Beauregard 2018 OMC

CONDITION excellent plus; a few pinhead dings on the top and light fabric wear on the back — see photos

I'll say it plainly: I adore this guitar. It has that warmth and soulful quality I find in the finest vintage acoustics — the kind of thing you can't spec out or engineer on purpose, you either have it or you don't. This one has it in abundance.

Mario Beauregard is a friend, and I know firsthand how much heart goes into every instrument he builds. He came up studying alongside Ervin Somogyi, absorbing that school's voicing philosophy, while spending weekends at the late Taku Sakashta's shop learning archtop construction. That's a remarkable dual education, and it shows. He works out of a one-man shop outside Montreal — no CNC, no jigs, just decades of hard-won knowledge going directly into wood.

This 2018 OMC is exactly the kind of guitar that comes from that level of investment. The redwood and Brazilian rosewood combination is one I find particularly compelling. Redwood, like cedar, arrives with a played-in warmth that spruce might take years to develop — if it gets there at all. The harmonic colors keep revealing themselves as you play — there's a responsiveness across the strings that draws you deeper in. Brazilian brings its own complexity to the low and mid registers, adding warmth and dimension that rounds out the whole picture.

The 12-fret body join and 25" scale are fingerstyle-friendly choices that free the top to do its work. The wide nut (1 13/16") and saddle spacing (2 3/8") give your right hand the room it needs. At 4 lbs. 10 oz., it disappears in your arms. The Florentine cutaway, ebony binding throughout, abalone rosette — Mario's aesthetic is always restrained and always right.

You can feel Mario's investment in this guitar the moment you pick it up. That comes through in the wood, the build, and every note it produces. Hat tip to Dream Guitars for the adjacent video — it gives you a real sense of what this instrument sounds like in capable hands.

If you'd like to find out more about this item, just call or e-mail me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you about it.