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Well I picked her up at the post office this afternoon. Lovely guitar, just like in the pictures except smaller. I haven't had much chance to play 000-size acoustic guitars, most stores only have Dreds or other 16-inchers in stock. That inch less lower bout and inch less thickness looks and feel like much more. In fact the guitar shipped in a Dred-size chipboard case and it looks tiny in there surrounded by packing material.
So how does it play, you may ask. A few observations after tuning up and playing for like 20 minutes:
--Now I know what "punchy" means. This is not a sweet sounding guitar like, for instance, the Taylor 414 I just sold. The trebles are articulate and clear but sound dry with no overtones but the midrange just Woofs if you strum hard and then rings and rings with a loverly strings-and-wood tone.
--The action is a little higher and stiffer than my Taylor, to say the least. I'll need to be more correct with my left-hand finger placement. If I don't put it right behind the fret, it doesn't sound. And I don't have to worry about pressing too hard, shall we say.
--The neck is chunky, as the seller described it. What he did not describe is that it's a chunky vee shape. On a Fender we've call it very much a "hard V" profile. And very chunky. I think I like it but I'm not sure yet.
--It's an odd combination of responsive and laid back at the same time. I get the feeling of being in control of the sound but it doesn't really come right out and sing unless you give it some real right-hand ooomph. It's like with my normal (Tele-style) fingerstyle approach the guitar is closed-off and just all midrange humming as opposed to open singing. But then dig in a little and there's plenty of interesting voice in there.
--So my conclusion is this will be best used for alternating bass, thumb and three finger more or less Blues style playing. It's easy to go ahead and dig in on that stuff and it sounds good. I don't think it's going to do as well with the slow, sweet, quiet fingerstyle things that I try to play on my Tele. But then again I didn't get this to be my main guitar, just a change of pace from the Tele that will travel well.
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ON HIATUS
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