A Next Generation Revision to Taylor's 12-string Grand Concert
With 12-string chime packed into a compact Grand Concert format, this Next Generation 552ce represents a stage-ready showcase of Taylor's most cutting-edge acoustic innovations. Scalloped V-Class bracing builds on Taylor's proprietary design, imparting the thumpy low-end authority that players crave, while Claria electronics guarantee professional-grade plugged-in clarity and require minimal tweaking to translate the guitar's natural acoustic tone to audiences of any size. With Taylor's Action Control Neck, a simple twist of a bolt is all that's needed to adjust the instrument's neck angle to your standards or the musical application at hand. Beyond its Next Generation enhancements, this single-cut, Grand Concert–bodied 552ce features a Western red cedar top and neotropical mahogany back and sides, establishing a palette of organic warmth that will leave fingerstyle players in awe. Rounded out with white body binding, handsome Meridian inlays, and Taylor's Standard nickel sealed-back tuning machines that keep watch over your set, the Next Generation 552ce 12-Fret proves itself fit to take any stage with confidence.
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Effortless Grand Concert playability
One of Taylor’s iconic guitar shapes, the player-friendly Grand Concert body style combines modest dimensions and a short-scale fingerboard for matchless comfort onstage or off. The Grand Concert sings with a chiseled tone, outsized projection, and an impressive dynamic range, making it especially popular with solo artists and studio players. A maneuverable size and responsive sound let players relax and exert less while still making their musical point, which leaves surplus energy for singing, technique, and accurate play. Lastly, this 12-Fret variation of the classic Grand Concert form results in a slightly larger sound chamber for a deeper, more authoritative tone.
Western red cedar over mahogany
The Next Generation 552ce 12-Fret is built from Western red cedar, which sits atop a neotropical mahogany back and sides. As a top tonewood, Western red cedar is less dense than spruce, yielding a warm, intimate sound that tends to accentuate soft notes — a quality that fingerstylists often find especially appealing. Used for the back and sides of the Next Generation 552ce 12-Fret, neotropical mahogany joins the revelry, also instilling a noticeable degree of warmth and fingerstyle-favoring responsiveness. Mahogany's excellent sustain enables the Next Generation 552ce 12-Fret to resonate with effortless prominence from delicate plucks to grand strums.
Plug-and-play Claria System electronics
Road-tested and refined for over two years with the world's biggest touring acts, Taylor’s Claria System represents the next step in the brand’s ceaseless pursuit of acoustic-electric excellence. As opposed to the more sensitive and microphone-like performance of Taylor’s ES2, the Claria System features a single under-saddle piezo transducer paired with a powerhouse preamp to supply you with the warmest, most accurate acoustic-electric tone possible with the least amount of tweaking required — simply plug in, adjust your sound to taste via the Volume, Tone, and Mid-Contour controls, and you’re ready to go.
So, how does the Claria System differ from a typical under-saddle pickup? Taylor’s expert engineers built Claria from the ground up to overcome the most endemic challenges of standard under-saddle setups, allowing the system to perform free from piezo distortion and avoid unwanted frequencies with its clear and focused voice. Moreover, Claria also avoids clipping by gain staging the preamp and the controls within the preamp. As for tone shaping, Claria’s Mid-Contour control offers a vast sweep of dynamic sounds to explore, from smooth, rhythm-ready warmth to a midrange-forward timbre that promotes lead playing and fingerpicking to the forefront of the mix. For the guitarist seeking a plug-and-play system that preserves their guitar's inherent acoustic character and excels in any environment without a fuss, Taylor’s Claria system is as good as it gets.
Rich and responsive Scalloped V-Class bracing
First launched in 2018, Taylor’s V-Class bracing revolutionized the brand’s sound with one of the most innovative advancements in steel-string technology in nearly a century. Here, Taylor has changed the game once again, tweaking the forward-thinking formula of V-Class by precisely paring away material from key locations of each brace.
The result is Taylor’s Scalloped V-Class architecture, a design that preserves all the defining sonic features of standard V-Class bracing with a more muscular bass response and a softer, warmer blend among notes. Strum an open cowboy chord, and Scalloped V-Class delivers the familiar low-end thump and harmonic cohesion that’s most often associated with typical X-braced instruments. However, as a direct descendant of Andy Powers’ original V-Class design, Scalloped V-Class bracing preserves the former’s spot-on pitch accuracy, rich sustain, impeccable balance, and crisp note-to-note definition — especially as you venture farther up the fingerboard with complex chords, intricate fingerpicked patterns, and rapid-fire leads.
Cutting-edge Action Control neck joint
Taylor has led the charge in neck joint technology for decades, from Bob Taylor’s earliest bolt-on experiments to the dawn of the easily adjustable NT Neck at the turn of the 20th century. Under the leadership of Andy Powers, Taylor has once again pushed the boundaries of steel-string design with the Action Control Neck, a trailblazing bolt-on system that allows you to adjust the neck angle without requiring removal of the neck or strings.
From fine adjustments to optimizing the neck’s pitch over the top, the Action Control Neck gives you the power to set your string height from shred-ready specs to a higher, strum-friendly action with the turn of a bolt. Moreover, it also transforms repairs that generally require major surgery on traditional glued-in dovetail joints (such as neck resets) into a straightforward, routine procedure. Best of all, the Action Control Neck’s long-tenon joint protrudes well into the heel to properly mate your guitar’s neck and body, increasing the stiffness of the heel and resulting in a deeper tone with greater low-end resonance, even on higher notes.
Taylor Next Generation 552ce 12-Fret Features:
- The Next Generation revision to Taylor’s 12-Fret, 12-string 552ce platform, featuring the brand’s under-saddle Claria electronics system and scalloped V-Class bracing
- Western red cedar top presents a warm, intimate, natural tone that brings fingerstyle notes to life
- Scalloped V-Class bracing boosts low-end performance and results in a warmer, richer resonance
- Neotropical mahogany back and sides round out the guitar's warm presence while boosting its natural sustain
- Claria under-saddle electronics system provides acoustic-accurate tones and plug-and-play simplicity
- Soundhole-mounted Volume, Tone, and Mid-Contour controls for quick tone sculpting
- Mahogany neck in Taylor’s always-comfortable Standard Carve profile
- Action Control neck joint system gives users the ability to set the neck’s angle, allowing for easy action adjustment
- Long-tenon neck joint enhances your sound with a deep low-end resonance and a fuller-bodied tone
- 15-in.-radius ebony fingerboard studded with exquisite Meridian inlays
- Top-quality Taylor Standard tuning machines
- Elegantly appointed with white top and back binding and nickel-finished hardware
- 1.875-in. nut width provides plenty of room to navigate
