Ovation Breadwinner

The BreadWinner by Ovation is part of the ESP LTD F series. These guitars are aimed at people who are looking for a guitar on a budget, and the F series appeals to those who are more into the whole Japanese Visual Kei thing. Along with its extreme looks, it features a basswood body, maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, 24 extra jumbo frets, two humbuckers, a hardtail bridge setup, one volume, one tone and a three way switch.

UTILIZATION

The guitar feels pretty haggard, to be honest. The frets are fairly sharp and aren't fully crowned. This is always a big issue with the super low LTD line. The fretwork on these is really off putting. The actual body and routes are clean as all the bodies are CNC'd, so there are no issues there. The neck joint has some play in it, and this is also a common issue with the low end LTDs. The tolerances aren't nearly as tight as the higher end line, and I feel that can hinder tone. The body shape is, of course, purely in the eye of the beholder, so I won't comment on that. The rest of the guitar is fairly typical.


SOUNDS


The Ovation Breadwinner sounds pretty dull, and the stock pickups aren't helping. The bridge humbucker is pretty thin sounding, and the neck is pretty muddy. Replacing these with some real electronics can help, but it really depends on the specific guitar you happen to own. If the guitar sounds dull and lifeless, like a lot of these do, you're not really going to be able to fix it by a simple pickup swap. If it were me, I'd probably slap some EMGs or Blackouts in it to help allow for the pickups' internal preamps to add some character to the guitar.



OVERALL OPINION

These guitars are obviously geared towards beginner players who are on an extremely tight budget. If you're looking for that somewhat Visual Kei guitar body shape, your choices are pretty limited, so you're probably going to be looking at this. I recommend at least getting one a few models up, if you can. You'll have a better chance at getting a nicer sounding guitar that's more consistent with its fretwork and tolerances.

This review is for the 1973 Breadwinner. The electronics I talk about are specific to this year. Ovation changed this guitar many times so I dont know much about the other years. Ovation is known mostly for their acoustic guitars but they have always made electric guitars too. The breadwinner was their most popular electric model in the 70s. It had a unique but comfortable shape with some electronics that were ahead of its time. It has a maple neck with a synthetic ebony fretboard. The fretboard has 24 jumbo frets. My particular guitar had single coil pickups which are larger in size than the humbuckers they used later on. On the breadwinners the humbuckers they used were the size of mini humbuckers and the single coils were bigger than normal humbuckers so many people get confused. There are really big master volume and master tone knobs and 3 mini switches which I will talk about later.

UTILIZATION

The neck on this guitar has a really modern feel to it. It does not feel like an early 70s guitar neck. The radius is pretty flat and the fretboard is wide like a shred guitar neck. The composite ebony like fretboard is really nice whenever they used is nice and smooth and dark like ebony would be. The unusual body balances very well so there is no neck dive or anything. The pickup selector is wired strangly which I will talk about later. To a new owner it may not be obvious but this guitar has active electronics and requires 2 9v batteries inside the control cavity. Also in the control cavity are volume controls so you can balance out the pickups without adjusting their height.

SOUNDS

The biggest problem with this guitar is the sound caused by the active electronics and the wiring. The pickup selector is like nothing else I have ever played. Up is the neck position like you would expect. The middle position is the bridge pickup strangly. But the down position is what kills it. The down position is both pickups but out of phase. Both pickups out of phase produces a pretty useless sound. It sounds quacky and weird. The sound is like a guitar sound you would hear in a comedy cartoon. There is no way to have both pickups on and in phase. The other miniswitch is the active preamp boost which doesnt do much. It just makes the guitar sound more obnoxious.

OVERALL OPINION

If they had put standard electronics in this guitar it would have been really good. The whole guitar other than the electronics is good which is sad. The two miniswitches on the guitar are just there to make the guitar sound bad it seems. They could be labeled bad tone switches. The neck and balance of the guitar is lovely. If you were to change out all the electronics it would be a great guitar. I cant really recommend the guitar to anyone though because of the electronics.

Mine is a "phase 1", black with jack on the edge, jumpers and nylon Pickups "toroidal", large single with its very hot.

Mahogany body, maple neck, black textured paint, less beautiful than brilliant, but after 35 years, we see that it is aging better!

1 volume, 1 tone, 1 switch microphones and stuff like phase inverter.

Active Electronics, 2 9V batteries

UTILIZATION

Ergonomics, sitting upright lying ...

Accessibility to the 24th fret.

Its a huge "vacuum", and super trendy. Mics "toroidal" spend better distortion than the mini humbuckers following series, finally it's my view.

The tone control is very effective. At 5, it corresponds to a passive guitar at 10.

After 35 years the background noise is quite minimal, and only twice knob crachouille tone a bit. With a stroke of magic pchitt, it should disappear.

In contrast, the control of the active electronics is fairly intuitive, despite the simplicity of the controls. This is due to the vast range of sounds available. Fortunately Mr. demploi Ovation provides a guide with a small card reminders.

SOUNDS

This guitar is capable of producing sounds very similar to Fender and Gibson models of his era: television, SG, LP ... plus a very strong personality. The media are very precise and very beautiful. Typed Fender sounds are really light and bright. A delight.

An interesting feature is that the overall volume does not change when you change the microphone or tone control. A very useful feature in concert.

OVERALL OPINION

This is my second. There, I said everything!

One of the best guitars that I know just as classics, with a unique look and more.