Art et Lutherie - Legacy 12 Bourbon Burst CW Presys II

With the Legacy 12 Bourbon Burst CW Presys II, Art & Lutherie lays down the inimitable sound signature of the 12-string: a dense natural chorus, a bell-like attack that saturates the harmonic space, and the amber chestnut of the Bourbon Burst that betrays both the warmth of the wood and the patina of an instrument with character. The semi-gloss finish allows the top to work freely, with no plastic film to muffle the vibrations of the specially selected and pressure-tested solid spruce - a selection that places the soundboard among the rare woods capable of absorbing and restoring the mechanical tension of a double set of strings without flexing.

The Canadian handcrafted luthiery structures the instrument around a Canadian cherry back and sides whose tight grain projects the midrange with clarity and draws a fleshy bottom end without mud. The silver leaf maple neck holds the geometry under the doubled tension of the 12 strings, while the rosewood fingerboard - with its 43 mm nut - spaces out the strokes to make the barre positions really tenable. The 631 mm tuning fork calibrates the tension of each pair in a median balance: octaves sound round, unisons snap without aggression.

The Concert Hall Cutaway format preserves the depth of body characteristic of 12-string instruments, while cutting out the pan to free up the high frequencies - melodic ornaments in high position are no longer an acrobatic exercise. The Godin electronics coupled with the Presys II preamplifier translate the harmonic richness of the instrument into an amplified signal without impoverishing it. Artisanal, right-handed and Canadian, the Legacy 12 Bourbon Burst CW Presys II is as much a stage performer as it is an intimate session player.