beez
Registered: December 2003
Location: Nashville, TN
Posts: 753
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Review Date: Tue March 16, 2004
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $1,490.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Small Size, Big Sount, Beautiful Wood, Nice electronics, good factory setup and finish
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Cons:
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Would like a strap button on the neck heel; A clear pickguard might have been nice
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This is a small bodied (L-00) series cutaway acoustic guitar. Main features are a solid cedar top, quilted maple back and sides, unbound rosewood fingerboard, sculpted rosewood bridge, abalone rosette, and Schertler Bluestick pickup. The Gibson Website specs show this as having a curly maple neck, however my particular guitar appears to be mahogany. Nut width is 1.725". 20 Frets. 14 Frets clear of the body. The finish was an antique natural lacquer. Well applied, and polished to a shine. Hardshell case included.
When I first picked this guitar up, the first thing I noticed was how comfortable it was to hold....the small body of the LC-1 just feels right. The neck is just right...not too small, not too big.
The second thing I noticed was how loud and clear this guitar was for a small bodied guitar. I assume that the cedar top has something to do with that....the guitar just seems lively. Every note seems to have equal volume up and down the neck. Very well balanced.
For a guitar with this kind of beautiful quilted wood, you might have expected it to have slightly fancier appointments: bound fingerboard, different inlays, etc..., but this guitar seems very classy in it's understatement. This seems to be a players guitar.
In the upper portion of the soundhole, just barely peeking out from the inside, you will find the volume control for the Schertler Bluestick pickup, and a blue input jack/strap button. To tell the truth, this was just an added bonus, and not something that I noticed right away. I have always stayed away from acoustic/electric instrument, as the controls and electronics have always seemed to take away from the acoustic properties of the instrument. Not so on the bluestick. The guts are attached with what appears to be velcro to the inside of the back of the guitar. Power is supplied via a lithium batter, which according to literature, is supposed to last for 1000 playing hours (that is, the battery will not drain unless the input jack is engaged). The Bluestick is not a piezo pickup, but rather a sealed condenser microphone that sits under the bridge. Being sealed, this makes for pickup that can stand higher volume before feeding back. The response is very nice, and very acoustic. Harmonics jump out at every position. I am very happy with the electronics.
Overall, though I am still in the Honeymoon phase with this guitar, I think is is one of the better designs that Gibson has come up with in years, and I highly recommend it to any and all players.
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