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goodbyebluesky
Published on 04/16/08 at 07:48
The GS 330S is fairly plain and non-descript, with a satin finished cedar top, nato back and sides, no inlays, and a simple rosette, this guitar is no frills. Takamine put there money where it counted for a budget guitar like this.
UTILIZATION
The neck had a nice feel, fairly similar to a Japanese-made Martin I have. Very adequate.
SOUNDS
I think the biggest contributor to the sound of this guitar is the satin finish cedar top. In this price range guitarmakers usually use lower quality and a thick glossy finish is applied to "dress it up" but Takamine has put a very light finish on their cedar top. First of all, cedar is a bit more mellower sounding than spruce and applying such a thin finish allows the top to reverberate more freely, giving a more "open" sound thats not stiff It also equates to more volume, which definitely is the case here as the Takamine projects quite well and respond very well to picking dynamics and fingerpicking.
The GS can handle everything from folk strumming, to single note blues runs.
My only complaint was that I thought it was a bit "thin" sounding, probably due to nato being used for the back and sides instead of more traditional mahogany, which is darker in tone. Selecting the right strings could help compensate, and the guitar was fairly balanced across the spectrum so my perceived lack of "thump" from this model doesn't mean it was shrill or harsh. It was actually quite sweet sounding overall.
OVERALL OPINION
I love Takamine for making a guitar like this. Frankly, they can make a better playing and sounding instrument in this price range than Fender, Yamaha, and the big players like Martin and Taylor don't even venture into this low price bracket. So Takamine has filled a very important void with the GS series. Guys like myself who own nicer guitars will buy one of these as a travel or "campfire" guitar and be fairly pleased with the tone and playability, and beginners will buy this guitar and not have to upgrade for a long time if they don't wish to. Kudos to Takamine.
UTILIZATION
The neck had a nice feel, fairly similar to a Japanese-made Martin I have. Very adequate.
SOUNDS
I think the biggest contributor to the sound of this guitar is the satin finish cedar top. In this price range guitarmakers usually use lower quality and a thick glossy finish is applied to "dress it up" but Takamine has put a very light finish on their cedar top. First of all, cedar is a bit more mellower sounding than spruce and applying such a thin finish allows the top to reverberate more freely, giving a more "open" sound thats not stiff It also equates to more volume, which definitely is the case here as the Takamine projects quite well and respond very well to picking dynamics and fingerpicking.
The GS can handle everything from folk strumming, to single note blues runs.
My only complaint was that I thought it was a bit "thin" sounding, probably due to nato being used for the back and sides instead of more traditional mahogany, which is darker in tone. Selecting the right strings could help compensate, and the guitar was fairly balanced across the spectrum so my perceived lack of "thump" from this model doesn't mean it was shrill or harsh. It was actually quite sweet sounding overall.
OVERALL OPINION
I love Takamine for making a guitar like this. Frankly, they can make a better playing and sounding instrument in this price range than Fender, Yamaha, and the big players like Martin and Taylor don't even venture into this low price bracket. So Takamine has filled a very important void with the GS series. Guys like myself who own nicer guitars will buy one of these as a travel or "campfire" guitar and be fairly pleased with the tone and playability, and beginners will buy this guitar and not have to upgrade for a long time if they don't wish to. Kudos to Takamine.