Post by 4real on Jan 10, 2006 23:21:12 GMT -5
Hi there...
Well, I was looking to add a piezo pickup to my old faithful epiphone acoustic...but found you could buy a whole guitar for about the same price and thought "why hack up the guitar with mods?"...so i found this...
It's an Ashton (australian designed brand...made in china)...an SL-29CEQTSB...i think they are available in the UK under a different brand name...(sorry about the pic quality...camera phone)
It's not too big (about the same size as the epi) but not too thin, so it's plenty loud enough for acoustic stuff. It has a laminated top with a flame maple photo finish sunburst. Fully bound body back and neck, pearl dot fret markers on a nice rosewood board which has this nice light figure running down it.
So a bit of a fake...but very sturdy and doesn't sound half bad really. Now, the pickup system sounds good too. It has vol, bass, middle, treble and presence slide controls. A mid freq dial control and a full guitar-or-chromatic digital tuner. The output jack plate has a neat battery access design, a normal Hi-Z socket and a balanced low-Z canon connector as well. And it sounds pretty damn good really...a little quacky but hey, a little eq-ing and you can plug it directly into the PC...so it fullfills it's purpose admirably as an electro-acoustic.
Now...Quality control is an issue with cheap guitars. The first one I saw I really liked the look of it, played and sounded ok, and the action was good...but...there was a hump in the neck and fretted out above the 10fret.
I looked about and found this one, the action was a little higher than i liked it but the neck was very straight so I snapped it up. Changed the strings and sanded the bottom of the plastic compensated bridge and the nut slots (just a smidge) and changed to some lighter, coated quality strings and...plays really nice now. So...make sure you look around if considering a cheap guitar as you may find that a good one slips through!
So...how much A$250 (about $200US) with a padded case and 10ft lead.
But wait...there's more. The same company makes this cute little amp as well. 15 watts, 8" speaker with a metal grill, in the shape of a mini foldback wedge. It has two channels...one has hi/low inputs vol and tone and the other hi input vol, bass, mid, treble and level with a boost push button. Headphones out as well. The thing is the thing can be plugged into the mains, but has an internal battery (like those little motor scooters) that recharges and can run off 12volts from the car as well! Again about A$250...not a tone monster but a great little no nonsense, go anywhere jam machine!
All in all, provided you find a good'un, a very nice combo. Ok, not a quality solid spruce top but a beautiful fake flame maple sunburst...as long as you play ok...the girls wont know the difference
Well, I was looking to add a piezo pickup to my old faithful epiphone acoustic...but found you could buy a whole guitar for about the same price and thought "why hack up the guitar with mods?"...so i found this...
It's an Ashton (australian designed brand...made in china)...an SL-29CEQTSB...i think they are available in the UK under a different brand name...(sorry about the pic quality...camera phone)
It's not too big (about the same size as the epi) but not too thin, so it's plenty loud enough for acoustic stuff. It has a laminated top with a flame maple photo finish sunburst. Fully bound body back and neck, pearl dot fret markers on a nice rosewood board which has this nice light figure running down it.
So a bit of a fake...but very sturdy and doesn't sound half bad really. Now, the pickup system sounds good too. It has vol, bass, middle, treble and presence slide controls. A mid freq dial control and a full guitar-or-chromatic digital tuner. The output jack plate has a neat battery access design, a normal Hi-Z socket and a balanced low-Z canon connector as well. And it sounds pretty damn good really...a little quacky but hey, a little eq-ing and you can plug it directly into the PC...so it fullfills it's purpose admirably as an electro-acoustic.
Now...Quality control is an issue with cheap guitars. The first one I saw I really liked the look of it, played and sounded ok, and the action was good...but...there was a hump in the neck and fretted out above the 10fret.
I looked about and found this one, the action was a little higher than i liked it but the neck was very straight so I snapped it up. Changed the strings and sanded the bottom of the plastic compensated bridge and the nut slots (just a smidge) and changed to some lighter, coated quality strings and...plays really nice now. So...make sure you look around if considering a cheap guitar as you may find that a good one slips through!
So...how much A$250 (about $200US) with a padded case and 10ft lead.
But wait...there's more. The same company makes this cute little amp as well. 15 watts, 8" speaker with a metal grill, in the shape of a mini foldback wedge. It has two channels...one has hi/low inputs vol and tone and the other hi input vol, bass, mid, treble and level with a boost push button. Headphones out as well. The thing is the thing can be plugged into the mains, but has an internal battery (like those little motor scooters) that recharges and can run off 12volts from the car as well! Again about A$250...not a tone monster but a great little no nonsense, go anywhere jam machine!
All in all, provided you find a good'un, a very nice combo. Ok, not a quality solid spruce top but a beautiful fake flame maple sunburst...as long as you play ok...the girls wont know the difference
