Collings 12 Strings

[ripsaw]

Howdy

Any owners of Collings 12 strings here? I'm curious about what players think of them.

The short scale looks OK to me but the small body may be a bit much. I'm not that big a dude, 6'2" but it looks kind of small on this guy...

[ripsaw]

Nobody, eh? Drag.

Well, guess no one would know this either but are there any 12-string players that know Ralph Towner's weird turnings?

What I've read is that the top three strings are a fourth lower and the bottom three strings are tuned a fifth higher. On top of that, he drops the low E to D...

[ripsaw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NqFMB6ulBE

Old Ralph at his finest - on S. Korean TV with the Guild 512.

It almost looks like he has his lowest string doubled in unison.

I first saw him at the Northwest Services Center in about 1970. I was 18 but he was only around 30 then & talked to me for about a half of an hour - a nice memory...

[GregO]

Well, Collings uses a Single-0 size for its 12-strings, so it IS a small guitar. It also has a short-scale, too, so tuning down, like most old 12-string players did back in the day, won't be easy. Doug Young, the gent in the video, is also a large fellow, so it adds to the small look.

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, I did get to play one, briefly at a specialist shop here in the UK some time ago. It was a pretty high trim level instrument.
I love my two 12 strings - a rebuilt and customised '64 D-12-20 (looks like a D12-35) and a similar aged Harmony H1270.

The Collings 12 had a superb presentation (as you would expect), and the neck was lovely, but the sound from a "0" size guitar simply did not suit me!

Now, if they could put the same neck on a 12 fret dread body ....! Bye bye Martin and Harmony!

https://youtu.be/X-mZOc1FGV8

[uponamouse]

I'm reviving this thread to ask if anyone since last year has had experience with the Collings 12-string. I bought an old Japanese-made 12-string two summers ago, which has added many songs to my and my band's repertoire.

(As an aside, one cannot search the forum for topics about 12-string guitars, because "12" and "string" are deemed too common of search terms.)

[007]

While not recently, I played an O2H12 in the showroom at Elderly Instruments.
I wanted to like it more than I did. It felt a little small in my lap and I’m not very tall (5’9”). The guitar sounded great though and was not bad by any stretch. If I had the $, a Collings 12 would be in the house. The small body would take a little to get used too. To my ear, the video demos with German spruce tops have sounded best.

In terms of bang for the buck, I like the Martin D12-28. Dred size, but short scale. I had one about 20 years ago.

[uponamouse]

Thanks; I appreciate your input. I'm the same size, so that's helpful. Between the options of Collings, Santa Cruz, Martin, and Gibson (to name a few), it's a tricky call. I need to get my hands and ears on some...

[pto]

i had a wonderful collings german/cocobolo a couple of years ago. wonderful guitar, loved what it could do. loved the size and everything about it except... it was a twelve-string. not a direction i aspired to anymore after years and years of copying lightfoot tunes with a '64 b-45-12. sold it after maybe 4 months.

[Greg Y]

I was at Collings once when Bill fielded a call from Johnny Depp asking about a 12 string. Bill wasn't crazy about the dreadnaught 12 string sound and soon after the Collings 12 came out. Bill always travelled his own path.