Guitar Review: Gibson Nighthawk

Believe it or not, here's another blog post written while flying across the Atlantic. This is sort of a follow-up to an entry from a year ago, where I said I don't have any Gibson guitars, yet think of myself as a "Gibson guy".

So, I finally did get myself a Gibson guitar. And yet the Nighthawk is very much like a Fender in a lot of respects. Nevertheless, perhaps this one guitar sums up why I was previously so torn.

I had seen this specific guitar at the home of an acquaintance, and it haunted me for months, though I hadn't even played or heard it. Early this year I had seen advertising for the new Epiphone Nighthawk, which further stirred my interest.

The first thing that caught my eye about these guitars was the diagonally placed humbucker pickup, and the total of three different types of pickups in the guitar. The second was the body shape... to my eye having pretty lines like a Les Paul, but somehow not quite right.

Anyway, a couple of months back I finally got my hands on one of the new Epiphone Nighthawk guitars at Long & McQuade music in Vancouver, and I just about bought it on the spot. I also handled one of the new 2011 Gibson Nighthawks as well, though it didn't have the 3-pickup configuration. The initial impression of these guitars was that they're significantly lighter than a Les Paul but otherwise feel rather similar. I really liked the feel of the neck, with a smooth low action and comfortable medium-profile neck cross-section.

In the end I was given the opportunity to buy the genuine mid-90s Gibson model for a good price, and I jumped on it after trying the guitar for a few days. The 2011 Gibson model was very nice, but more money than I was willing to spend, and the model I tried didn't have the pickup configuration I wanted. The 2011 Epiphone model was very nice, and a great price. Made in Indonesia, I didn't see any quality issues on the model I tried out, and would have been happy to purchase that guitar. But we have an Epiphone (Dot Studio) and I really wanted to own one Gibson.

The original Nighthawks were made by Gibson from 1993-1996, and were not considered a commercial success. I'll point out here that the same fate befell the now-iconic Les Paul and Flying V guitars at the beginning of the 1960s, only to be resurrected when Gibson realized how popular the used guitars had become. So also the Nighthawk, which was reborn (apparently significantly redesigned) as a Gibson model in 2009 and as an Epiphone this year.

Although the esthetic of this guitar is very Gibson, the guitar has a number of characteristics more commonly found on Fender guitars:

- the neck scale is 25 1/4" rather than the shorter scale common on Gibsons, which gives the strings more tension and a different feel

- the single-coil pickup, and coil-splitting tone pot (pull up on the tone knob to split the humbuckers into single-coil mode) offer up lots of chimy tones heard typically from Fender guitars (Stratocaster tones to my ears)

The 3-pickup model offers 9 different pickup combinations using the 5-position selector and the coil-splitting pot. The pickups are a mini-humbucker in the neck position, single coil in the middle, and a humbucker in the bridge position. I've been playing the guitar through a Fender Blues Jr III amp, and am amazed at the range of tones I get out of the guitar. The single coil and split coil modes give great glassy and chimy tones that I've never heard from this amp with my humbucker guitars. I really like the tone of the neck mini-humbucker as well, as it seems somehow different (in a nice way) as well.

Overall, the tone spectrum is so varied that I can see how this would become the go-to guitar for any occasion. And it's light enough to remain comfortable. So maybe now I can really claim I'm a Gibson guy.

Guitar Review: Ovation CK-047 acoustic-electric

Since I referenced my Koa topped Ovation in the previous review, I thought I should provide an overview of that guitar as well.  There are a couple of Ovation CC-28 guitars in the family, but the one in this review is my CK-047, which is a mid-depth Korean-made Ovation that I bought a few years ago.

This is another extremely beautiful guitar, I have to say.  And it's quite special to me particularly because it played a primary role in reinvigorating my interest in guitar.  I've had guitars around for most of my life, but was not playing too regularly for the past 20+ years, and was certainly not progressing in my abilities.  I'm really not sure what caused me to buy this guitar, frankly.  I had a bit of extra money at the time, and was visiting a Long & McQuade music store, and somehow came home with this lovely creation.

My only acoustic guitar before that was a pretty beat-up steelstring that my parents had bought me as a kid, after having given up on piano lessons.  That guitar kind of sufficed, but it isn't a great quality guitar, and in retrospect I believe I might have played a lot more guitar in my life if I had splurged for a better guitar after reaching adulthood.  At around $650, the Ovation was by far the most expensive guitar I had owned, and the resulting improved tonal experience thrilled me.

The Ovation is a really nice sounding guitar, both acoustically as well as through an amp.  It's a mid-sized guitar, without a huge bass end, but very nicely balanced tones across the full range.  The intonation is very good on this guitar, and it sounds good open as well as playing high on the neck.

The OP20 electronics on the guitar are good, with a tuner that I find quite accurate and easy to use.  However, the tuner makes use of labeled LEDs to indicate what note is being sensed, and I find the labels for these lights hard to read [need reading glasses], and impossible in dim light.   The pickup system has a three-band equalizer that provides flexibility to get the desired tone from the guitar.

The Koa top on this guitar is spectacularly pretty, and nicer than I've seen on any other guitars.  The mid-depth body has a nice rich tone compared to the shallow body Ovations.  However, it's somewhat less comfortable to play this guitar than either a standard body or a thin Ovation.  Standing up and playing with a strap is pretty comfortable, but it's taken me quite awhile to find comfort in playing the guitar on my lap.  The convex back doesn't exactly mould to my somewhat convex belly, and the guitar tends to want to slide off my lap.

The guitar neck is comfortable in mid-sized hands, and the rounded profile is comfortable to play.  The finish of the frets is pretty good, but I find my cleaning cloth leaves lint caught in the ends of a few frets, so there's a bit of a gap that isn't really noticeable when playing.

I think I've had this guitar for about 2 1/2 years now, and I really love it.  It encouraged me to start playing almost daily for that whole period, and although I play some other guitars as well, I regularly come back to this Ovation and revel in the beautiful tones.  And others in the family liked this guitar enough to go out and buy Ovations for themselves.

Guitar Review: Luna Fauna Dolphin acoustic-electric

Shortly before Christmas '09, I finally succumbed to purchase a guitar I'd been eyeing for most of the year.   The problem with it primarily was that although I could find some information on the guitar, I hadn't seen one in the flesh, so to speak.

The guitar in question is the Fauna Dolphin guitar from Luna Guitars.  I can't recall where I first came across it... perhaps in a brochure from Celtic Renaissance Music.  I fell in love with the look of this guitar from the first glance... it's so different visually.  But there didn't seem to be a dealer of Luna guitars in western Canada, from what I could see, and thus I waited.  In the end, I drove to Bellingham, WA, and was lucky enough to find that not only did Mojo Music carry Luna, but they had a Dolphin in stock.  It was pretty much everything I'd hoped it would be, so I had it in the car before we headed home at the end of the day.

At left is a picture of the guitar I brought home.  It has a lovely sea-blue wavy maple top, with three dolphins inlayed around the sound hole.  The fingerboard has moon phase inlays for the dots, which look really nice.

The guitar is relatively small in size, which appeals to me.  It's also relatively thin bodied, and has a somewhat narrow neck.  Overall, very comfortable for smaller players, but perhaps not for those with really large hands.  I find the guitar very comfortable to play.  It is well balanced, and comfortable on the hands.

When played acoustically, the guitar sounds relatively nice, but has a bit of an odd tone to it.  Perhaps the guitar is young, and will mellow a bit with age.  I don't mind the sound, but in some parts of the register, it sounds more like a cheaper guitar than a more expensive one, in my limited experience.  We have a few Ovation guitars in the family, and I find the tone somewhat like the CC-28 Ovations, which are similar in price to the Luna.  My CK-047 Ovation has a richer tone across the board.  However, interestingly, the Luna has a certain sparkly brightness in some areas that's quite endearing and gorgeous.  Other areas are a bit more "honky-tonk", as one friend described it.

Plugged in, I found the guitar sounds really good.  Certainly much nicer than the CC-28 Ovation, and perhaps nicer than the CK-047 as well.  Certainly again there's a bright sparkle that comes through even better with the pickup, and sounds really great.

The guitar has a built-in tuner, which I find very easy to use.  Much nicer to read than the Ovation tuners, particularly in a darker room.  Unfortunately, I don't think the tuner is quite as precise as most of the other tuners in my home, but that's more of a gut feel (ear) than something I've measured.

Overall, the workmanship quality on the guitar is very nice.  The frets and nut are well finished and don't have any sharp areas, nor gaps under the fret ends.  I'd say the finish is better than the Korean Ovation guitars we have.  I was also playing an Ibanez classical (similar price) at Mojo Music the day I bought the Luna, and the Ibanez had quite rough fret ends, which really disappointed me.  The one concern I've had about the finish is that a couple of screws were loose where the jack enters the guitar.  I didn't notice it at the shop, and since I rarely play plugged in, I haven't dealt with it yet.

This is the most beautiful guitar in my stable, and I'm very impressed.  Luna brings a new angle to guitar building, making visual art at a level rarely seen in the industry.  The bonus was that the guitar is also really nice to play.