfectly good – enclosed types with a logo. It also comes with plastic bridge pins in black and an additional strap button positioned on the heel.
Most guitarists find playing Taylor GS Mini a little too bland and perfect but the consistency and quality is unquestionable.
The guitar in question was shipped from their headquarters in San Diego to London. It was hung around for more than a week in sub-zero temperatures after being delivered incorrectly. It was delivered in a firm and well-padded gig bag with a cardboard box supporting it at the top. It was incredibly in tune after unpacking it. How nice!
Taylor GS Mini is not entirely acoustic otherwise it would have ranked highly. However, it’s specially designed with an ES-Go magnetic sound hole pickup that you can install with ease in a few minutes. It tends to push to a pre-fitted housing in the acoustic guitar right under the end of the fingerboard.
You need to unscrew the strap button at the base then replace it with a jack loaded endpin that is usually pre-wired into a tiny jack. The mini jack plugs to the pickup’s housing with a pre-installed clasp that holds the length of the lead and prevents it from rattling in the body.
Sounds
Just like a great parlor-size guitar, Taylor GS Mini usually outputs the sound that belies the compactness. It produces a lighter bass as compared to its counterparts especially the Martin dreadnought but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it lacks in the sound department since its voice is as appealing as it is musical.
We can bet with a considerable amount of money that the GS Mini is an incredibly fine guitar for recording. The tight lower end gives space to an exceptional bass guitar or rather, bassier six string without the mids being overly honky like the way parlours tend to be. The sparkly, silky highs are the brand’s pure fidelity.
In addition, there’s strength, resonance and tonal depth aplenty. Taylor GS Mini doesn’t sound like it lacks anything in this department since it has its own voice. It would probably track on top of big sounding acoustics remarkably well either recorded or live.
The pickup is quite basic with non-existent control although most players are acclimatized to this aspect of it with best-selling and long-running units like Fishman’s Rare Earth. When we get to the ES-Go, AER test amp, although passive, it falls in the same ballpark. The pickup, on the other hand, senses a broader frequency response which means adding low bass, sparkling highs along with a middle cut produces more than enough acoustic tone with ease.
Low fret positions usually sound acoustically accurate especially when you move towards the neck as in the case of Fishman’s Rare Earth. This means that things might become more electric in terms of sound but there are many gigs with the latter that you can use to your advantage for jazzier lines, bluesier and bottleneck styles.
The GS Mini will take on an old, bluesier and jazzier vibe without any piezo under saddle quack when you narrow the EQ on the PA or amp. Both the concept and the design are beautifully simplistic which makes it more than just a typical travel guitar. It fits the bill although Taylor’s modern-day parlor definition is more befitting.
Taylor GS Mini Acoustic Guitar has its own unique vibe as well as voice. At this point, its safe to say that both the vibe and voice of this guitar are appealing. Not to mention, its compact and designed to fit the price. Taylor has a vast experience in designing beautiful and equally effective guitars to ensure the economies don’t compromise more important things like playability and sound.
The GS Mini is compact without sacrificing on sound and playability. To add on that, the ES-Go pickup is purpose designed and the guitar comes with many different accessories that makes it a high-quality desire product that no one can resist. Plus, its compactness makes it easy to carry around.
Any guitarist out there should have a Taylor GS Mini in their little collection!
