Official Luthiers Forum!

I attended his last show at Northwestern University in Natchitoches LA. and just a couple hours after the show, on our way back to Fort Worth we heard the news of the plane crash over the radio. Since I was not very old when buddy died, this was the day the music died for me.

Another great Ovation player; Cat Stevens

Melissa Etheridge plays both a 6 and 12 string on stage.

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Aoibeann

Not to buck the trend here folks, but don't forget that some of one of the best bluegrass albums of all time was played on a full depth non-amplified Ovation... the title track from "Manzanita" is on a plastic Ovation. If you have the "Backwaters" LP, the entire album (save the title track on the D-28) was the Ovation... Sometimes one man's P.O.S. can be another's treasure.

So, uh... yeah, I came to this forum to look for advice on guitar setup. I had just bought a standard balladeer, because I love the sound and the action, and saw two full pages absolutely trashing the guitars.

I've got to say, I think this entire thread is a bunch of elitist b*llsh*t.

So here are a list of people who agree with me - pretty much the who's who of modern history's greatest guitarists:

Al Di Meola, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, Mark Knopfler, Robert Fripp, Steve Howe, David Gilmour, Steve Vai, Glenn Campbell, Chet Atkins, John Lennon, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Nancy Wilson, Ritchie Sambora, Nikki Sixx, Sully Erna and Tony Rombola, Kaki King, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Kenny Rogers, Paul McCartney, Kenny Loggins, Eddie Van Halen, Dave Amato, John MacLaughlin, Bob Marley, Steven Tyler, Rick Neilsen, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend.

Every single one of them has performed and recorded with Ovations.

But what the Hell would they know, right?

They're only the people who actually made modern music what it is today.

F this place.

We won't miss you,

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Haha - said like a true d*ck.

So if I understand your concerns, you dredged up a single 13 year-old post which contained content you found hurtful to your delicate sensibilities and in possession of so little control over your emotions, you felt the need to spread a blanket of stinging condemnation across the entire site and membership. OK...to be fair, your efforts were more along the lines of unpleasantly effervescent with a cloying aftertaste (think Pop Rock candy) than stinging, but I think you catch my drift.

Did you somehow miss the fact that this is a luthier's forum, rather than a player's forum? Does the name 'Official Luthiers Forum' suggest that you might find opinions and content which focus on ease of repair, longevity, and other matters of interest to luthiers, rather than the sort of things of greater concern to players?

And elitism? Who the heck do you want building and repairing your instruments? The mediocre, the not-that-talented, the somewhat-mentally-disengaged, and the just-not-that-into-it?

Don't let me delay you in your headlong rush to the exit, nor keep you from enjoying the taste of a sachel full of Richards on the way out.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

A surprising number of these artists are dead...coincidence? I think not. Perhaps a 60 Minutes piece here... "Ovation guitars and COVID...we investigate the threat against aging pop musicians" ... tune in Sunday PM at 8.

But all kidding aside, Mr. Smith, did you actually have a question on the marque, or would you prefer to just troll us for the limited entertainment value (ours...not yours)? Having been the junior repair tech in a commercial shop specializing in the ugly baby trade (i.e., thrice or more referred repairs), I saw more than my share of Ovations and their sub-brands, I found them to be - more often than not economically un-repairable, with the owners making more money from scraping out the older individual pickup saddles and collector harnesses than the instrument would bring at sale.

So if you can keep what amounts to a civil tonque, what specific question would you refer to our elite repair techs and builders?

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Ouch!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ignoring the obvious trolling, I always though it was the lack of acoustical qualities that Ovations had that made them the choice on stage and some recording. My thought was that they produced a clean sterile sound preferred by the sound guys. I could be wrong, but many years ago I bought a Ovation Folklore and acoustically is was dead.

Also you could travel with a few of them and they would be consistent.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Our visitor Mr. Smith is obviously more interested in being confrontational than anything else, and I don't have time or patience for that, so what I am about to say, I don't say for him at all, but rather for the OLF community.

I'm 58 years old, and I remember the days when Ovations were popular. I owned one for quite a while: An Electric Custom Balladeer, model 1612, the one with the deep bowl, the single round soundhole, an under-the-saddle transducer, and a volume knob in the upper bout near the neck.

I have heard and played plenty of guitars that sounded and played waaaaaay worse than that Ovation of mine. I can't speak to everyone's experiences, but in my case, calling them the worst guitars in the world would be hyperbole. And our visitor has one valid point of fact, which is that a lot of professional guitarists used them back in the day. In fact, some of them probably sounded OK despite (not because of) all of the goofy construction choices. I am sure they are ridiculously hard to repair, and should be criticized on that basis, if not on many, many others. But my overall point is that mine was not useless. In fact, it served me well for a number of years.

I cringe when I hear that little section of Heart's Straight On For You where Nancy Wilson has a little rhythm part that cuts through the other instruments and shows off the "rubber band" nature of USTs, particularly those of the day. I wouldn't want that sound on anything I do nowadays. And I'm pretty far from using a plastic bowl for my back and sides in the ones I build. But it was a different time.

I have a friend who worked for Ovation back in the 70's and told me about how some of the standard repairs were done. Overall, they sounded like they were pretty much wholesale replacement of necks/bodies or whatever it was that was broken. He had buckets of Ovation tuners that were taken off of necks that had been sawed off of the bodies for replacement. Used them on his own instruments for years--they were good tuners. Schallers with the Ovation logo on them...

But adios, Mr. Smith. Joined the forum just in time to post his little rant. Hopefully departed just as quickly.

I have had several Ovation guitars over the years. For what I wanted them for, they were very good. Nice necks, dead sound that amplified very well. Hard to keep on my lap though...

Dave

Professional musicians are often associated with some piece of gear. There is in many cases an endorsement deal involved.

Rather than “how can it be bad if <insert guitar hero> uses it?”, it’s often worth asking:

“Why did they have to pay <insert guitar hero> to use it?”

Some cases in point would include Tony Rice, who cut a couple tracks (about 0.01% of his total recorded output) on an Ovation, was never seen playing it in public, only in magazine ads, and quickly returned to his D28s.

I could also point to a famous (now sadly departed) shredder, whose name and rep moved about a squillion units of his signature amp heads. I knew a touring amp tech and had a chance to actually look inside one of these units that said shredder had used on a global tour. Inside the famous cabinet was an significantly modified circuit that bore minimal resemblance to the units being carried home from chain music stores by eager young ‘uns.

I think we are missing the fact that Ovations were ahead of the curve and were pioneers of the same throwaway technology as cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices we have come to expect to replace every couple of years. I'm waiting to see who will be first to come out with a guitar that requires a monthly subscription service to be playable, like Canon is doing with it's copiers and Toyota is doing with it's key fobs.
Ovations were put together in such a way as to be very difficult to be taken apart, which is often required for repair work to be performed. Unfortunately they were not built to a standard were repair work would never be needed. Someone once asked me if I could rest the neck on their thin bodied ovation guitar. Looking it over I didn't think I could take it apart and have a reasonable chance of getting it back together and still have it look like it originally did.
Rereading over this thread it seemed to me that there were as many positive comments about the brand as there were negative ones, so I think the O.P. only saw that he wanted to see.

Woodie, as to keeping a civil tonque, no Pueblo-no....

I had an Ov*tion once in the 90's and I also once dated a fat girl when no one was looking....

At one time Ov*tion accounted for 1/3 of all new guitars sold in the US.

They wrote the book on including a pick-up in the things making a plug and play gigging tool that when new and back then were pretty cool.

Down sides: They completely lack serviceability and the design with copious use of epoxy and dissimilar materials expanding and contracting at different rates leading to cracks and separations. Things that really should be considered normal maintenance for an acoustic guitar such as a neck reset in time are nearly impossible and not economically feasible for commercial shops with anything to do.... that's billable....

They hold poorly for many of us and require the use of a strap or they slide off you leg.

The truss rod is a nightmare to adjust and even worse on the fly or while playing.... it need not be this difficult.

The electronics are proprietary and poor quality and they often fail and replacement parts are not available.

But to each their own. I got rid of mine and never missed it and also that fat girl that I dated is even fatter now 50 years later.

I had one it was some sort of “elite” model with the OP electronics and a rough pewter kind of finish. Honestly that that was basically indestructible. Humidity didn’t matter, you couldn’t scratch it, and it played pretty darn well. I really loved it:) I took that thing everywhere and it never failed.

That said…I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. I had never owned what I now consider a quality instrument, much less a fine hand made instrument.

In my guitar life I’m done with ovations … although I still want to play an Adamas.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Goodness... I find myself a little conflicted this morning, but will endeavor to do the right thing.

To the OLF at large, I offer my sincere apologies if I offended in language, tone or both. To Mr. Smith, I offer my best wishes for finding a site with a membership more tolerant of your unique nature.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me state that my posts were made after becoming so dehydrated over the course of a 3-1/2 day weekend at Greenridge that I chose to inappropriately remedy the situation with the opening of an early Christmas gift from the gentlemen. I will say only that an adolescent bottle of PigWhistle Rye (and the tag end of a bottle of Rittenhouse... awful stuff) may have contributed to my poor choices. Oh, and possibly the enthusiastic assistance and encouragement received from the boys after reading the later part of this thread aloud. Hilarity ensued, followed by clouded judgement.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Think nothing of it, Woodie. Perfectly understandable. Besides, I'm retired old school military. I can actually set things on fire using nothing more than language and tone.

As for Ovations, the notion that they must be good because famous people have been seen playing them is nonsensical. I'm sure that famous people have had the clap too, but that doesn't make me want it.

I've played Ovations and I've been hauled around in their helicopters a few times. They should stick to helicopters.

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Rick

So one of the guys at Greenridge is a retired military gentleman that flew a large helicopter (I walked around in one when we visited the Andrews Air Force Base Open House one year!) with rotors made by Kaman. His comment echos yours: "Bulletproof blades...(deeply sub-nominal) guitars."

In my mind, Ovation has been replaced by Taylor for those seeking stage-ready acoustic guitars or instruments for the studio with no serious vices and inherently moderate virtues. While the Ovations were somewhat more rugged in use than the Taylors, they seem remarkably similar in concept... a road-worthy guitar that comes with a stage-ready sound support system which is at least acceptable to most players.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Woodie, as to keeping a civil tonque, no Pueblo-no....
Post Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 12:23 am

Woodie,
I guess that one flew over everyone's head like one of Mr. Kaman's helicopters. It was a late night post intended as a good natured at the accidental misspelling of "tongue" and brought to mind the Tonque Pueblo in New Mexico. I thought your inquisitive nature might catch that somewhat obscure reference. All in Fun!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonque_Pueblo

So this guy dredged up a thread from 2008 to b*+*h about? Really?

Gotta say I'm impressed with the reasonable membership response, especially the priceless morsels from Woodie!

I hate it that his last name is Smith Fortunately we have no known portions of the family in that area.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Despite my OCD-like urge to research nearly all things to an early death, I was thinking more along the lines of 'no puedo - no' (I can't - no) with Pueblo an artifact of an errant auto check and replace routine!

I will continue to blame the WhistlePig for my poor spelling (and a bit of a headache this morning) ... but will thank you for what was a clever bit of very witty repartee.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Well call me caboose because I am dead last to this conversation. Rather hilarious overall lol

An angle grinder with a grinding disc... seriously.

Cut the neck off at the joint. It's likely the only way you'll be able to remove the neck with minimal damage anyways. Cut it off, even the fingerboard (as the fingerboard extension is likely glued on with epoxy).

Reinstall the neck by converting it to a bolt on. You can then get it tight enough to jam a fret into the slot where it joins the body, and melt the binding to hide the evidence.

I did that once on a mandolin that was attached with dowel joints...

Then did some spot finish work to hide all evidence of the work. Customer was very happy.

By the way I said an angle grinder with a cutoff disc because there may be metal bits inside the neck that you don't expect to be there (apart from the truss rod), and if you use a saw blade it will get ruined.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I have actually had excellent results by carefully drilling a 1/4" hole through the heel cap to a depth of about 2". Fill with C-4 and a miniature detonator and it comes right off. Preferably done outside.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.