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Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar – Jim Fusco’s Guitar Collection

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to my new series: “Jim Fusco’s Guitar Collection”!  I was going to go with a more search-engine friendly name like “Singer-Songwriter-Musician Jim Fusco’s Acoustic and Electric Guitar Collection”, but figured I’d go for simplicity on this one. 🙂

The first entry in my guitar collection series is my acoustic guitar.  That actually kind of sounds odd to me- my singular acoustic guitar.  Yes, I also have an acoustic-electric guitar from Seagull, but the Martin MMV is my one and only true acoustic guitar.  It doesn’t have any electronics in it, and that’s 100% fine by me.  I actually didn’t want an acoustic guitar with electronics in it because I wanted an old-fashioned heirloom type instrument that I could play for the rest of my life and pass-down to my family for generations.  I think I found the perfect guitar for that purpose!Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar

The Martin MMV acoustic guitar was originally made in 2005, though I bought mine in 2009 (and it was made in 2008, I believe). The guitar features all-wood construction with a solid Sitka Spruce top, East Indian Rosewood back and sides (that smells wonderful, by the way), a mahogany neck, and an ebony fretboard.  It has a mortise and tenon neck joint, which I know some people frown upon, but honestly, I think anyone would be hard-pressed to hear any differences between that and a set-in neck.  Plus, I think this method actually makes the guitar stronger so it’ll last in its current condition that much longer.

The guitar features a light gloss finish.  It has some very simple inlays around the sound hole and fake pearl inlays in the fretboard.  The Martin logo at the top is a stick-on gold nameplate, as opposed to the inlayed “C. F. Martin” that’s featured on the much more expensive models.

The tone of this guitar is, in my opinion, truly amazing.  It’s loud, punchy, and projects the bass very well.  The sound is very “tight”, as well.  I thought my Seagull acoustic electric sounded fantastic when I first got it.  But then I played it next to my Martin and it was no contest.  The Martin just sounds great from the start.  It almost sounds like it’s already been recorded, if that makes any sense.  The guitar’s sound is just perfectly in tune and sparkles, especially on a standard “D” chord where it’s mostly higher-pitch notes.Head of Martin MMV Acoustic Guitar

I truly believe the Martin MMV acoustic guitar to be the best overall value in higher-end acoustic guitars.  It has the high-end sound without a high-end price.  The only sacrifice is that it doesn’t look very flashy.  But, I didn’t buy it to look great.  I bought it to sound professional on all of my future recordings.  I’d be happy to field any questions on the sound, the materials, or anything else regarding the Martin MMV acoustic guitar!

“Everything That’s True” (Original song by Jim Fusco)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello all, and welcome to my first installment of Original Wednesday this year!

Today, I reveal the second song from my upcoming album, “The Easy Ways”, due out on September 20th, 2014.  “Everything That’s True” is the song that kicks off part two of the album (there’s a short interlude song called “Looking For An Angel” that plays before it, but this is the first full song on the second half of the album).

“Everything That’s True” is a classic Jim Fusco love song.  It reminds me of the kind of tune I used to write years ago.  That was back when I was in high school and was the hopeless romantic type.  Oh, who am I kidding- I’m exactly the same now!  It’s interesting to me that it took about ten years for me to write another song like this.  I guess I was feeling sentimental that day.

There are a couple of lines I’m proud of in this song, one being, “The weight I give to things I can’t control is still above the morals I uphold.  But when you’re here it doesn’t take that toll.”  What did I mean by that?  (That question is an inside joke for my dad- Ron Darling/Bob Ojeda-esque?)  Well, I meant that I give way too much value to things that are out of my control.  Or, at least I think I do.  You know the old prayer about giving the strength to accept the things I cannot change?  Yeah, I guess I never got that memo…

Here’s another line I’m proud of: “The strength you hold was never as profound as when you weren’t near me.”  I’m saying that I never realized the power that my wife has over me (figuratively speaking, of course) until she went away on a vacation with her friends one time.  When she’s here, I guess I take her companionship for granted.  And when she was away from me those few days, I realized how much I really do “need” her around.  Funny how it takes someone not being there to make you realize that.

So, I hope you’ll apply these sentiments to some of the people you care about in your life.  I also hope that you’ll head on over to http://jimfusco.com and buy my album when it comes out on September 20th and hear the full version of this song.  It has some awesome harmonies on the chorus that probably features one of my lowest-pitch vocals ever.  It’s not to be missed!

I’ll be back next week with another cover song.  And a week after that, I’ll be back again with another original song!  Starting to see the pattern?  It’ll go that way until “The Easy Ways” is finally released!  See you then.

“Suspicious Minds” (Elvis Presley cover)

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By Jim Fusco

Welcome everyone to the first new Jim Fusco Laptop Sessions cover song video for over a year and a half!  I can’t believe it- doesn’t feel like that long ago AT ALL.  The last cover video I did was “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round” by the Monkees on February 7th of 2013.  Yikes.

As all fans of the music blog know, I’m releasing a new album called “The Easy Ways” in September!  It’s been the spark I needed to get back into recording more Laptop Sessions cover song videos.  I’ve compiled an incredible list of songs over the past 18 months and I can’t wait to get back into the full swing of it.  I’ll even be re-recording some of my older videos.  Yes, even I messed-up now and again, so I’m going to finally fix those mistakes and make the videos the best they can be.  I went back and listened to over 220 cover song videos I’ve done in the past and only found 14 that need to be redone.  That’s not so bad!  I may do a few others that were poorly lit (or when I didn’t shave, was in my pajamas, etc.), as well.

Speaking of lighting, I’m still trying to perfect it, but I’ve got a new lighting kit to go along with my new video recording process.  I’m now recording on my new iPad (should we change it to the “Tablet Sessions”?) with my trusty ZOOM H2 microphone.  I”m also doing the video editing on the iPad.  It’s so much faster and easier, but I’ve noticed a lot of features are lost on the watered-down mobile version.  Thankfully I’ve found workarounds for the issues I’ve found so far.  I hope there are updates to the app in the future that will allow me to enhance the colors in the video and normalize the audio better.

But these first few videos I’m doing came out pretty good and they took less than a quarter of the time it used to take me to record.  And that’s the biggest part- I’ll do many more videos if they’re easy to create.  That’s what was great about the Laptop Sessions in the first place: I could just open the laptop and hit record.  But now, I’ve got to light it properly, have a nice background, and even comb my hair!  I’ve noticed that people really like seeing a nicely lit frame with my electric guitars in the background and I think some of my older videos don’t get viewed much anymore because of their poor video quality.

So now, onto today’s video:

“Suspicious Minds” is a song by Elvis Presley that he debuted around the time of his big comeback special in 1968.  I really need to see that video- I heard he really knocked it out of the park.  Isn’t it so sad that the man was only in his early thirties and he already had to make a “comeback”?  That’s show-business, I guess.  Anyway, the song was a big hit for Elvis and it’s been a song I’ve known and loved for just about my whole life.  It’s a fun one to sing, too, as it has some real passion in that slower middle section.  I hope I did the song justice!

Stay tuned for an original song to come at you next Wednesday for my first Original Wednesday post for quite some time.  I’ll be alternating original songs and cover songs until my new album comes out.  In the meantime, you should be checking out http://jimfusco.com for previews of some of my new songs, plus the album cover artwork that will blow you away!  See you all again next week and enjoy, “Suspicious Minds”, originally done by Elvis Presley!