Hot or Not? Unexpected NGD

aliensporebomb

Fretted instrument fan
Washburn acoustic. My wife's 102 year old great aunt passed away last weekend and for the funeral upcoming they want my wife and I to reprise our acoustic guitar and voice rendition of "children of the heavenly father" which means I need an acoustic guitar, preferably with electronics, preferably cheap.

I just traded my last acoustic less than two weeks ago so I was kind of in a pickle.

I tried a bunch and ended up with this:
IMG_5919.jpg


Built in tuner and better than serviceable electronics:
IMG_5922.jpg


Sounds pretty good for an inexpensive acoustic, it looks VERY bright red in these pictures, it's not quite that red in person.

Only real downside is the uppermost 6 frets are kinda sharp and I'll need to get them filed down.

Got a little gig bag for it and it sounds pretty amazing for a guitar that was about $160.

Here's a short demo of the guitar tuned to D into my Strymon Big Sky:
http://madsound.dyndns.org/guitars/washburn/Short_Acoustic_bit_edit.mp3
 
What amazes me is the piezo electronics on this thing blew away my old Alvarez that was $500 or so. The Alvarez would get an hour or two out of a 9volt and this thing is clearer, quieter and just all around better. Thing is an amazing value.
 
Happy new guitar day. Also, I really liked your Wife's vocal on 'Fever'. You really need to post some more.
 
HNGD! The electronics on A/E guitars just seem to getting better and better.
I agree. I resisted going A/E for a long time as the sound of many of the guitars I heard was awful. The electronics in my Lunas are great.

I wonder how much of the "quack" is due to how people amplify them?
 
Update: It's going back - there's some serious problems with the frets on the upper part of the neck where the 15th and 16th frets on the high E string actually play the same note and it's sharp enough to cut you up there.
I'll see if I can't get a replacement since I have a memorial service to play in a little under 6 hours.
 
Update: It's going back - there's some serious problems with the frets on the upper part of the neck where the 15th and 16th frets on the high E string actually play the same note and it's sharp enough to cut you up there.
I'll see if I can't get a replacement since I have a memorial service to play in a little under 6 hours.
Bummer. I hope you can get a replacement.
 
Update:

The other example they had there had some of the same problems.

I ended up with this instead and it's what I used for the memorial.
IMG_5956.jpg


Much bigger body (dreadnaught with florentine cutaway), fuller sound.

Electronics are Fishman this time. No tuner and fancy EQ options but volume and two pushbuttons. No problems.

Was a little more expensive but this one was probably a more expensive used (lightly) guitar whereas the other two seemed like factory seconds they'd gotten a hold of.

No fret problems (the other one was doing weird things like the 15th and 16th fret on the high E fretted the same note and it appeared the fretboard was shrinking and the frets were coming out of the wood faster than I could make adjustments.

IMG_5956.jpg
 
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Update:

The other example they had there had some of the same problems.

I ended up with this instead and it's what I used for the memorial.

Much bigger body (dreadnaught with florentine cutaway), fuller sound.

Electronics are Fishman this time. No tuner and fancy EQ options but volume and two pushbuttons. No problems.

Was a little more expensive but this one was probably a more expensive used (lightly) guitar whereas the other two seemed like factory seconds they'd gotten a hold of.

No fret problems (the other one was doing weird things like the 15th and 16th fret on the high E fretted the same note and it appeared the fretboard was shrinking and the frets were coming out of the wood faster than I could make adjustments.

IMG_5956.jpg

wow, i like that one a lot better. glad it worked out for you!
 
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