Richard Hoover and Santa Cruz Guitar Company have been pioneering some of the finest Dreadnoughts available on the market these days, and this Slope Shoulder with a 12-fret neck has got to be one of the finest examples of their work we’ve seen. To play this guitar, you’d hardly believe it was a Dreadnought, so rich and balanced is the voice, and how comfortable and intimate the instrument feels in your hands, thanks to the 12-fret neck and slinky low action.
With even a soft touch, this Santa Cruz lights up all across the fingerboard. These trebles are crystalline in their clearness, and offer a delicate panoply of overtones to your fingerstyle arrangements. Bass notes are full and resounding as they roll out of the Slope Shoulder body, but they retain a well-defined edge that keeps them balanced and distinct from the other registers. Despite its Dreadnought size, this guitar feels smaller, more inviting, and excellently set up for fingerpicking. Santa Cruz decided to pair a dark-grained set of Cocobolo Rosewood for the back and sides with a tight-grained German Spruce top, and what an excellent match! Like a good cabernet paired with fontina cheese, these woods give a rich and dynamic fundamental to the guitar’s voice. This Slope Shoulder is the first of five such Dreadnoughts that Santa Cruz built for the 2000 NAMM show, and you can tell: they pulled out all the stops, and spared no expense.
In my book, the 12-fret Slope Shoulder is king. All the richness and warmth of a smaller guitar, plus the depth, sustain, and projection of a Dreadnought--what's not to love? The neck profile fits perfectly in my left hand, and I found that the voice remained just as crisp and powerful in standard tuning as in Drop D or DADGAD. 
Such an amazing copy of one of my favorite vintage Martins. I love the big neck and the 12-fret design. This guitar would work equally well for fingerstyle or flatpicking. | Scale Length | 25.38 in |
|---|---|
| Nut Width | 1.81 in |
| String Spacing | 2.31 in |
| Woods | Spruce - German, Rosewood - Cocobolo |
Richard Hoover and Santa Cruz Guitar Company have been pioneering some of the finest Dreadnoughts available on the market these days, and this Slope Shoulder with a 12-fret neck has got to be one of the finest examples of their work we've seen. To play this guitar, you'd hardly believe it was a Dreadnought, so rich and balanced is the voice, and how comfortable and intimate the instrument feels in your hands, thanks to the 12-fret neck and slinky low action.With even a soft touch, this Santa Cruz lights up all across the fingerboard
In my book, the 12-fret Slope Shoulder is king. All the richness and warmth of a smaller guitar, plus the depth, sustain, and projection of a Dreadnought--what's not to love
Such an amazing copy of one of my favorite vintage Martins. I love the big neck and the 12-fret design 