With its scaled-down frame, comfortable neck and a powerful voice that punches above its weight, there’s really nothing else quite like it. If you’ve never played one or you’ve been thinking about finally snagging one for yourself, here are five reasons to add a GS Mini to your musical toolkit today.

#1: It fits in just about anywhere you could want to go.

Line up a GS Mini between a full-scale acoustic guitar and a traditional three-quarter-size travel guitar and you’ll immediately see why it’s so appealing to players.

Based on our original Grand Symphony body shape (thus, the “GS” moniker), it’s scaled to a size that fits between our Grand Concert and the smaller Baby Taylor. Once it’s in your hands, you feel the benefit of that design choice right away—it sits comfortably in your lap, with body contours that are perfectly placed to rest on your leg while offering ideal positioning for both your fretting and picking hands. It adds up to one of the most accommodating playing experiences you’ll find with an acoustic guitar.

The Mini’s compact proportions also make it an excellent guitar for players who spend significant time on the road or in the air. Since every model comes with a structured, padded gig bag with backstraps, the GS Mini is easy to pack into a car or bring on flights (just be sure to check your airline’s guidelines around traveling with musical instruments). 

#2: It doesn’t sacrifice tone for its compact frame.

Smaller acoustic guitars can be hit-or-miss in terms of their sonic capabilities. With many “travel-size” guitars, their sub-compact dimensions come at the expense of tonal output. 

The GS Mini is different. It starts with a solid-wood top on every model, and whether you select a model with a soundboard of spruce, koa or mahogany, you can count on clear, bold projection with impressive dynamic range. The use of Taylor’s Grand Symphony body shape is a major factor in the Mini’s impressive sonic output. With its wider lower bout and relatively large air capacity for a smaller-scale guitar (its body depth is nearly the same as that of the Grand Concert), it produces a pleasing volume and full-range depth of sound. The GS Mini also features a standard-sized soundhole, matching the four-inch diameter of full-scale Taylor models instead of the 3-½-inch diameter featured in the Baby Taylor. Having a bigger “mouth” relative to its size helps produce impressive volume for the player to enjoy. 

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GS Mini-e Koa Plus

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GS Mini-e Koa Plus

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GS Mini-e Koa

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GS Mini-e Koa

Inside the body, the GS Mini features a unique braceless back that incorporates a pressed arch rather than interior bracing for structural stability. That design element helps maximize resonance with the guitar’s layered-wood back and side construction. With all of these design elements working together, the tonal output roughly doubles what you can expect from any three-quarter-size guitar.

#3: It’s worthy of the stage (even big ones) and studio.

The GS Mini might be travel-friendly, but it’s more than a travel or couch guitar. It answers the call in almost any musical situation. Many models feature built-in electronics that make plugging in and playing through an amp, recording interface or mixing board a breeze. Standard GS Mini-e models include our ES-B preamp and pickup, which also features a built-in digital tuner in addition to volume and tone controls. GS Mini-e Plus models boast onboard ES2 electronics, the same behind-the-saddle pickup you’ll find in our top-of-the-line guitars. Artists like Damon Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) have strummed their Mini to a stadium full of fans. Because it’s also designed for optimal sonic clarity and balance, it’s also easy to mic up in a studio or home recording space, making it an incredibly versatile tool. 

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Watch Creature Canyon perform “American Movie” with a trio of koa-bodied GS Minis, including our fun-to-play acoustic bass.

#4: Lots of variety means a sound for every player.

Survey the complete GS Mini Series and you’ll discover a range of wood options, from spruce paired with layered rosewood to all-mahogany and all-Hawaiian koa versions to our 50th Anniversary limited edition. Tonally, spruce-topped models will sound familiar to most players thanks to its projection and midrange punch. Mahogany GS Minis will yield a slightly woodier, drier response, while koa models will deliver a touch of extra sparkle and a low-end warmth that will grow more pronounced as the wood matures.

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50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Rosewood SB LTD

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50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Rosewood SB LTD

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50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Rosewood LTD

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50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Rosewood LTD

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50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Rosewood LTD

Each tonewood combination also offers a unique visual character, and models like the GS Mini-e Koa Plus are sure to impress players and audiences alike with their lustrous coloration. Models with the “Plus” identifier also include upgraded aesthetic appointments like full-body gloss finishes. 

Speaking of impressive visuals…

#5: The GS Mini is a perfect medium for our growing range of collaborative projects.

If you’ve been following Taylor in recent months, you might have noticed a few especially interesting-looking GS Mini models popping up, including some adorned with beautiful custom artwork. These are the result of a new program we’re calling Taylor CoLabs.

CoLabs is an opportunity for Taylor to partner with brands, artists and other organizations that we feel align with our mission, breathing fresh life into our designs and bringing the Taylor sound to more people than ever. You can check out some of these collaborations over on our CoLabs page and see a roundup of custom art-top GS Mini guitars we’ve made over the years in our story here [link to art-top story].

BONUS: The GS Mini family also features a four-string acoustic bass.

Featuring a similar shape and scale as our six-string GS Mini guitars, the GS Mini Bass is configured with specially formulated short-scale bass strings that the string masters at D’Addario developed specially for Taylor master builder Andy Powers. Featuring a bronze winding around a nylon core, our bass strings offer a soft, responsive feel with a voice that remains warm and snappy—no easy feat for a bass with a 23-½-inch scale length. Perfect for adding punchy low end to any musical mix, the GS Mini Bass provides the same portability and playing comfort as you’ll find in its six-string counterparts, making it easy to season your jams with some bass-range rumble. It’s also great for kids to learn on. And it’s a great tool for working out new melodies and laying down bass tracks in the studio. Watch composer and Taylor player RAM demonstrate how he uses his GS Mini Bass in the studio below.

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Model options vary by year, but the GS Mini Bass is currently available in two variations: the standard GS Mini-e Bass, crafted with a solid spruce top and layered sapele back and sides, and the GS Mini-e Koa Bass, featuring a solid Hawaiian koa top paired with layered koa back and sides. Both editions include onboard ES-B electronics for easy amplification.

Be sure to explore the rest of our GS Mini special feature here in Wood&Steel and visit your local dealer to try one for yourself.

Ed. Note: This article originally ran in our summer 2016 edition. Since we recently released batches of special-edition 6-string and 8-string baritone guitars, we thought we’d republish it for readers who may have missed it the first time.

When I saw a Taylor 8-string baritone guitar for the first time, I thought, it’s so weird … and so perfect for me. I saw this magnificent instrument as something new and very specialized, without hope for a wider playing audience. Once I got one home, I realized that it was also born from the luthier’s tradition of small evolutionary steps. As a result, this logical design makes the 8-string baritone — and the slightly less eccentric 6-string baritone — not only a unique instrument, but one that any guitarist can be comfortable with almost immediately. 

Tuning

When I had a chance to ask Bob Taylor who he thought that guitar was made for, I was delighted that his answer doubled my appreciation for the instrument. “It’s for old guys who can’t hit the high notes in ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’ anymore,” he quipped. And there you have it: a simple way to play your favorite song but still sing melodies that are otherwise out of your range. No more transposing or retuning; just pick up that baritone, strum a C chord shape, and out comes a glorious G. And that high A note — found in far too many John Fogerty songs, not to mention Journey, The Who, Eagles, et al. — becomes a much more comfortable E. (If this pitch and singing jargon is new to you, check out my “Hit Your Mark” singing lesson in the Spring 2013 issue of Wood&Steel.)

I realize that Bob was only being half-serious in his comment — if anyone knows that there are innumerable uses for the baritone it’s Mr. Taylor himself — but there is also a lot of truth in his jest. Guitar-playing singer-songwriters tend to favor “guitar-friendly” keys (G, A, E and C, for example), which means many of them end up singing a lot of “high” notes that the average guitar hobbyist just can’t hit without some professional vocal training. What the baritone allows the average player/singer to do is to play songs, strumming the original chord shapes, but the chords that are heard are a fourth lower, thus giving the recreational player a better chance of staying in key vocally.

A normal guitar only allows you to go up in pitch with a capo. The baritone, by being tuned a fourth lower, actually allows you go up and down in pitch.

“This is all great,” I hear you saying, “but what if I don’t need to go a fourth lower? Maybe I just need a whole step lower. Or I don’t need it lower at all, I just like the sound of the 8-string.” Well, the answer to these questions is so simple that some people call the solution a “cheater.” Yes, I’m talking about a capo. (I’ve found that the Kyser 12-string capo works best.)

Unlike a normal guitar, which only allows you to go up in pitch with a capo, the baritone, by being tuned a fourth lower, actually allows you go up and down in pitch. All you have to do to get a baritone into standard tuning is to put that capo at the 5th fret. Play a G chord; a G chord is what you hear. But if you want to jam out with a Van Halen song in Eb, don’t retune; just drop the capo one fret, strum E, and out comes Eb. Or say you want to play along with the original version of “Yesterday” by The Beatles. Drop that capo two frets — “Yesterday” sounds in F, but McCartney played it out of G, tuned down a whole step. Is Hendrix’s “Hear My Train a Comin’” more your speed? Capo the baritone at the first fret and I wish you luck (Hendrix was tuned down two whole steps!). As you can see, the versatility of the low tuning alone is enough to encourage one’s interest in the baritone. But wait, there’s more….

Texture, Tone and Faux Bass

One of the other many virtues of the baritone’s lower tuning is the sonic manifestation of chords and single-notes that place the baritone’s sound in between a standard guitar and a bass…or as I like to think of it, a cello. The 8-string has the additional benefit of the jangle of the two middle octave strings, which fills out the sound even more, particularly when strumming.

The practical applications of these unique characteristics include: 1) textural variation when playing with other guitarists, due to the thicker strings and unison strings (just strumming G, C and D in unison with a standard guitar is an auditory thrill); 2) chord voicing variations that allow the baritone to be played in different frequency registers, using different chord shapes; and 3) the ability to play faux basslines. These last two functions could stand a bit more explanation, so let’s put them into song context. 

Example 1 is the A section melody for the old-time/bluegrass staple “Angeline The Baker,” notated for standard tuning guitar, in the key of D, using open position “cowboy” chords. Nothing unusual here.

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Example 2 is the exact same melody but here transcribed for baritone. If you don’t have a baritone handy, don’t let this confuse you: Yes, the key has changed on paper, but when you play the baritone in the key of G, it will actually sound in the key of D. As you’ve no doubt noticed, not only has the melody changed positions, but the chords also are different. Once again, because of the baritone’s down-a-fourth tuning, the G chord will actually sound as a D chord. This is an example of using the baritone for chord voicing and frequency register variations. 

Example 3 introduces a bassline for standard guitar. Now if you are playing this on a normal guitar, you’ll hear that Example 3 does work, but it’s pretty thin for a bassline.

On the other hand, Example 4, transcribed for baritone, is fat, rich and full, like a bassline should be.

A New Instrument?

In the early 1700s Bartolomeo Cristofori invented what we now call the piano, which was a radical variation of the harpsichord (and then some). Though the outward physical appearance of both harpsichord and piano are similar, no one would ever confuse the sound of the two instruments. Additionally, the two instruments could be played the same way, but the greater expressive control and tonal flexibility the piano offered required composers to rethink their approach to keyboard music and helped create a new body of musical works that changed music forever.   

This is how I see and hear the 8-string baritone.

I’ve already made my case for the 6- and 8-string baritone as a fine addition to any player’s collection, but now allow me to get a little more personal and suggest that the limits of the 8-string baritone are only those of our own imaginations.

Personally, I have been doing my best to slowly but surely compose a body of music specifically designed for the 8-string baritone. These pieces emphasize the individual texture, tone and timbre of the instrument; highlight the massive, resonant overtones the guitar produces; and exploit the extreme register differences found between unwound, doubled, and wound bass strings. For all intents and purposes, these pieces can only be properly performed on an 8-string baritone, a guitar that can produce music no other instrument can. And I’m writing the music because it wants to be written. Ultimately this is why the 8-string baritone is perfect for me: It inspires. It induces. And it responds!

After 24 years, we’ve decided it’s time to change our strings.

We’re happy to share that we’ve begun installing D’Addario’s premium XS coated phosphor bronze strings on our acoustic steel-string models. As of this summer, most of Taylor’s U.S.-built models are being strung with the XS coated strings (along with XS coated nickel electric strings on our T5z models), and we’ve begun that transition on our Mexico-made guitars (Baby Taylor through 200 Deluxe Series).

The decision came from Taylor’s chief guitar designer, Andy Powers, who favors the sound, feel, durability, consistency and performance of the XS coated strings in tandem with his latest guitar designs and other models within the Taylor lineup.

“We’re excited for this new chapter of partnership with D’Addario,” Andy says. “The XS strings are really consistent and produce a great response. By working to optimize the musicality of our guitars, we want to help musicians express themselves to the fullest.”

The move builds on a longstanding association between Taylor and D’Addario, whose steel-string sets we used for many years, and whose nylon strings we’ve used since the introduction of our nylon-string guitars in 2003. There’s always been a kinship between the two companies —reflecting a shared passion for innovation, manufacturing excellence and sustainability leadership.

“I feel like we’re really on the same wavelength,” says D’Addario founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Innovation Officer Jim D’Addario of the two companies. “We really run our businesses the same way.”

Performance Consistency

Throughout his tenure at Taylor, Andy has talked about the different ingredients that factor into a guitar designer’s recipe for a guitar — like the choice of tonewoods, the body dimensions, the internal bracing architecture — and the distinctive ways they interact to shape a guitar model’s sonic identity.  

Another essential ingredient is the guitar strings, which literally set the guitar in motion. By design, the strings should optimize the musical output of the guitar. And for Andy, there are clear musical metrics he looks for in a string’s performance: pitch accuracy, dynamic range, sustain and feel.

Of particular importance, he says, is the performance consistency across a set of strings.

“More than anything, what I always look for is whether the strings all behave in the same kind of way,” he says. “As a guitar maker, I want the exact same character from one string to the next. Otherwise, you can ruin everything about the guitar.”

That desire for consistency across each string set is amplified by the scale of Taylor’s production — in the range of 200,000 guitars each year. With our manufacturing sophistication, we’ve been able to bring an extraordinary level of consistency to the build quality of our instruments. Similarly, D’Addario has achieved impressive consistency through its proprietary string-making technology and precision manufacturing processes, which allow them to produce 800,000 strings a day.

The Value of Coated Strings

There’s another important consideration with strings: their performance longevity, especially in a store environment, where a guitar might be played by many customers before it finds a permanent home. No matter how well-crafted a guitar might be, dirty or dead strings will compromise the guitar’s tonal response, potentially causing it to languish in a store.

That’s one reason why Taylor adopted Elixir strings for our steel-string acoustics back in 1999. The company was the first string maker to introduce a coated guitar string, and that revolutionary technology proved to extend the string life considerably in a high-traffic retail setting.

Collaborating with D’Addario to Make the GS Mini Bass

A great example of the innovative spirit that connects Taylor and D’Addario is the development of our award-winning GS Mini Bass, launched in 2017. Andy had been exploring ways to take the compact proportions of the popular GS Mini and make a small, ergonomically friendly acoustic bass — a radical notion given that the scale length was about 10 inches shorter than a typical bass. A traditional string set simply wouldn’t be able to make accurate notes at that string scale length.

Andy pitched his idea to D’Addario’s string engineering team, who proved to be hugely instrumental as a development partner. For more than a year, D’Addario’s team worked with Andy to develop a custom string formulation that would allow the bass to function. In the end, the collaboration yielded a unique solution — a nylon-core string overwound with a traditional phosphor bronze wrap wire.

“That combination worked great,” Andy says. “Without those strings, I’m not sure this instrument would have been possible.”

Since the bass’s launch in 2017, Andy has stayed connected with the D’Addario team, both as he pursued his new guitar design recipes and as D’Addario pushed forward with their own string R&D projects, on their way to releasing their premium XS coated strings in 2021. Andy had the opportunity to beta test some of the XS string set prototypes along the way and offered feedback on how they performed with his V-Class bracing designs and other new models he was developing like the Taylor Grand Pacific.

Jim D’Addario remembers the impact of a complimentary note Andy sent after testing one particular iteration of XS strings.

“When that email about the testing sample went around the office, there was a bit of celebrating,” he shares.

XS String Innovation

Developing and refining the technology to produce the coating for the XS strings, says Jim D’Addario, took his engineering team more than four and a half years.

“We had to develop our own film that we would treat, impregnate and slit, and put it on spools,” he says. “We had to make special winding machines to wind that thin ribbon — it’s 1/30th the thickness of Saran wrap. And we came up with what I think is the best coated string on the market because it’s long-lasting and you can’t tell it’s coated [in terms of] the sound. It’s almost identical to an uncoated string. It’s one of the products we make that I’m proudest of.”

For Andy, the final version of the strings checked all the boxes he was looking for in advancing his designs.

“The [XS] string moves more in the way that it should to make an accurate note,” he says. “That was a big step for me. It just feels more musical. It’s a beautiful feeling. A great response. Really consistent. It’s got all the metrics that I could say make something musical: the dynamic range, the pitch accuracy, the feel, the sustain… And then you learn how it’s made and it starts to make sense.”

Anatomy of a String: A Closer Look at D’Addario’s XS String Technology

• Ultra-thin coating: Ten times thinner than a human hair, D’Addario’s proprietary coating technology offers the highest degree protection from contaminants to maximize the string life. It incorporates a super-thin film coating on the wound strings and a unique polymer treatment on the plain steel strings.
• Hex core construction: The hexagonal core wire enables the wrap wire to grip in a way that improves the dimensional stability and durability and produces precise intonation.
• Fusion Twist technology: According to D’Addario’s team, this construction technique optimizes the tuning stability and improves the break strength for the plain strings.
• Premium high-carbon steel core wire: D’Addario touts its in-house steel processing capability to improve tuning stability and break resistance.
• In-house wire drawing: D’Addario’s proprietary wire drawing machines and processes give them precise control over the quality and consistency of their wire.

Taylor x D’Addario: The Conversation

Earlier this year, in preparation for the launch of our string partnership, Bob Taylor and Andy Powers visited D’Addario’s headquarters in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, to participate in a conversation with Jim D’Addario. Fretboard Journal publisher Jason Verlinde moderated the chat, which was captured on video, as Bob, Andy and Jim reflected on their relationship, their respect for each other, the philosophies of their respective companies, and why they make compatible business partners.

“Jim [D’Addario] and I have always had a common love for industrializing things,” Bob points out. “Making machines, making high-quality things. I’m highly respectful of Jim’s abilities.”

What’s made D’Addario successful, Jim says, is curiosity and a kind of persistence that’s become ingrained in their culture.

“If I think we’ve got a good idea and if it’s not working out, I stick to it until we get it to work, and that’s really made us what we are. We are always looking for ways to do it better.”  

Persistence in pursuit of guitar innovation underscores the symbiotic nature of both company cultures and speaks to the parallel paths each has traveled over the past half century.

Although Andy came to Taylor later (2010), he has known Jim for a long time and has great respect for what Jim and D’Addario have accomplished.

“When I met Jim, I found a kindred spirit,” Andy says. “It’s the guitar maker in us that wants to be standing alongside the string maker in them.”

Watch the conversation in its entirety below.

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The conversation about the strings calls to mind comments Andy made about the importance of feel and response in a 2022 interview in Wood&Steel.

“There are differences beyond sonority, because we’re not talking solely about what you’re hearing, but what the guitar makes you feel,” he says. “This isn’t even directly speaking to how far the strings are from the fretboard, their tension or scale length — setup qualities that are measurable. It’s about the back-and-forth communication you experience when you’re playing a certain guitar. When there’s something about the combination of the sound that comes out of it, the feel of those strings under your fingertips, the resiliency and flexibility, the touch sensitivity — the combination of all the tactile elements and the resulting sound that comes from them — that informs how a player interacts with the guitar.”

Reducing String Waste and Launching a String Recycling Program

An important shared value between Taylor and D’Addario is a commitment to environmental stewardship and socially responsible business practices. One common denominator is the desire to use modern manufacturing methods to create efficiencies and reduce waste. As part of our new string partnership, Taylor and D’Addario have been discussing ways for D’Addario to make strings that are closer to the actual length needed, especially for guitars with shorter scale lengths like the GS Mini, to minimize the waste of excess string material.

Another obvious example of D’Addario minimizing its environmental impact is by making coated strings that greatly extend the performance life, meaning that players won’t have to change their strings as often. And to reduce the waste associated with used strings, D’Addario has invested considerable resources into a pioneering string recycling program called Playback, created in partnership with TerraCycle, a company that specializes in developing solutions for hard-to-recycle products.

Currently administered in the continental U.S., the program enables players to recycle their used guitar and orchestral strings (steel and nylon) by dropping them off in a D’Addario/TerraCycle recycling collection bin at a location near them. Most recycling bins are located in participating music stores. (You can find a recycling location near you here.) Metal strings are melted down and smelted into new metal alloys; nylon strings are recycled into industrial plastic applications.

As part of our string partnership, Taylor is proud to join the program and encourage Taylor owners to recycle their strings. On our campus in El Cajon, California, we’ve set up collection bins for our own internal use in strategic areas of the factory (such as our Repair department). We’ve also become a public string recycling drop-off center listed on the D’Addario website, with a recycling bin located in our Visitor Center.

Through the Playback program, individuals also have the option of shipping their used strings to be recycled by creating a free Players Circle account on the D’Addario website. (A shipping label can be downloaded via the account.) The qualifier is that, in order to reduce the carbon footprint associated with shipping strings, shipments must weigh a minimum of five pounds.

Given that threshold, the folks at D’Addario suggest that interested individuals could collect used strings from other players (friends, bandmates, music classmates) in order to meet the weight requirement and ship larger quantities more efficiently. (Terracycle calls this “brigade work.”) An additional incentive is that the individual will accrue points through their Players Circle account that can be applied as currency toward eligible D’Addario products. 

Between heirloom-quality guitars and premium, long-lasting strings that can eventually be recycled, players can feel better than ever about playing a Taylor.