Featuring a slightly darker, punchier quality in a small guitar, the 812ce 12-Fret is a great choice. This edition features our V-Class bracing design, which bolsters this small-bodied guitar with added projection and sustain, bringing out more of Indian rosewood’s harmonic complexity. The Grand Concert’s intimate body size and short-scale neck make for a comfortable playing experience that fingerstyle players are bound to love. The 12-fret version of the 812ce yields a slightly different character than the 14-fret because the bridge position is closer to the center of the lower bout and because the bracing profile was modified to emphasize a bolder attack. Players can expect plenty of the Grand Concert’s signature articulation with a slightly meatier, more robust tonal output.
The 812ce V Class features all the voicing enhancements and aesthetic refinements of Taylor’s standard rosewood/spruce 800 Series with the upgraded V class bracing. Comes with Taylor Expression System® 2 electronics and ships in a Taylor deluxe hardshell case.
The 812ce V class is the ultimate small body guitar. With all the refinements in the standard 800 series coupled with the new sonic engine of the V class bracing, the 812ce boasts an amazingly punchy and full guitar in a super comfortable body size. The Grand Concert’s intimate body size and short-scale neck make for a comfortable playing experience that fingerstyle, stage, and couch players are bound to love.
Grand Concert Shape
The small-body Grand Concert debuted in 1984 to meet the needs of a new wave of adventurous acoustic fingerstyle players. In contrast to the traditionally darker, boomier voices of bigger body styles like dreadnoughts and jumbos, the body shape of the grand concert has a compact size and tapered waist. It was also more comfortable to play while sitting down, and the guitar’s slightly wider neck gave players more room for complex fingerings. The GC’s smaller sonic footprint also fit cleanly in a mix with other instruments when tracking in the studio and with a band on stage, making it a useful tool for professional session and side players. Our current generation of GC models continues to accommodate fingerstylists with finger-friendly traits like a shorter 24 7/8-inch scale length, which makes fretting easier and adds a slightly slinkier feel on the strings due to the lighter string tension. If you feel more comfortable with a small body, a Grand Concert is a great option.
The smallest of Taylor’s full-size body shapes. Its compact dimensions make for a physically comfortable guitar with an intimate feel and sound. The smaller footprint keeps the overtones in check, contributing to a focused, articulate sound that’s well-suited for recording and stage work.
V Class Bracing System
Master guitar builder Andy Powers designed and pioneered a revolutionary new bracing system that dramatically improves the guitars volume and sustain. In addition to these benefits, the guitar’s natural intonation or in tune ness is stunningly more accurate from the redesigned architecture, which allows the natural warmth of the rosewood’s overtones to shine through. No longer are volume and sustain compromised. The V class bracing system allows for more power and increased sustain.
Expression System 2
The Taylor Expression System 2 (ES2) is a revolutionary pickup design that delivers the latest in Taylor’s ongoing innovation in acoustic guitar amplification. The heart of the Expression System 2 is Taylor’s patented behind-the-saddle pickup, which features three uniquely positioned and individually calibrated pickup sensors. The location of the sensors enables a more dynamic range of acoustic sound to be captured than ever before. Together with Taylor’s custom-designed “professional audio”-grade preamp, this system produces exceptional amplified tone and responsiveness. On stage through a PA, plugged into your favorite acoustic amplifier, or direct into recording software, the Expression System 2 faithfully conveys the voice of your Taylor guitar.
Behind the ES2 Design: Rethinking the Piezo Pickup
For decades, piezo-electric transducers have been positioned under the saddle of a guitar based on the long-held belief that the string and top vibration cause the saddle to “bounce” up and down. But Taylor’s electronics team, led by developer David Hosler, discovered that the vertical movement is actually heavily restricted, and that the saddle gets “locked down” due to the string tension’s downward pressure. That’s why a traditional under-saddle pickup with piezo-electric crystals often responds with a sound often characterized as thin, brittle, brash or synthetic, especially with more aggressive playing.