2021 Greg Smallman & Sons Cedar/Lattice Braced

Top: Cedar/Lattice Braced
Back and sides: Rosewood
Scale: 650mm
Origin: Austalia
Price: $29,900

This is a superb sounding Smallman! Smallman guitars have a dedicated fan base all over the world, and have for many many years. Not that volume should be an end in and of itself, but if we for a moment just isolate that attribute of concert level guitars, I personally think nothing has quite the volume that a Smallman does, they are just cannons!

As to voicing, I generally find them to have lovely voices too, though I must admit from time to time I have heard one that sounds a bit ‘honky’ or ’nasal’. This is unfortunate because it has created some internet chatter that this is a ’thing’ with Smallman’s, which it is not. In my experience it has been relegated to a few instruments here and there over the years, the majority being excellent and lovely powerful instruments. But you do have to ‘choose’ a Smallman that is in the latter category.

This is clearly one of those that I love, beautiful tone, adjustable Smallman action makes it easy to adjust the action to your person preference with a couple twists of a simple size 8 hex wrench, and volume like it is plugged in to a mini amp! This is one of those Smallman’s that makes you smile. In fact the owner who was going to send it to me kept pulling in out and playing it and deciding to keep it! After doing this several times he finally sent it to me, however reluctantly. Anybody seeking a Smallman will love this one.

The guitar presents as ’near new’ when you take it out of the case. Upon VERY close examination I saw a ‘line’ in the upper bout, treble side that ‘mimicked’ a crack, but is not a crack and appears simply to be a line in the finish, I tried to capture it in one of the photos below, you can’t see it unless you hold it in the light and look close. a non issue in my opinion. There is one other almost invisible touchl up/repair on the lower bout of the top, very well done, again i tried to capture it in a close up but even then you can hardly notice it. My mirror light went out today! So I was not able to check inside.

This is a great sounding Smallman, with gorgeous Rosewood Back and sides, and the action adjustment tool is included and it comes in a lovely white Karura Carbon Fiber case.