Have been dreaming of this jazz box for a few years now; intrigued by the guitar's beauty, it's wider neck (~44mm), it's feather- like weight and all the reviews, tech info and forums out there...
I finally could afford it and got it a couple of month ago.
It arrived with no delay and well packed (thanks Thomann), but:
- Took it out of the box and the little 'TONE' name plate of the tone pot fell off. Not a big deal, a drop of glue and done.
The guitar was pretty well set up with no strings buzz and could be played after just a little tuning, but:
- A strange vibration noise started to build up when playing some cords and triads (of the lower/bass spectrum). After a complete visual inspection and check of all moving and non moving parts and screws, it appeared to be the neck pick up having an issue; took off the strings ( wanted to change them anyway with 11's ) and encountered another issue:
- The tuner of the high E , while unwinding the string, started to become harder and harder at every turn until it blocked. Had to remove it from the head stock and check-open it : the tuning peg gear was damaged and out of place. Could get it straight again, filled it with grease and is now precariously working... for how long? and where to get a new Godin one? ...no idea.
Back to the vibration disturbance, I noticed that the neck pick up was placed so near the guitar body that bass vibrations could have make it touch/vibrate on the top of the body. One solution would be to just higher the pickup a bit , but those pickups are already so 'high and near the strings', so for now I just placed a rubber shim (non visible) between pick up and guitar body and the vibrations are gone ...
changing the string is also possible now , by going really easy on the tuning peg...
- Actually I also noticed a 'crack' sound of the scratch plate, when lightly pressing on it in the center; could not find the reason, but its not heard while playing ( anchoring the pinky ) so, no big deal...
Even with all these issues, the guitar is actually a beauty and is really well manufactured; I've been playing it for a couple of month now , but, and here comes the sad part:
Though the width of the neck (nut width) is exactly what I wanted, little did I know that a 16" radius , along with its really small frets, would not be something I could handle or even get used to. It's just not for my hands... not Godin's fault...
...learning the hard way that not trying out an instrument before buying it, is highly risky even with all the info available nowadays on the net.
I gave poor notes for Quality and Sound because of the many issues encountered, and for the sound, well, an Harley Benton Manhattan-standard has much more acoustic punch, to give an example...
