The Best Acoustic 12 String That I Have Ever Played
No friends, that’s not click bait although I can see how some might interpret it to be so. It’s how I feel on my first afternoon with a brand new Boucher SG12-41-E.
Boucher Guitars come from the lutherie of Robin Boucher located in Berthiere Sur Mer in the Canadian province of Quebec. Over many decades, I have bought and sold a lot of acoustic guitars, and while some have been really nice, nothing compares to any of the Boucher guitars that I own.
Quick Specs
The SG12-41-E decodes as follows. SG stands for Studio Goose. Boucher does what they call the Bluegrass Goose and the Studio Goose lines. They look similar but the build is different in key elements. In the 12 string family, they only make in the Studio Goose line. 12 means 12 string. That makes sense. 41 means an OM size hybrid body which is 19 ½ inches long, 15 ⅛ inches wide and 4 ⅜ inches deep that has a AAAA Adirondack Spruce top and solid mahogany sides and back. The E means it has electronics, but I made the request to forego the Fishman Matrix pickup (because I really hate the sound of piezo) and instead to get it with a K&K Pure Mini Pickup. This is a simpler electronics pack with no controls in the guitar at all, that to me sounds like an acoustic guitar only louder when plugged into a good amp like my AER Tommy Emmanuel.
Other woods are available including East Indian Rosewood, Bubinga or Flamed Maple. I like the voice of mahogany in smaller body guitars so decided to go this route, although knowing Boucher, it would be awesome in any of their wood choices. This is not a computer driven builder. They use technology but are not controlled by it.
The neck is solid South American Mahogany with a smooth satin finish. The fretboard is ebony as is the bridge. The nut and bridge pins are Tusq and the saddle is bone. There is binding on the front and back where they connect to the sides and herringbone purfling on the top. The sound hole also has a herringbone surround. I would say a classic look all around.
I was very excited to see the deep rich gloss finish on the body. I just don’t like the look of satin body guitars. The finish is superb, without flaws or waves. Adirondack spruce has a wider wale than Sitka spruce which changes its movement characteristics. The sound difference is subtle but I can hear a difference and prefer Adirondack spruce. I am also very pleased that the mahogany is not stained or dyed. As I took the guitar from the case I was surprised by the light honey colour. This is a guitar that is going to age very nicely. Of course the first thing I noticed was the smell of that wood. Gorgeous.
I ordered this guitar about six months ago through The Arts Music Store in Newmarket Ontario. Carl, who is the owner, did all the communications with Boucher himself and kept me up to date on the process. Boucher estimated mid November and it arrived at the store on the 16th. It’s one of the things that I like about dealing with Boucher and with a very focused guitar shop like The Arts. QC was done of course at the factory but both guitar technical professionals at The Arts, Kevin and Braden checked the guitar before I picked it up and both said it was the nicest 12 string that they had ever played. I had not even seen it at this point, and while I don’t live on the opinions of others, I trust the extraordinary talent of these two fine gentlemen.
The guitar comes in a beautiful yellowish tweed hard-shell case. While I tend to have my guitars out and ready to play, for transport of acoustics, my preference is a hard-shell case despite the storage hassles therein.
Playing the Guitar the First Time
The guitar came from the factory with Elixir Nanoweb strings. I am not an Elixir fan, but found the strings to sound very nice on the first day. When the time comes to change them, I will go with my preferred acoustic string the D’Addario XS acoustic series. I had put these on my Taylor Koa 12 string instead of Elixirs and I like them better in terms of feel and overall playability. To each his or her own of course, but that is what works for me.
The OM body is so comfortable to play. I always use a strap, never being really confident to just have a guitar on my knee. I am using a Boucher real leather strap on this guitar. I had made a general change to Right On straps made in Spain, but they changed to what they called Vegan leather and the straps lost their softness and flexibility and attained an unpleasant plastic feel. Too bad, because their length changing system was the best out there. The K&K pickup jack is in the body strap pin, so you will likely as I did have to enlarge the strap hole a bit to get it to fit. I prefer leather headstock straps with a mounting pin to those string things because the leather is gentler on the headstock.
After attaching the strap, I sat on the couch in the living room and just started strumming. The Boucher is set up with the higher strings above, like a Rickenbacker not below like a Gibson. I’m not sure that one is better than the other, but they deliver different sounds. I am always initially surprised at the incredible voice and volume of smaller bodied mahogany guitars. They are incredible. I have a mid nineties Taylor 512 that is cedar over mahogany and it has not trouble being heard. My smallest acoustic is a Gibson L-00 Custom Shop 1932 Parlour and it too has great voice. The Boucher has a very wonderful tone, without being boomy at all. I know that a dreadnought or a jumbo body (both options available as 12 strings from Boucher) would be louder, but I can live with a tiny bit less volume for the substantial increase in comfort that comes from the slightly smaller body. It just feels great.
Kevin set the action a bit lower than factory spec and I like what he has done. No fret buzz and no tonal defeat with barre chords but that small 1mm change is easier on my increasingly arthritic hands. I can play if I have stretched my hands, for over an hour without any pain. The neck is a basic C shape that is very comfortable and the radius feels great, not too round or too flat. I have not used a radius gauge to get the actual number, because the guitar is here and I like it and the number would not change anything at this point.
The closed gear nickel plated Gotoh tuners are easy to use, with no binding or stiffness. The layout is good and the tuning knobs are simple that it’s easy to find the right one without visually checking. I cannot say that for other 12 strings that I have had.
I did most of my initial playing with a pick, going as usual for something fairly thick and rigid. I prefer V Picks in general but due to some issues have expanded my choices to include thicker versions of the Jim Dunlop Flow picks. I know from long experience that a thicker pick is less bright than a thin one. It’s also a lot more precise for me, and I have much better control of dynamics with a pick that does not bend. If brightness were an issue (not so far) EQ could help when recording or using an acoustic amp.
To see what the pickup sounded like, I used a Tech21 Acoustic Fly Rig that was handy and connected directly to a large Headrush FRFR cabinet. This is my living room setup for noodling typically with a Martin SC-13E. The K&K is just SO MUCH BETTER than those nasal piezos (spits on ground), that I did have to manipulate the bass level and the low pass filter on the Fly Rig for where it had been set for the piezo (spits on ground) equipped Martin but once I got it dialed in (about a minute) the sound of the Boucher came from the FRFR sounding like the guitar only louder and with the expected impact often known as the Fletcher Munson effect. That concept was discovered in 1933 and has been revised since then, but fundamentally we hear different frequencies differently at different volume levels.
Recording the Boucher
The easiest route to recording is to take the output from the guitar straight into one of the inputs on an Apollo and select Line. It just works. I could run through the Acoustic Fly Rig but if I am recording, I have a number of high end plugs that I can use that allow me to faff with the sound and use a completely neutral and clean input.
The sample recording here is very short, basically a couple of simple phrases. It was the guitar directly into Channel 1 on an Apollo Twin X in Line input mode connected via Thunderbolt to a late 2013 Mac Pro. I did apply a UA 610B preamp plugin as well as a UA 1176 Limiting Amplifier at 8:1 compression both on the output mix as I only have the one track. I use a UA Satellite Octo as part of my setup because I find that running a few UA plugins that I like needs a lot of CPU. The DAW in this case was Logic Pro, although I could as easily have used UA’s LUNA DAW. Beyond the very basic stuff, I did no cleanup or eq, and before you tell me, I know, I could certainly afford to do some. I apologize for being a bit sloppy on this, I spent a lot of time trying to do the recording on a Windows 11 machine into Audition yesterday and everything was a goat seduction. Audition was generating phantom noise until I back revved a full version, the UA output sounded like it was going through a stone crusher, a reinstall of the UA software failed with an invalid hash error amongst a multitude of other issues. Had I gone straight to the Mac with either Logic Pro or Luna being fed from the Apollo, I would have started the day in a better mood and spent more time on the recording.
Setting up to record can be a hassle when microphones are involved but I like the work and find it fulfilling. If you don’t record, fair enough. Be confident that you could take this guitar and a decent acoustic amp or a feed to a PA right from the K&K and do your gig. Please do note that what I consider to be a decent acoustic amp may differ from the opinions of others. For me it’s a very short list. AER or the amps now being made by Udo Roesner, the founder of AER. Do not go play through one of these acoustic amps with a great guitar that has an excellent (non-piezo) pickup because it will cost you money. Everything else sounds like a soup can afterwards.
From Whence I Came
This is not my first acoustic 12 string. The first one that I ever played was a brief experience with a Guild 12 string that my friend Mike let me play. He had borrowed it for a while from his music teacher. It’s been decades, but I remember Mike as a talented flautist and guitarist, and the person who introduced me to Earl Scruggs and 5 string banjo. My first 12 string that I owned was a Norman 12 string that I got at Long and McQuade in Toronto when I was about 15. It was a dreadnought size and it was my first experience with a 12 string. A nice guitar but as time passed I began to hear the limitations (to my ear) of an all laminate guitar. It served me well and the person who bought it was very happy. My next 12 string was an Ovation Custom Balladeer deep bowl. It also had a pickup. I bought it used on a bit of a whim, and it did not stay with me very long. It kept sliding off my knee and when playing it standing up, it would tend to roll around on me. While many folks love the sound of Ovation guitars, this one didn’t do it for me, so it got traded in towards something. I really cannot recall what. Then for a while my only 12 strings were electric. Two of those are in doubleneck configurations, the known Jimmy Page ES-1275 and the John McLaughlin Ibanez Artist model with the Tree of Life inlay. I still have them both and added a Rickenbacker 481v69 a la Jim McGuinn (you probably know him as Roger McGuinn) that while a challenge to plan due to a narrow nut, sounds only like a Rick 12 and the first run of the Paul Reed Smith Custom 22 12 String. That electric is the easiest electric 12 that I have ever found to play. Just after I got the PRS, I got a builder special release of what is now the Taylor 12 String Jumbo (pardon me for forgetting what Taylor-speak is for Jumbo) in all Koa. Koa is a nice wood for a 12 string. It sounds very good and is easy to play like most all Taylors. Even with that experience and set of opportunities, this Boucher still sounds and feels better to me overall. The PRS is the go to electric, but 12 strings are relaxing to me and not needing to plug in is good in my book. The OM hybrid body size is a perfect fit for me.
In Summary
I heartily recommend Boucher guitars. You will not pay much for, often less, for a Boucher than a Martin or Gibson or Taylor. Those are all fine guitars, but every Boucher I own or have played have excelled to my hearing and playability preferences. The downside is that it is so good, I am already starting a saving bucket for another one. I think a dreadnought size body in East Indian Rosewood with that Adirondack Red Spruce top needs to be ordered. Time for a phone call to Carl. I understand that delivery is about 9 months and that should work out rather nicely. I have a 6 string Boucher Bluegrass Goose dreadnought and a 12 string Boucher Studio Goose dreadnought would go nicely with that.
Thanks for reading and until next time peace. If you have and questions, please click this link and send them in.
