The Collings Forum

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...

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...

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...

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.

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

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.)

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.

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...

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.

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.