mooseherman « Cheap, weak-sounding »
Published on 10/20/10 at 13:37This is a twelve-string acoustic guitar made in the United States. This is an purely acoustic-electric guitar, with pickups or volume controls on the top as well as a built-in tuner. There are 18 frets with an Ovation bridge. The guitar has a spruce body and neck with a rosette fingerboard. The pickups are the standard Ovation applause pickups. It also supports a built-in tuner.
UTILIZATION
There is a nice cutaway on this acoustic that helps provide access to the top frets. These frets, however, are somewhat badly designed and hard to play. I feel as though they aren't wide enough, personally, though this might not be an issue for those with smaller fingers. Getting a usable sound out of this guitar on stage is definitely easy, however, it'd be tough for me to define it as "good". It's a light enough guitar for a twelve-string, and it's easy to carry and play.
SOUNDS
I really don't like the sound of this guitar very much at all. As is the case with most Ovations, they are pretty weak and anemic sounding. Twelve-string guitars should be much richer, fuller sounding instruments. The top end of this guitar sounds harsh and bright in a jarring sense. Plugged in, the instrument fares even worse. Granted, this is a pretty cheap 12-string, but it still sounds pretty bad overall. I don't really know if this guitar has a particular use in terms of genre, I'd say it sounds pretty bad across the board.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar has been discontinued, and for good reason. If you need a practice 12-string, and don't want to ruin your nice ones, or if you'd rather not bring it on the road, this might be a good alternative, but don't expect it to sound all that great. Considering that a twelve-string is not most people's first guitar, I wouldn't even recommend it for beginners.
UTILIZATION
There is a nice cutaway on this acoustic that helps provide access to the top frets. These frets, however, are somewhat badly designed and hard to play. I feel as though they aren't wide enough, personally, though this might not be an issue for those with smaller fingers. Getting a usable sound out of this guitar on stage is definitely easy, however, it'd be tough for me to define it as "good". It's a light enough guitar for a twelve-string, and it's easy to carry and play.
SOUNDS
I really don't like the sound of this guitar very much at all. As is the case with most Ovations, they are pretty weak and anemic sounding. Twelve-string guitars should be much richer, fuller sounding instruments. The top end of this guitar sounds harsh and bright in a jarring sense. Plugged in, the instrument fares even worse. Granted, this is a pretty cheap 12-string, but it still sounds pretty bad overall. I don't really know if this guitar has a particular use in terms of genre, I'd say it sounds pretty bad across the board.
OVERALL OPINION
This guitar has been discontinued, and for good reason. If you need a practice 12-string, and don't want to ruin your nice ones, or if you'd rather not bring it on the road, this might be a good alternative, but don't expect it to sound all that great. Considering that a twelve-string is not most people's first guitar, I wouldn't even recommend it for beginners.