Godin

I'm posting this review after several weeks of owning this guitar. This guitar is manufactured in Canada. The bridge is a simple floating type bridge (not a Floyd, fortunately). To tighten it you need a very fine Allen key (I'm a fan of this system because you can leave it open or, on the contrary, block it, while with some other systems with screws or other systems, the tightening of the tremolo goes down the drain...). It has 22 frets, and Godin HSH pickups for the magnetic part, a quality piezo and a built-in GK system. The neck is rather thick (similar to a folk neck), which might throw off persons used to slimmer necks à la ESP/Ibanez. The magnetic pickups do their job fine, even if they are a bit noisy with high distortions. The machine heads are normally auto-blocking, but the tuning on mine doesn't hold long, especially on the famous G string. Maybe an adequate adjustment fixes this minor issue. It comes with a Schaller Strap Lock, which forces you to update your strap, but I have been strap locking almost all my guitars for some time now... So I'd say the strap lock is a good point. USE The neck is quite pleasant, once you've adapted to its thickness. It's fairly well-balanced, not too heavy (despite everything that's inside...) and access to the upper frets poses no problems. In terms of sound, it has a very characteristic acoustic and overdrive sound, the distorted sounds could be better, replacing the Godin pickups with some Seymour, for instance. The piezo sound is...wow, better than good (that's a general rule for Godin guitars). As for the synth part, I'll edit my review once I have bought the GR system (I plan to get the GR55). SOUND I play mainly rock and I get a wide array of sounds, even a pretty convincing "shredder" sound. I play mainly with a KORG multi-effects or a Blackstar pedal (directly into the console). I think once you change the pickups for some Seymour, you can play anything with it. OVERALL OPINION I've been using it for several weeks and I've had lots of different guitars. I like especially the instrument's versatility (and its three voices). On the other hand, the machine heads and the pickups are the guitar's weakest points. I bought it secondhand for €700, but it usually goes for €800-€900, and the price is quite reasonable for a guitar of this level. If I had a little more money, I would've gotten an LGXT, the model right above, to have Seymours by default and a more polished finish.

(Originally written by marc05400/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Everything has been already said... My model doesn't have a push/pull knob. But positions 2 and 4 split the humbuckers! I read and heard everywhere that Godin humbuckers are good pickups! I shall add that they are perfectly quiet. UTILIZATION Great neck. In the beginning I found it a bit too narrow (I learned guitar with a classical guitar...) The neck quickly ages and gets very smooth and pleasant. No problem getting to the upper frets. Quick action setting thanks to the T.O.M bridge. If you have a heavy string attack and leave the original string set (10/46) you will have to set the action higher to avoid fret noise. The guitar is quite heavy but it's not a problem even after 2 or 3 hours of playing. The guitar is well-balanced and stays in the position you want. SOUNDS I bought this guitar for its versatility. I craved for it such a long time, but I'm not fully satisfied yet... However I can say now that this guitar sounds jazzy with my VOX AD30VT. It' needless to say that it has a perfect blues sound... In order to get warm and round sounds I first installed jazz, flat-wound 11-50 strings, but then I changed to 12-52 strings (to avoid the power loss I noticed on the high E-string with 11-50 strings). The pickups have a high output volume and it's certainly an advantage for power rock, but it makes things more complicated if you want to get clean or slightly "crunched" sounds like me, but it is possible (even with my VOX which tends to distort pretty fast). I can't wait to test it with more typical jazz amps or even an acoustic amp (AER for example). My guitar teacher used to say "Some solid-body guitars produce a more authentic jazz tone than some jazz-style hollow-body guitars..." Also notice that the second position produces an acoustic-like sound (split neck pickup). What else? A great sustain (perhaps it's a false impression but I even feel the strings' vibration when I play...). A good unplugged sound that allows you to practice and tune the guitar even with a tuner with a small integrated mic... OVERALL OPINION High-quality, versatile guitar with a long life expectancy and an affordable price... This guitar requires some time to be "mastered". At least for someone like me who played a nylon acoustic. I needed a long time! And I'm not done yet...

(Originally written by zjulos/translated from Audiofanzine FR) Made in Canada UTILIZATION Features: Top: Canadian cherry wood Back and sides: Canadian cherry wood with cream bindings Neck: silver maple with profiled black glossy headstock - Rosewood fingerboard Adjustable Graphtech Tusq bridge Finish: polished finish One Godin Kingpin P90 single-coil pickup Volume and tone controls Radius: 16" Scale: 24.84" Nut: 1.72" Colors: Cognac burst, natural and black SOUNDS Made out of Canadian cherry wood, the body of this 5th Avenue has a curved top and a molded back, an adjustable bridge, standard F-holes, profiled glossy headstock, floating pickguard and cream bindings. The beautifully polished finish looks great and it reminds me of superb 19th century French finishes. The new Godin Kingpin P90 single-coil pickup produces a classic Vintage sound with strong presence, clarity and character! OVERALL OPINION I tested the 5th Avenue model without a pickup and I would like to meet somebody who owns the version with pickup to hear how it sounds...

Godin is a company well known to jazz players and people who are up to date with midi and synth electronics in guitars. Godin is always trying to innovate whether it be with electronics or different construction methods. Godin always has something new and different coming out. They make a full range of guitars and this guitar is them trying to get into the shred guitar segment. This guitar is pretty simple when compared to some other Godin guitars. The Redline 3 is pretty much a standard shred guitar. It has a maple neck and you can get it with a rosewood or maple fretboard. The fretboard has offset inlays for a cleaner look and they do look nice. The neck is a Fender scale with a wide area of play. With only 22 frets none of them get crowded. The body is 3 pieces of wood. In the middle there is a maple tone block with 2 pieces of polar surrounding it. This guitar has active EMG pickups with an 81 in the bridge an an 85 in the neck. This is a standard EMG configuration that provides many great tones. The controls are standard as well with a master volume and tone with a 3 way switch. To finish it off there is a Licensed Floyd Rose tremolo. UTILIZATION Godins have good playability. This neck on this guitar is pretty nice. It is a bolt on but the neck joint is nice and slim so it does not get in the way much. Since it is 22 frets there are not many past the cutaway so they are all easy to reach. The contours on the body are nice and the guitar is nice and light. The neck has a 16 inch radius so it is super flat. This allows you to slam the action right down on the neck so it plays like butter. The neck has a satin finish so it wont get sticky like gloss finished necks. The licensed Floyd Rose system on this guitar is one of the better licensed systems I have played in my time. The body is routed nicely so you can get a nice range on the tremolo. The arm has a pop in system so you wont strip or crossthread it trying to put it in. Once setup the trem is locked in tune and stays that way. SOUNDS The EMG pickups in this guitar are becoming a standard pickup set for heavy music. Back in the day a guitar like this would come with a set of Dimarzios or something but not anymore. EMG's are the modern thing even though they have been around as long as Dimarzios. The 81 and 85 pickups have been around since the 70s but only in the last 15 or so years have they really become popular. The 81 is a great metal pickup for the bridge position. It has a high end crunch and distortion that gives it clarity no matter how much gain you are using or how low you tune. The 85 in the neck is a great pickup too. It has a more fuller sound than the 81 so in the neck position you can get fat lead tones. The 85 is also good too in the bridge. With EMG's quick connect system you can easily swap these pickups position without soldering anything. The 85 in the bridge produces a super thick tone and cleans up better than the 81. OVERALL OPINION I was suprised when this guitar came into the shop. When I think Godin I think fancy jazzy guitars with midi outputs that players like John Mclaughlin play. I was not very familiar with their more traditional guitars. This guitar is a nice piece. Im afraid most people are like me though and less than willing to look other places for guitars like this. It will be hard for Godin to pull people away from their Ibanez's and ESP's but if they keep making great guitars like these more and more people will take notice of the quality gear they are putting out.

The guitar I will be describing differs a bit from the picture above. It is the model with the tremolo bridge and has a hi-gloss black finish and the pickups don't have any covers. Since I don't know what is built into the guitar in the picture I assume that the Seymour Duncans mine was sold with differ from that as well. The guitar was built in Canada and has 2 Seymour Duncan Humbuckers and 1 Piezo Pickup (for acoustic sounds and as a pickup for the integrated MIDI Interface). Everything is built very solid - almost like a tank. The frets are jumbo frets and the neck is very slim and easily playable. The body and neck are made of magagony and the fretboard is made of ebony. Godin used locking tuners for this guitar - probably to complement the tremolo system. The Piezo Sound can be adjusted with a built in EQ and the Humbuckers as well as the volume of the MIDI pickups can be regulated with the three knobs under the bridge. UTILIZATION The guitar is formed very well and can be easily played everywhere. Reaching the 22nd fret is no chore and the sound is very punchy and deep. If you are looking for vintage tones don't pick up this guitar though. It is definately made for more modern sounds and sounds best over a Mesa Boogie or similar amp. Next to all these plus points there are a few annoying setbacks. Due to all these electronics and the solidbody construction this guitar is one heavy mother! It was in the end the reason why I chose to sell it. I loved how well it integrated the MIDI pickup and the response was always very fast and precise (best on the market). The Piezo Pickups I never really cared for as they sound quite shallow. At best they complemented an overdriven sound. I think the idea is to use a stereo cable at the output and then split the signal into two different amps. But along with MIDI applikations amongst other things this started to be quite a lot of setup just to play guitar. Who knows - maybe I am getting old :-) SOUNDS As I already said - the guitar sounds very nice. Eventually I realized that I need more of a Stratocaster and after I bought my Fender Twin Amp it was clear that this guitar was not 'my baby' anymore. For a while I tried myself in ProgRock and for that it was truly amazing (probably also due to the Seymour Duncan Pickups). OVERALL OPINION I really think Godin is making very good guitars for the money. I have become much more of a 'Strat'-guy the last couple of years and my style of playing just doesn't suit this type of guitar anymore. It is built rock sold and stays in tune very well. But it is also very, very heavy and I started to have back pains just from playing this guitar! This is something I cannot deal with and I really think they could have thought about this before they put a bunch of electronics in an already heavy guitar.

The Godin 5th Avenue is an archtop guitar made in the tradition of many of the very simplistic guitars made by Gibson, Epiphone, Harmony, Regal, et al in the forties and fifties. It's extremely no frills, but it sacrifices needless features and excess cosmetics for a vintage and cool tone that's very much at home playing jazz or blues styles. They're built at Godin's factory in Canada and have a pretty basic feature set which includes: Top: Canadian Wild Cherry Back & Sides: Canadian Wild cherry with cream binding Neck: Silver Leaf maple with contoured high-gloss black headstock Fingerboard: Rosewood Bridge: Adjustable Rosewood Bridge Finish: Custom Polished Finish Radius: 16" (40,6 cm) Scale: 24.84" (63 cm) Nut width: 1.72" (4,6 cm) Colors: Cognac Burst, Natural & Black UTILIZATION The design of this guitar is fairly ergonomic considering its purpose. It's not really designed for high octane fast playing, but rather for more laid back blues/jazz type textures. It's a fairly lightweight guitar and doesn't suffer from neck heaviness or any odd order abnormalities. The shape is basically an old school archtop. It looks nearly identical to an old Silvertone that I owned that was built in 1958, so obviously they've got the idea. That being said, it does play better than a lot of these old guitars. The neck is comfortable and it's great for chording work and certain lead lines. The upper fret access isn't stellar due to a lack of a cutaway but that's to be expected. Getting a good sound of this guitar is easy... just vary your pick attack and/or style to change it up! Because there are no pickups or anything on this guitar, it's up to your hands to determine how it sounds. It's a pretty mellow guitar overall, so you might have to hit it a bit harder to get the volume out of it, but otherwise it sounds great. SOUNDS The sound of the guitar as stated is a fairly plain and mellow affair. It works very well for old school blues licks or some jazz comping. Django type lines work really well on this guitar too, due to its understated tone and easy playability. Part of me wishes that it had a bit more volume overall, but that might take away from the really unique and simple voice that this guitar has. It would definitely make a cool addition if you've already got a really loud acoustic in the collection or are just looking for a soft toned guitar to play around on. OVERALL OPINION The Godin 5th Avenue is a killer value for money and is a great example of a vintage meets modern archtop. At about $500 new for a non pickup equipped model, it's an awesome deal for someone looking for that downhome sort of voice in an easy to play, great sounding archtop guitar. Godin gear is underrated but built extremely well, so I'd have no concerns buying one myself!

This is my Godin Multiac Steel Duet. I have been playing it for about four years now and loved every second of it. The top is made of massive spruce and the body and neck are made of mahagony with a rosewood fretboard. The guitar has an under-saddle pickup (I believe it is a L.R.Baggs) and a contact microphone attached to the top. This is also the reason for the name 'duet' as it can blend between those two. The bridge is built just like on an acoustic steel string guitar and the head is built with an 'open-headstock' design. This apparently gives the strings more sustain and makes it look a bit classier...just pray you don't have to change strings while being on stage... Props to Godin for incorporating a phantom powered XLR Plug! UTILIZATION When you hold the neck it becomes quickly apparent that this guitar was built by a manufacturer of electric guitars. It has a smooth satin finish and feels and plays like butter. I can easily switch from rhythmic playing to leads and the ergonomy is absolutely fantastic. I think the only problem is that it just doesn't really feel like an acoustic anymore - so I caught myself playing electric guitar licks instead of what I would play on an acoustic. This is however just an observation. The guitar also doesn't look very acoustic anymore and for a singer/songwriter like me this would have been a nice feature (though not the most important). I also don't know why they haven't come up with something more ergonomic than those tiny faders to adjust the sound. They sound quite good but are totally useless if you need to change volumes while playing/singing. SOUNDS Plugged in this guitar is to me the best sounding acoustic sound on the market! It might be a tid bit too bright - but that is something that can be adjusted on the guitar itself and on the amp. I have been playing this guitar with a Fender Hot Rod Deville and it sounds much better than most 'real' acoustic amps. So just try it out. I mainly use the under saddle pickup and add maybe 20% microphone. Any more and the sound becomes very washed. OVERALL OPINION What can I say - I love this guitar! It sounds ok acoustic (a nice little feature on the side), sounds great plugged in, stays in tune, is very feedback resistant and has very good intonation. The look is a matter of taste and some people would prefer to have a more 'acoustic' design. It is a 'working man' guitar - nothing fancy but everything of very high quality. If it got lost or stolen I would immediatly buy one again!

I am using this guitar with a Fender Blues Junior 3 amp. I play mainly rock and blues so I use the Bridge or Neck pickups most of the time. Godin is a brand that I had heard a lot of positive things about. The wood from Canada assembled in America... The workmanship is excellent on this guitar. Having owned a number of Indonesian made guitars, many of them very good; the neck, frets, fit, and finish on the SDXt are better. Intonation was excellent. I haven't needed to tweak anything, no neck or pickup adjustments. The only things I have done with this guitar is a string change(D'Addario 10-46 Nickel Wounds)and a cleaning of the maple fretboard. The maple neck and fretboard are easy for me to play. I have smaller hands so this neck radius works very well for me. In this price range I really didn't expect much from the stock pickups. I was pleasantly surprised and don't plan on changing them. The Neck humbucker has the sweet, smooth tone I appreciate. The Bridge humbucker has a bark or quack. I did find a downloadable guide from Godin that listed the genres for the various selector switch settings. There is a lot of versatility with the pickup configuration. That's what I was looking for- a maple neck and fretboard guitar with the HSH pickup configuration. I have found no cons with this model and Godin has lived up to my expectations with this guitar. And I got a really good deal on it. It also came with a Godin gigbag that was much better than the typical gigbag. This one is heavier duty.

Made in Canada, like all Godin guitars, but the Canadian-made parts are surprisingly assembled in the USA. Floyd Rose-style bridge – at least one with a tremolo that goes in both directions, bolt-on neck with 22 frets, Godin pickups: 2 humbuckers with a single soil in the middle PLUS piezo sensors, one per string with an interface that allows MIDI connection to a Roland GK2 or equivalent with a switch to choose between MIDI only, MIDI and audio or the audio signal alone, and another switch to change MIDI settings. There are also two Tone and one Volume knobs, and a 5-position mic selector. I read several hypothesis regarding the mic switch, either the humbuckers turning into single coils or 2-by-2 combinations of the pickups, but I haven’t opened the guitar to check this – so for all I know there are 5 possible selectable positions and this is it. USING IT The neck is very easy to play, the highs can be accessed very comfortably, the weight and ergonomy are very good, no problem at all. Beware that when the MIDI switch is on “MIDI only” there is NO outgoing sound AT ALL – only MIDI signal. Of course it can be useful for some kinds of uses. It is highly versatile and delivers high-quality sounds with all sorts of settings (at least to my taste). I considered buying a MIDI interface to take advantage of all its capacities, but it’s expensive (€300 for an Axon or Roland) and I have 3 basic MIDI keyboards, so I didn’t get one and can’t judge the result and have no idea whether all notes are correctly detected, bends are taken into account or polyphony (there’s a total 6 piezo sensors) is working. Anyway, all that depends more on the interface used than on the guitar itself. SOUND Whether I use my VOX AD30VT or Toneport UX1, UX2 and Gearbox/Podfarm, I get many great sounds and find no real flaw. Unfortunately, the neck was the victim of a heating problems I encountered some past Winter, now the B and E strings tend to buzz a lot but the neck doesn’t appear to be warped. It certainly needs to get adjusted by a guitar tech. EDIT: the guitar finally paid the guitar tech a visit, now everything's fine. If you actually use the MIDI feature, you certainly can get everything you need but I didn’t try it this way. OVERALL I’ve been using it for 7 years now on my (rare) spare time. I haven’t tried many other models before I came across it by chance, but now I also like its look. Looking back, I’d get the same but without the MIDI feature, which seems useless to me: a GTK-style device costs three times the price of a keyboard (not that I’m so good at keyboard playing but I can play a little), and I’m not sure a guitar player really has an interest to switch to MIDI unless their playing style translates perfectly. It’s up to everyone to see. I have no idea of its price either new or used as I got it as part of a home-studio bundle with undetailed prices, but regarding the price new I believe the extra cost induced by the MIDI is excessive compared with the (non-)use I have for it. I only rated it « for advanced users » because of the MIDI feature and the additional cost it induces, but a second-hand, non-MIDI version definitely addresses just anyone.

The Godin Multiac SA has a solid spruce top, chambered mahogany body, mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard and custom RMC electronics with a 13-pin connector for control of Roland GR Series and Axon AX100 guitar synths. The guitar is a nylon string but is much easier to play than a traditional classical guitar due to the 1 7/8' nut width. I'm a professional guitarist with 31 years experience. I perform a variety of styles as an independent artist and with a band and love to use the Multiac not only for my classical work, but also for jazz and latin styles as well. I ordered this guitar through Medley Music in Philadelphia, Pa. for $1200 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/johngorbe">https://www.youtube.com/johngorbe</a> This guitar oozes quality. I love the feel of ebony, especially when married with mahogany and nylon strings and this guitar delivers the smooth and elegant feel one would expect from a guitar of this caliber. I also really appreciate the placement of the synth controls. I've used this guitar with a Roland GR-1 many times during performances and always felt comfortable controlling patches and volume in the heat of a performance. There's nothing I don't like on this guitar, however I would like to see a wider body as an option on future models. This is a really nice guitar that's made to last. Tuning the guitar you'll notice how smooth the tuning machines are and how well it holds tune. The craftmanship is flawless throughout: Frets are dressed well, binding on the body is clean and smooth and my thumb slides smoothly across the neck without that 'sticky' feeling you feel in other guitars. The frequency response is evenly balanced across the spectrum although bass frequencies lack just a bit for my taste given the thin body. This guitar shines best when it's plugged in and even has a mid-shift switch you can boost or cut at 700 or 1200 Hz. The Godin Multiac SA is made for the professional musician in the studio or on the road. It's superb sound quality and feel place it in a notch by itself regarding nylon string guitars. The synth access bridges the gap between traditional and sampled sounds unlocking an unlimited resource of potential for the nylon string guitarist. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Color: Tan/Tweed; Size: Approx. 43' long; Shoulder straps; molded handle. I purchased this from Musicians Friend for $100. I purchased it to replace a Breedlove hardshell case with rusting hardware and was too heavy to make the guitar easy to transport. The only positive feature this has is it is lightweight. See below, there are too many things to dislike about this case. In addition, Godin provides no specs as to the dimensions of this case. It will not accommodate any guitar having a headstock longer than 6.0' long. Since a Breedlove 6-string has a 7.25' long headstock, the case is too short. Godin has changed the design from a molded thermoplastic shell with light foam insert which latches shut to a foam insert inside of a nylon shell. the latches have been replaced by two zippers and a velcro flap that fits between the molded handles. The design is flimsier and the foam is not a substantial enough material to protect the guitar. Bottom line for people seeking a lightweight but solid case for protecting their guitar is to look elsewhere. There are other brands out there which make cases with better quality construction and which provide better protection--and which cost less. This was shipped back to Musicians Friend the next day. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Here is the closest I could find to what my bass is: www.godinguitars.com/godinbgp.htm. The finish is the LightBurst High Gloss (shown at left). The pickups are not Godin-made. They're Seymour Duncan Basslines, which lead me to believe that my bass was modified before I got it, and I don't have a white Godin logo on the body. The scale is 34' with 22 frets on a rosewood fingerboard and a Rock Maple neck. It has a Figured Maple Leaf top with a Silver Leaf Maple body and a Rock Maple center. Controls for the pickups are in the same configuration shown: Volume, Blend, Mid, Bass/Treble. The battery cavity uses 9V industrial batteries only. It can sometimes be picky as to the brand as well, and those Seymour Duncans are powerful enough to eat through the battery quickly. My history as a musician is scattered through jazz, musical theater, reggae, rock, blues, experimental, alternative, and funk. I've played for somewhere around 14 or 15 bands in my lifetime, and I've enjoyed them all. I've played bass since I was in 8th grade and received my uncle's old Peavey T-40 to start on. The Godin BG-5 was purchased about two years ago and has been mainly used in house band (for open mics), jazz, funk, and experimental settings, a decent range of music. The bass was an absolute steal at a music shop for $499.99 with Godin hardshell case, especially considering it's original street price was right around $1,499. It seems nobody wanted it, because nobody knew the Godin name in the Morgantown, West Virginia area, let alone that they made solidbody electric basses. I got it because I wanted a 5-string, and because it had been required of me too many times to tune down. Bassists out there, you need at least one 5-string in your arsenal if you intend to do any kind of jazz or session work. You can get by on just a 4-string if you're good, but I recommend giving the 5 a chance. I'll quote Kern when I say that I make my living on the low B now. I don't usually play 'dub' bass or 'woofy' bass sounds (apart from the reggae group), and I like my basses to have a clear and clean tone. If I need to deaden the treble side I can just turn it down on the bass or palm mute it, but I want the basic tone properties of the bass to be very rich and clear so that the audience can understand my note as its own entity and not as a toneless extension of the bass drum. This bass was purchased because it fits that perfectly. Notes ring out for days and they're crystal clear to the last bit. The bass balances almost perfectly, unlike my Peavey, and while it does use some heavier tone woods it isn't a back strain. I also appreciate the string spacing that's borderline 4-string. It makes slapping and fingerplaying or even pickstyle a breeze to me, and there's almost no 'reset' time for me to get used my 4 or my 5 again in between gigs. I can go from one to the other in no time without worries. The midrange control brings out the most beautiful lush and complex harmonics as well, and the volume knob can be pulled for a scooped mid 'slap' eq instantaneously. Brilliant! For a bass that was originally $1500 (and I don't mean list price...I mean street), the preamp could be better tuned. The treble can be hissy and sound on the edgy and harsh side, and the bass is not low enough to add some real low-end, more of a low-mid. The only tweaking I do to these is usually to cut the treble when I have new strings or I don't want to be as present, because this bass can add some serious presence. It eats batteries quickly, as I said earlier, and that's just not fun. Granted, the method of replacing them is incredibly easy, but I just wish that Godin would have added an active/passive switch. I can get over batteries, but basses of this fine quality should NOT go without an on/off switch for the active preamp. It is mostly for this that this bass gets a 4. I take care of my instruments, and they've taken great care of me. Haven't had any problems other than the battery eating yet. It's an absolutely fantastic bass, although if I actually had to spend the full $1,500, I'd probably get an MTD Kingston instead. Still, considering the price I paid, I doubt I will EVER find a bass remotely as playable, comfortable, or beautiful-sounding as this one. It's only for the lack of active/passive switch and the battery problem that I give it a 4, as I really believe both to be a fault of Godin construction. If you have the money to buy a battery once month on some good hard playing (e.g. at least 1 hour per day), then by all means, check it out! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com