How Taylor crafted a ‘new recipe for an old sound’ with the Gold Label Collection
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When you hear someone talk about ‘The Taylor Sound’ they probably have a specific thing in mind. They’re probably thinking about the recipe that Bob Taylor laid down in 1994 with the Grand Auditorium model – tonal clarity, articulation and balance, a balanced and un-boomy low end. These are the characteristics that helped make Taylor one of the biggest guitar brands on earth, and the choice of professional musicians of every stripe as a reliable studio and stage workhorse.
But in the prevailing 30-something years, a lot has changed about a lot of things – and Taylor guitars are no different in that regard. The company has continued to be one of the most innovative and forward-thinking guitar brands on the planet, and this has been given new energy over the last decade since Andy Powers came on board as Master Guitar Designer.
A Class Apart
When Powers created the revolutionary V-Class concept in 2018, it was used to create what many felt was the ultimate expression of that aforementioned “Taylor Sound” – creating a guitar that had all those wonderful characteristics while also being remarkably in-tune and sonically balanced all the way up the neck.
But… what if that was just the start? In the years since that first V-Class guitar, most people probably assumed that its purpose had been fulfilled, but in the background Powers was working to develop the concept – to demonstrate the V-Class architecture could be the bedrock for something new… or more accurately, something old.
“When we first launched the V-Class idea, it was so radical for us,” Powers explains. “We’d go, man, what do we do with this? Let’s voice it so that it’s very much in line with what we’re known for – the kind of personality of our guitars, if you will. And so a lot of these guitars, they represent this ultra modern, very precise, very accurate version of an acoustic guitar. But as a player and a builder, that’s not the only thing that I like.”
Instead he wanted to create something that was in-line with the principles of a Taylor guitar – as Powers puts it “a great-playing guitar with accurate notes, accurate pitches, great fretwork, serviceable, reliable, balanced” – but instead of shooting for high fidelity, he wanted to find a sound that was more vintage, more traditional… but very outside the usual Taylor wheelhouse. Enter the Gold Label Collection.
Gold Standard
The Gold Label takes the basis of a V-Class guitar and refines the concept (incorporating some elements of classical fan bracing), then melds it with other new innovations – the new Super Auditorium body style, and the radical new long-tenon Action Control Neck – to create a sound that has its roots quite a way away from El Cajon.
“Everything about that sonority is a very different sound for a Taylor guitar,” Powers explains. “And yet, as a guitar player, I go, Well, that’s right in the middle of this collective heritage of what we think of as acoustic guitar sounds. The richness and the warmth of that low end, the balance through the mid-range, this muscular quality on the high end – I like that. I like that a lot.”
The journey to the Gold Label 814e started in some ways with the Grand Pacific body shape in 2019 – a guitar that was the first hint that Powers was exploring more traditional and vintage sounds using the Taylor palette. “That was like a very high fidelity version,” Powers agrees, “In that it sort of reflects the sounds you hear on the record with one of those old guitars. As a player and a builder, I have loved the history of guitars. I love what the instruments are themselves. I love what different makers have done over time.”
For the Gold Label however, Powers fully embraced the history of guitar-making – and not just in the striking visuals that set the instrument apart from any other Taylor guitar. The materials used also represent a break from the norm for Taylor guitars – perhaps most notably the use of hot hide glue to improve sound transfer.
“It seemed appropriate for the instrument we wanted to build,” Powers explains. “I still love working with hot hide glue and for the parts that are appropriate, that works nice on this guitar. Some of these other materials, it’s a mix of things that will give us the kind of sound and feel that we want to achieve out of this instrument.”
Old Soul
Bob Taylor once said about the Taylor sound “You kinda have to like it, to like it” and the reality of creating a character that is so different from tradition is that the exact reasons why one person loves something is the other reason another doesn’t vibe with it. The Gold Label guitars, perhaps more than any other Taylor in history, are an attempt to meet the latter group where they are.
“In my background as a builder, I wasn’t building one flavor of sound,” Powers affirms. “Having worked as a custom instrument maker, I was in the mind to go, ‘You should build what the player is asking for’. Build what suits their music. That’s why they’re here, right? So if they’re asking for this, well, that’s what I want to design into the instrument
“I don’t know that I could ever shake that. Because having lived in the history of guitar, I like all these flavors. I like that they’re different. That’s what makes things exciting. I don’t want to play the same song all the time. I like different songs, different times of day, different contexts, different bands, different flavors. I think there’s a place for all of it.”
And that place is the Gold Label 814e – a new guitar with an old soul. And a guitar that, more than any other, is looking to prove that you don’t have to like the “Taylor Sound” to fall in love with a Taylor instrument.
Learn more about the Gold Label Collection at taylorguitars.com
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