Takamine Guitars News (October 2025)

Takamine Artist Spotlight:
Jose Macario (Ladrones)

As you’re likely aware, Takamine Guitars are distributed in the USA and Mexico by world-renowned electric guitar manufacturer ESP Guitars. We’re proud to welcome respected guitarist Jose Macario of the respected band Ladrones to the Takamine artist family. Beginning on guitar at age six, Jose never limited himself to a single music genre. From metal to hip hop to many styles in traditional and new Regional Mexican music styles, Jose loves to explore everything that a guitar has to offer, using the iconic Legacy Series EF341SC and 12-string EF381SC to do so.

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Pro Series P7DC Demo by Jake Allen

Guitarist Jake Allen is here doing some of his best stuff on one of Takamine's best guitars: the Pro Series P7DC. This powerful handcrafted dreadnought combines tradition with contemporary refinements; a solid spruce top with scalloped "X" top bracing and solid rosewood back and sides for rich clarity and projection, and Takamine's proprietary CT4-DX preamp system paired with the unique Palathetic under-saddle pickup and a soundboard transducer for peerless amplified response and amazing tone-shaping capability.

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Takamine Wood Shop: Sapele

Continuing our series on the tonewoods used for acoustic guitar bodies, our next Takamine Wood Shop topic is sapele. This tonewood — sometimes referred to as "striped mahogany" — offers the benefits of traditional mahogany warmth and midrange with a bit of additional snap in the high registers due to its denser makeup. Sapele is also highly sustainable and fast growing, making it ideal for conscientious guitar builders. Takamine currently offers over 30 sapele-based guitars that span from our value-packed G Series to our Pro Series, TT Series, Signature Series, and more.

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Takamine 12-String Setup - Requinto-Style

In a traditional 12-string setup, the courses (dual sets of strings that are played together) are an octave apart from each other on the lowest four strings. But for Regional Mexican styles, some players prefer to have all of the strings set up in courses of two identical unison pitches. They do this by simply using two identical 6-string sets. This gives the player a sound with more growl in the low notes, while still retaining the natural "chorusing" of the dual string sound. Here’s the right way to set up your guitar requinto-style without causing damage from the added string tension.

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Spotlight: G Series GN73CE

This cool G Series NEX cutaway guitar looks superb in its Satin Black finish, tortoise pickguard, and full body/neck/headstock binding. But the sound of the GN73CE is why you’ll cherish this guitar with its solid spruce top, maple back and sides, and Takamine’s TP-3G preamp.

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G Series GN30 Demo by Jake Allen

Jake is back, this time on the G Series GN30. This value-packed, pure acoustic guitar combines solid-top construction with a beautiful gloss finish, great-looking appointments, and Takamine's compact but big-sounding NEX body style to create a versatile instrument that can cover a lot of sonic ground.

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Winner’s Circle: Taka-Mini Sweepstakes

Thousands of you entered, but we picked just one winner of the Summer Taka-Mini Sweepstakes, and it’s Steve Baloga of Massapequa Park, NY. Steve chose the spruce-topped, sapele backed cutaway GX18CE, though it was a tough call over the all-mahogany GX11ME. Don’t be sad if you didn’t win this time; there will be more chances to win cool things from Takamine USA/Mexico.

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Get More Free Music Training from Musicians Institute Online!

If you’ve just bought any Takamine guitar (or are planning to soon), you just got a lot more than you realized. Takamine USA is proud to have partnered with the world-renowned leader in contemporary music education, Musicians Institute, on a special offer for people who purchase our instruments: three free months of access to a wide selection of MI Online’s courses.

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Takamine Guitars, Cases, Apparel, and Accessories at ShopESP

Takamine is distributed in the USA by ESP Guitars. While we encourage you to get your next guitar from an authorized Takamine dealer, if you’ve looked for a specific Takamine online or your local music store and haven’t found the model you want, we offer a “BUY NOW” button on many of the product detail pages at esptakamine.com, allowing you to get your next guitar, case, or some cool Takamine merchandise that will be shipped to you straight from us.

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