That's a beautiful looking guitar.Originally posted by Aragorn
That's a beautiful looking guitar.
"The more I see, the less I know for sure." ~ John Lennon
It sounds good too. It's a different sound to the everyday acoustic because of the fiberglass bowl, as opposed to a flat back and sides made from wood. The sound is very crisp and bright, especially when amplified, but this in itself is also a property of piezo pickups — unlike an electromagnetic induction pickup as on a normal electric guitar, a piezo-electric pickup generates sound from mechanical pressure, or put more concretely, the mechanical vibrations in the bridge.That's a beautiful looking guitar.
But even when played purely acoustically, the sound of an Ovation is brighter and more articulate, and due to the parabolic bowl-shaped back, you can get about the same amount of volume from the Super Shallow bowl as you get from a full-depth wooden acoustic guitar.
I also particularly like the 12-string Ovations, but they are not available as Super Shallows — Medium Depth is the thinnest you can go for those.
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As a followup, here's a couple of videos comparing different Ovation models — playing only, no talking.
For clarification, if you are listening through decent stereo speakers, then the sound from the piezo pickup will be coming through your left speaker, and the sound from the two Samson microphones will be coming through your right speaker. Unfortunately however, he does not make use of the option of letting you hear both sound sources at the same time, which is actually the best way of recording an electric-acoustic guitar.
That all said, I absolutely love the Celebrity Elite in Caribbean Blue sunburst with the quilted maple top, as well as the other Celebrity Elite in the more traditional brown sunburst shown in the thumbnail for the first video — both have the "super shallow" bodies — and I also do like the look of that Richie Sambora signature double-neck that he opens the video with. That's also a "super shallow", and it's about the coolest looking twin-neck acoustic guitar I've ever seen.
However, the Richie Sambora model is an American-made instrument, built at the custom shop in New Hartford, Connecticut, and that means that it's going to cost you over USD $4'000, including a very large and equally custom-made special hard-shell case. The two Celebrity Elites that I said I love are Korean-made and retail for around USD $500 each, not including the (separately sold) hard-shell case. But for that money, that's incredible value. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I personally like the whole "space age" vibe, and the — in my perception, at least — equally "space-age" sound of the fiberglass construction.
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And now that we're talking of acoustic guitars, here's the other end of the spectrum, i.e. the very affordable (but still decent-quality) stuff. Only GB £99 for one of these, but of course, for that kind of money you won't get any case or gig bag.
They do sound good, though.
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Staying with the acoustic vibe for a moment, this is actually quite a brilliant innovation.
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Just a few days ago, I read that the Belgian musical instrument shop of which I spoke in the above-quoted post has gone bankrupt. Apparently it's not the first time, because they went bankrupt in 2019 as well, but then a Dutch musician came to the rescue by taking over most of the stores in the chain.
This time however, no one came to the rescue, and the entire inventory — €2'000'000 worth of gear — is being auctioned off. It's very sad, because I've known them since they first opened a then relatively small shop in the city next to the town where I live, and I was friends with several of the musicians who worked there, including the owner.
Another personal downside for myself is that there aren't any other musical instrument shops anywhere in the vicinity, and I don't even know where the nearest one would be. There was a store from a major Dutch chain in Antwerp — I hate having to drive to Antwerp (and for that matter, any other metropolitan) — but from the looks of it, they too have recently gone bankrupt.
Well, I now know why that is the case: Andertons is not an Ovation dealer, and they don't have a single Ovation guitar in their store.
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Some really nice jamming in this one.
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I like the black, gold and burst, love the sound too. If I eventually get a Gibson Les Paul for myself, I'm wondering if to get the Gold Top.
"The more I see, the less I know for sure." ~ John Lennon
Well, considering that Gibson uses nitrocellulose lacquer, black is probably going to be the best option, because nitro lacquer ages very rapidly, and apart from cracking — also referred to as "checking" — the lacquer becomes opaque over time and adopts an amber hue, which would totally ruin a guitar with a translucent sunburst finish over a beautifully figured maple top.
And the Goldtops are even worse off, because that gold color is actually created by mixing bronze powder in with clear coat, and due to the cracking, air will get to the bronze powder and will cause it to corrode, with as a result that the guitar will beget an ugly green look instead — I've seen several aged Goldtop Les Pauls, and on some of them the corrosion effect was quite heavily visible.
As for the exact type, you can go for a Les Paul Standard '50s, a Les Paul Standard '60s, or a Les Paul Classic — the latter has the 9-hole weight relief, which doesn't affect the sound but makes the guitar a lot easier to play. The Standard '50s is available with either P-90 single-coil pickups or with unpotted vintage-style humbuckers. There's no right or wrong here — it's a matter of taste, although personally I'm no fan of unpotted pickups due to their low resistance to microphonic feedback.
The '50s also has a rounder C-shape neck profile, while the '60s and the Classic have a slightly thinner neck profile. Again no right or wrong here. My Lester has the '50s rounded profile and it's great even with my smaller hands, while my Firebird VII has the "slim taper" neck, which is a very fast-playing profile.
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modwiz (17th December 2022)
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