Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2016 8:59:24 GMT -5
I had an Ovation Balladeer LX (model 1771LX) for a time several years back -- it was my "transition" guitar into acoustics, since the only guitars I'd owned up until then had been electrics. The neck was more like what I was used to in the electrics, thin and narrow, and it sounded decent plugged in (if not quite as resonant and full played straight acoustic as the Gibsons, Guilds, Taylors, Takamines, etc. I was hearing from other musicians.)
Here it is, though I sold it, oh, three or four years ago now:
Honestly, I liked the guitar well enough and overall it served me well. I played it for a few years on band gigs and in music circles. But... I did notice that the Balladeer was very sensitive to humidity changes. As conditions changed, I'd have to pull the saddle out and either add to or subtract from the plastic spacers that sat under it. If I didn't do that, the action would be uncomfortably high or so low I'd get lots of fret buzz or (worse) some notes would sound incredibly muffled, especially high on the neck. I'd humidify it with the "sponge in bag" method; that helped some, but...
I was surprised at how much humidity affected this guitar, given that the only wood on the body was the neck and the top, which was sitting on top of a plastic bowl. I'm still surprised -- I've since owned four other acoustics, all of which are the standard wood guitars, two of them all solid wood (the other two have solid wood tops with laminate back and sides), and though those guitars do change somewhat in response to the humidity levels, none of those changes are as drastic as what I saw in the Ovation.
So here's my question for those who own/previously owned Ovation guitars: was my instrument an anomaly, or are Ovations really that sensitive to humidity changes? I'm curious.
Here it is, though I sold it, oh, three or four years ago now:
Honestly, I liked the guitar well enough and overall it served me well. I played it for a few years on band gigs and in music circles. But... I did notice that the Balladeer was very sensitive to humidity changes. As conditions changed, I'd have to pull the saddle out and either add to or subtract from the plastic spacers that sat under it. If I didn't do that, the action would be uncomfortably high or so low I'd get lots of fret buzz or (worse) some notes would sound incredibly muffled, especially high on the neck. I'd humidify it with the "sponge in bag" method; that helped some, but...
I was surprised at how much humidity affected this guitar, given that the only wood on the body was the neck and the top, which was sitting on top of a plastic bowl. I'm still surprised -- I've since owned four other acoustics, all of which are the standard wood guitars, two of them all solid wood (the other two have solid wood tops with laminate back and sides), and though those guitars do change somewhat in response to the humidity levels, none of those changes are as drastic as what I saw in the Ovation.
So here's my question for those who own/previously owned Ovation guitars: was my instrument an anomaly, or are Ovations really that sensitive to humidity changes? I'm curious.
