Elio
Student Of The Blues
So, i have been generally happy with my current guitar collection and not really gassing about anything. Until, I started thinking about what I would take to Kalamazoo. I've never flown with a guitar before and am really leary about flying with anything I can't live without. My thinking is that I would take my least expensive/best playing guitar. What I wish I could take is my Godin, which my most expensive and best playing/sounding guitar. That got me thinking. When I was shopping for it, I played a couple used Godin SD's, which is their now-discontinued lower-end model with a very similar body style. Other than my not liking most of the colors and finishes, I thought they were incredibly well-made and nice playing guitars. Given that there are quite a few used ones available in the $300 to $400 range, I figured it was a good option, especially for an American/Canadian made guitar.
After watching for a week or two, I found a really pretty one on Reverb. $290 and free-shipping later it showed up with new strings, an excellent setup and in really better shape than I expected. It looks like a guitar that has been played a lot, but was well taken care of. The body cleaned up beautifully with polish and wax. Otherwise, it just needed a little bit of fretboard cleaning and fret polishing. Playability is really similar to my higher-end Godin and extremely comfortable. It's light-weight, has a low action and no buzz, at all. The body contours and contoured heel make everything really easy to get to. The neck is quite different, but a little bit thinner and very comfortable for me. Overall, this is really fun to play.
The reviews on the stock pickups (supposedly Seymour Duncan design) have been mixed, although the more negative reviewers seem to be complaining that they don't sound enough like a strat, which isn't really what I'm after. After playing it for a while, I decided that I *really* like both the middle pickup and the bridge HB a lot. The neck single coil is not bad at all, but I really prefer a HB in the neck, so I've been looking at dropping in a single-coil sized humbucker. My top contender right now is Seymour Duncan Little '59. Has anyone tried one of these? The reviews and YouTube videos I've seen sound as though the Little '59 is a reasonable approximation of the full-sized '59 humbucker. In classic fashion, I found and ordered a used Little '59 on Reverb just *before* posting this so with any luck, I will see what it sounds like later this week.
After watching for a week or two, I found a really pretty one on Reverb. $290 and free-shipping later it showed up with new strings, an excellent setup and in really better shape than I expected. It looks like a guitar that has been played a lot, but was well taken care of. The body cleaned up beautifully with polish and wax. Otherwise, it just needed a little bit of fretboard cleaning and fret polishing. Playability is really similar to my higher-end Godin and extremely comfortable. It's light-weight, has a low action and no buzz, at all. The body contours and contoured heel make everything really easy to get to. The neck is quite different, but a little bit thinner and very comfortable for me. Overall, this is really fun to play.
The reviews on the stock pickups (supposedly Seymour Duncan design) have been mixed, although the more negative reviewers seem to be complaining that they don't sound enough like a strat, which isn't really what I'm after. After playing it for a while, I decided that I *really* like both the middle pickup and the bridge HB a lot. The neck single coil is not bad at all, but I really prefer a HB in the neck, so I've been looking at dropping in a single-coil sized humbucker. My top contender right now is Seymour Duncan Little '59. Has anyone tried one of these? The reviews and YouTube videos I've seen sound as though the Little '59 is a reasonable approximation of the full-sized '59 humbucker. In classic fashion, I found and ordered a used Little '59 on Reverb just *before* posting this so with any luck, I will see what it sounds like later this week.
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good score!
