AJL Quiet and Portable owners

flaco

I noticed @TDog and @JSanta both mentioned they own these in another thread. I took delivery of one back in April of this year. I’m curious how many of us there are on the forum. I mostly play mine unplugged, but I do have a Spark Go to amplify it a little if needed. I’ll plug it in either with the piezo, but more frequently with a Kleio pickup. The only issue I have is that I got mine built with the dot on the 10th fret. My main acoustic has the dot on the 9th fret, and I underestimated how hard it would be to go back and forth.

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Chiefbigeasy

I’ve had mine for a couple of years now and use it if I play late at night when others are present nearby, including my tenant next-door. I plug it into a Boss Pocket GT headphone guitar amp and processor. It has a number of decent acoustic tone settings that make the big tone sound OK. The Boss also has ridiculous shredding tones and I can play Jimmy Hendrix or SRV on it if the mood strikes.

JSanta

I do really like mine, even though I found AJL to lack communication, especially when it took much longer than estimated.

I honestly spend most of my practice time in that guitar because I practice early in the day before my wife and 6 month old are awake. I very rarely plug it into anything, as it's more than fine for my purposes as is. I do also take it with me when I travel for work. It's nice to have an instrument to practice on that won't bother anyone.

richter4208

I bought mine used, so unsure of the history, but the piezo on mine sucks. It's not a real bigtone piezo pickup, mine doesn't pick up the low E sound very well. Maybe when it was new it sounded ok, but I doubt it. If i plug it into a Red Eye preamp and then that signal goes to my headphones it makes a huge difference. So not really plug and play with out that step. It's really nice to have for travel or quiet time.

djazzy

I'm pretty happy with mine. I rarely plug it in however with my Peche pickup since I use it for practicing quietly. The neck is a bit thin for me. But I have to add that, like @JSanta, I had problems with the order. Not only took way longer to arrive than was told but wasn't kept in the loop regarding wtf was going on. The guitar had been fully paid for. Very frustrating. Also, I requested a very slight alteration in the guitar (pertaining to fret dots) that was approved of by the luthier but didn't materialize in the product.

One more comment: its an incredibly practical concept, these quiet & collapsable guitars. One devised by Maccaferri himself, if I'm not mistaken. If any luthiers are reading, I would look forward to one made of a very durable synthetic instead of the (plywood?) these things are usually formed with -- at least in the guitar body. A material that is durable and completely safe from dryness in winter months.

flaco

Interesting to hear about the order experience for others. Mine also took longer than expected, which was frustrating. AJ wasn’t very proactive with the communication, but whenever I called or emailed he would usually respond.

I definitely love the concept. There are other travel and silent guitars out there, but not many that would be close to airplane carry on dimensions. The ones that are that small make so many compromises on body size and scale length that they aren’t enjoyable to play. Probably the best other option I have seen is just getting a telecaster, unbolting the neck, and putting the whole thing in a backpack. But of course that’s not good for really practicing gypsy picking.

JSanta

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/117847#Comment_117847

Thankfully I've had the exact opposite experiences with Cyril Gaffiero and Jerome Duffell. I'd even venture to say that I've become friends with them because of how wonderful they have been to work with. Jerome in particular has had some obstacles with getting my guitar completed (hopefully next month!!), but he never left me in the dark about what was going. Absolutely stand-up person that I am really glad to have as a friend now.

I do hope more luthiers consider making an instrument like this. Nothing against AJL, but with the delays and excuses (regardless of whether they were real or not) was really frustrating. And like you, the guitar had been fully paid for. I'm grateful to have it (it's coming to Englad with me tonight), but the process itself left a lot to be desired.

djazzy

Pls let us know how great the Duffell guitar is! 😊

TDog

I bought my Quiet and Portable when my teenage daughters took over my music room and I needed to move my gear to the spare room on our main floor.

I had also planned on taking it on work trips, but never seem to have the time to play guitar when I am travelling.

I have the boss waza wireless headphones, but usually play it unplugged.

My experience with the order was ok - it took quite a while to get the guitar; however, it wasn't that much longer than was promised and he did respond within a few days when I checked in. About a month after ordering I woke up in the middle of the night worrying it was going to have the 10th fret marker. I emailed him the next day and it had the 9th fret marker when it showed up a few months later.

kimmo

I almost always pack this with me when I travel, and I also play it quite often(ish) at home.

As said above, the inbuilt bigtone is not too good, and that's because it's a passive piezo, which would require something that vibrates (like an acoustic guitar top) to work properly. But since Q&P is by definition a silent guitar, the block really doesn't vibrate on purpose. I suppose you could get a near usable sound with it using some signal processing preamp like Tonedexter etc., but at least for me that's a little too much of a hassle, since this is (at least for me) supposed to be an always available grab-and-go rehearsing tool.

Luckily - as also already mentioned - you can attach a clip on magnetic pickup in it, genre Stimer, Peche, etc. This clip I recorded a few years ago, as one member of a Finnish guitarist group in FB, Markus Venehsalo, recorded and posted the backing track and asked for some solos. Here's my take on two Stochelo Rosenberg's choruses to Dark Eyes on Markus' backing. I used the cheapest pocket amp you can find (Palmer, about 100$ new), but even so I think the sound is close enough for a typical Stimer sound for GJ guitars.

DarkeyesSK_ig.mp4

Clip can also be seen in my Insta feed: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBgGiEvlWd_/

Kimmo

everett

I play mine a lot--I leave it at work to play in the morning when I get into my office, and I bring it with me when I travel. It's a really great playing guitar and well built, and I like to record stuff with it.

Mine also came much later than we discussed. I also specified that I wanted the neck to have no dots on the fretboard, and mine came with dots. I ended up just leaving it alone because it took long to get. Otherwise, it does what it's supposed to do...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CA1QwvoFQje/