Michael Dolsey Designs MD335 Deluxe Guitar Photos

My homemade light strips from my previous post were used for lighting to take these photos of my most recent guitar adoption, an orange, Michael Dolsey Designs MD335 Deluxe.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 52mm, f/13, 1/30sec, ISO 200

I have had severe g.a.s. (guitar acquisition syndrome) for years concerning a jazz type guitar.

My fantasy is the Gibson L-5 CES, but at $10,000, it's way out of my budget.  I looked at more reasonably priced copies of the L-5, but I ended up deciding to get a Gibson ES-335 style guitar instead.  I can get jazz tones, but also rock out as needed.

No need to go into too much detail about guitars on a photography blog, so I'll just say that I have been pleasantly blown away by the beauty, tone, and playability of this Michael Dolsey guitar.  I fully expected to have to change out the pickups soon after purchase, that's happened several times over the years, but this guitar is spot-on what I wanted in tone, right out of the box.

If I had to be nit picky, I'd say that I would love for this guitar to have a fat neck instead of the very slim one that it actually has.  But, having said that, this is the only guitar I have ever kept that had a skinny neck.  For some strange reason that I cannot seem to put into words, this slim neck works well for me despite my much preferring fat necks on guitars.  I'm not arguing with success, and the pickups have a great classic vintage Gibson PAF type tone that I love.  I knew after playing it a while on the day it arrived that I would NOT be changing these pickups, ever.  I haven't moved the action or pickup height or anything, the complete setup was perfect out of the box.  Again, no reason to mess with success just because I like to tinker.  The only change is cosmetic, I took off the pickguard. I don't like pickguards on archtop guitars like this and my Les Paul.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 18mm, f/22, 1/30sec, ISO 200