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Recent Reviews: GODIN XSTA
During my career I have played many guitars; most have been purchases of instruments that I simply liked the look of, picked up and played and realised that I couldn’t live without! Makes have included Gibson (L5 and ES175), Fender (Texas Special Strat) Ibanez (Custom Roadstar with HI NRG EMG pick ups), Jim Burns original hand-made solid body , Aria’s handmade Custom Classic, Ovation stereo Classic etc. Call me headstrong? – Maybe; decisive? – Yes!!.
At various times I have also endorsed Burns & Selmer amps and Guild (‘Starfire’),, Harmony (Soveriegn) & Framus ( ‘Jan Akkermann’ custom guitar, 5 string banjo. Electric Mandolin), instruments!
I have never, however, been a guitar collector. Each instrument has to earn its keep so my ‘collection’, such as it is, comprises unique sounding guitars. For example I play a Jumbo Suzuki acoustic; don’t scoff …. Just listen!! This guitar is not the easiest to play but has a huge sound that more than compensates for the effort required to play it!
When we were opening Guitar Heaven we made certain decisions as to which brands we were going to carry at the start. Although I had never owned one I was always very impressed by the build quality and sound of the Canadian Godin range, especially the guitar for which they were perhaps best known – the Acousticaster, a ‘Tele’ shaped acoustic sounding instrument.
At the BMF we put in our order for the Godin range which included a solid body nylon strung version of the Acousticaster, the ACS-SA and the XTSA models which sport both conventional humbucking/single coil pick ups and the RMC transducer system which produced an acoustic sound from a solid bodied guitar. Additionally the XSTA has hex pick ups that will drive the Roland G20/33 series of guitar synthesizers!! What a package!
It is part of my duties at GH to review instruments, amps, effects etc and to give my ‘expert’ opinion of them. These reviews are my personal thoughts and are not to be confused with publicity blurbs which can be found in some specialist magazines; for what it’s worth I try to tell it as I find it and try to be as informative as I can. My usual method is to take an instrument and use it for a gig, usually a recording, which should enable me to judge the performance at two important levels i.e. how it is to play and what it sounds like. I realise that some of my younger readers will be also concerned with the look and ‘street-cred’ aspect and I understand this but bear in mind that, as a recording musician, the look of a guitar matters less to me!! You should however, also remember that it will have been the look that made me pick up the guitar in the first place!!
For the past 9 years I’ve been using the combination of Fender ‘Texas Special’ Stratocaster and Session amp along with a combination of Korg & Boss effects. The effects I replaced three years ago when Behringer bought out their superb Vamp2 but the Fender and the Session seemed to be irreplaceable.
Then I tried the XTSA. Wow!! No amount of superlatives can convey my feelings about this most versatile and sophisticated of guitars. Try as I may I can’t fault it on any level. I’m not even going to try to tell you about the way the instrument feels and plays … just pick one up and try it!!
The best endorsement that I can give is ……. I bought one!!! The Fender has been consigned as ‘back-up’ and my present combination of Godin XTSA guitar, Session amp and Behringer Vamp2 effects/amp simulation are giving me the sounds that I have been searching for years and an re-kindled an immense pleasure in playing electric guitar again. It’s been years since I took out an electric guitar and plugged it in for the sheer joy of hearing it’s sound; I have spent the last 15 years maybe playing only acoustic instruments for pleasure but the Godin with all it’s build quality, playability and sound variation has re-kindled my love for the amplified instrument.
Now comes the crunch!! The price!! Well I’m sure that after all the praise that I’ve heaped onto the XSTA you will be expecting a heavy price tag. WRONG!!!! The online
price from Guitar Heaven is £699.00. That’s right; it’s not a misprint!! £699.00 and that price even includes VAT and delivery!!
Retire …. What me???? …..not while there are guitars like this being made and I’m still capable of playing and affording them!!
Recent Review: D'Arco BallEnd Classical Strings: You can’t teach an Old Dog new tricks!!!
You all know that old adage about Old Dogs etc …… well it’s wrong!!
This Old Dog has been using the same make and type of strings on his classical guitar for xxx years and has always been dogmatic when suggestions have been made that he might change his habitual choice. This is particularly true when the subject of ‘ball end’ classical strings was raised; it wasn’t even a question of trying them out – I didn’t even know that they existed until we started to stock them in the shop!!!!
In addition to my Ovation Stereo Classic that I use as my principal ‘acoustic’ classical instrument I have a back-up ‘semi-acoustic’ classical Aria which I use for amplified nylon stung work (in fact a John Joyce made guitar badged by Aria) Having need to change the strings on the Aria I thought I’d try out the ball-ends just to prove that my rigid ideas concerning this type of strings was correct.
I was wrong. Not only were the Darco ball ends good in tone and tension but they had another asset. The ‘stretching’ experienced with all new strings, especially nylon, was dramatically reduced and pitch stability was obtained in a fraction of the time that ‘conventional’ strings would have taken.
So now fast forward to last week when I was called for a session with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on classical guitar accompanying the great American soprano Rene Fleming. This would call for me to use the Ovation which had been lying fallow for a while. A quick inspection of its strings confirmed that they possibly needed changing so I’d better have some additional spares. (I didn’t want to change the set yet as new strings on a classical are a bit brittle in tone and cause endless pitch problems with their constant stretching.) I therefore bought a set of ball ends with the intention of changing them after the session and assessing their tone etc on the ‘acoustic’ classical guitar.
Now for the crux of this tale. Imagine the scene …. It’s late, the session is running late …. It’s cold (we’re recording in a church in North London and it’s 10.00pm!!) and the piece that I’m trying to play has been written by someone with only a passing knowledge of the guitar. This means that I have to adapt the part as I go along as some of it is unplayable!! Also there is a long solo section in the middle of the 10 minute piece that is just guitar, guitar and solo violin or guitar and voice. Highly exposed playing and nowhere to hide.
We had already made one take and were halfway through the second with time on the session running out when ……piinggggg!!!! My 4th string had broken!! Now the whole session would be held up whilst I struggled to restring as rapidly as possible (If the session went into overtime with a 70 piece orchestra the financial implications are considerable!!)
Ball ends to the rescue!! I was able to swiftly put on a new 4th and get it to stay in tune and so we were able to continue recording and able to prevent the session from going overtime!!! If I had been using my usual ‘traditional’ strings this would not have been possible ….. Darco to the rescue, teaching new tricks to Old Dogs!!
One small point, or am I being curmudgeonly? Could they perhaps produce these life-saving strings in different tensions?? That would be perfect!!!
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