Dean Guitars Boca 12

Semi-hollowbody with arched top
Dual humbuckers
Grover tuners
Adjustable bridge with stop tailpiece
Rosewood fretboard
Master volume/tone controls
3-way pickup selector

UTILIZATION

This guitar is an enigma. Dean has done a lot of work trying to make this a cool guitar, but they only succeed somewhat. It looks cool - until you inspect it closely. The guitar I played had a couple of finish imperfections that had to have come from the factory. Not a big deal, just something to point out. The tuning pegs aren't great, but the guitar sounds very good acoustically. The pickups are bland, yet the guitar plays pretty well. It's this inconsistency between aspects that makes me wonder how to rate it, so I'll just give it a 5 in this category, as there are ups and downs across the board.

SOUNDS

Acoustically, this guitar sounds really cool. The 12 string tone is nice when just sitting and strumming unplugged. It is a very rich tone, full of harmonics, natural chorusing, and articulation. However, the pickups are a bit bland. They don't quite capture the full response of the strings, and they coat the tone in this kind of muddy sheen, which is weird considering that 12 string guitars are a bit brighter that standard 6 strings. I'd definitely change pickups if I owned this.

OVERALL OPINION

Again, very hard to give an accurate reading, since the different components are all over the map in quality. I'm annoyed by the inconsistencies, but it could be that Dean just had a great design and didn't put money into the highest quality components. If I were to keep this guitar, I'd swap pickups and tuning pegs for sure. A good set of Duncans would set this guitar apart for sure, and it is awfully important to be able to keep the guitar in tune if there are 12 strings to worry about!