Ovation

[morjaz]

I've had this "Ovation" electric acoustic for a
while...it was a bit of a bargain altho I still had to dig deep to get it..
The thing is..instead of one sound hole it has 15 small holes......
It's supposed to improve the sound....
Does anyone have one of these or know if having several strategically placed holes is better?
It's actually not that good for playing jazz....altho the tone is just beautiful it's hard to get on to the stretchier chords.
What's a good guitar to get those long stretches?

[Professor]

Well, I think that a guitar with a more traditional electric neck proflie would be better for the stretchy chords. BTW-do you really use them that often? can you grab one in a hurry in the middle of a chart?

For jazz stuff, I'm currently using my '73 ES-335.

[morjaz]

Well I don't use lots of stretches...but I thought that was because I had stubbier fingers and not as good as other players - at this kind of thing.....
Also I recently bought "Chord Melody Phrases" by Ron Eschete and he comes up with a few 'hard to get to 'chords.I've been subbing easier chords when I come to these...
Yeah... the stretches are easier even on a Stratocaster.I was wondering ,tho', what guitars were particularly good for stretches.I'll have a look at the one mentioned..... online

[mahayana]

I almost bought an old Ovation once, played it quite a bit in a music store where I knew the owner. I liked the aluminum neck, it was narrow and perfectly intonated, action just right. The only thing I didn't like was the darn thing slipped off my leg!

[mahayana]

Aluminum guitar necks may have been invented by Charlie Kaman, a helicopter engineer, back in the 1960's. The "Applause" line of Ovation acoustic, rounded-back guitars featured them. The idea was a neck that would never warp. They were also used by Travis Bean, Kramer, Veleno, more recently Vaccaro Guitar Company.

I think some of these guitars disguise the aluminum with a wood-grain finish. The one I played had a black painted fingerboard with a few chips flaked off. That's how I noticed the metal underneath.

It would be interesting to research this at the Ovation site.

[slowpoke]

morjaz said:

Saw some doco last night where Chet Atkins was explaining how he made the first solid body.He called it "The Log".He sure started something

I hope Chet wasn't saying that! It's more likely that he was explaining how his friend Les Paul made one of the first solid bodies. I was reading an article not too long ago about how young Les had so much to do with multitrack recording and whatnot. When he was little he took apart a phone (and maybe a radio too) and searched for something to amplify his sound... he found a railroad track. His mom told him that people would never want to buy or play a railroad track so that's why he put the sides on his "log."

Anywho, I'll try to contribute more to some of the other posts you've been starting up lately morjaz. Good job trying to get us all back to communicating to one other ;D.

[morjaz]

yes yes yes...you are quite right slowpoke ...it was les paul....not chet atkins.....mucho apologies for putting history out of joint.......just as well you spotted that. Les was saying that he kind of sneaked it in to a set .....
played the set out without anyone noticing the difference.

[Professor]

I had an Ovation Matrix when they first came out in the mid/late 70s. The neck and fretboard and frets were all one single t-shaped piece of aluminum, and the back of the neck was made from some kind of plastic that looked like wood. The guitar looked, sounded, and played great. It was very loud, and had good sustain. I'm not sure what you were supposed to do if it needed a refret. The reason I got rid of it was that when it was cold, the aluminum neck and fretboard would suck every last bit of heat out of your hand.

[morjaz]

Checking out all this talk of aluminum necks made me have a closer look at mine . You've got me tempted to give it a good scratch to see if there is any metal....it looks pretty much like wood tho'
Also got motivated to look at the Ovation site which I see speaks of wooden neck/fretboards specially strengthened by alternating the grain in layers
a couple of decades playing with an aluminum neck sounds like a recipe for arthritus