(Ovation) bowl back guitars

[mellowsun]

If you're going for Al di Meola style rapid-fire runs, and you need something with a low enough action and electric guitar-style string spacing to achieve this, then Ovations are perfect for this. Anything else though, as has already been said, and you're better off getting a proper acoustic.

[ICBM]

I would personally like to know a bit more about the history/conception of the bowlback guitar.

They were a bold attempt to redesign the guitar and do something different. Which is not a bad thing, in itself.

The idea came from helicopter technology - the plastic composite was used in the rotor blades, and apparently Charles Kaman, whose company manufactured them, thought that since the material was used to tune out dangerous resonance in the blades, it could also be used to tune *in* resonance in a guitar. So far so good in theory... but in practice, it didn't really work that well and ended up still tuning out resonance! So after a while, they developed a decent (in its day) pickup and preamp system, presumably in order to give some purpose to the guitars rather than admit that the concept just wasn't working. The plastic back did prove quite effective at resisting feedback, at least - presumably because the tuning-out of the resonance was still working!

The real irony is that Charles Kaman made his fortune, and hence was able to invest in the guitar company, by supplying helicopter blades to the US military for the Vietnam war.

[melj]

Someone on another forum had a nice line about Ovations (i paraphrase): "the best thing about an Ovation is that once you get it burning nicely you can use it to set fire to a banjo"

[Wonks]

I'm probably wrong but to me it seemed that for a few years in the 70s, it was about the only electro- acoustic you could get. There were stick- on mics and barcus- berry bugs, but Ovation seemed to be the only manufacturer making an acoustic with a built-in pickup until Takamine came on the scene.

And the bowl back wasn't all about resonance but projection and making the guitar louder ( in theory). My mate had a late 70s Custom Balladeer which did have a decent sound, though not as nice as a normal acoustic for the same price.

One of the things that they must have done to kill resonance was stick a ridiculously thick solid plastic sound hole rosette on the top. At least 3mm deep and 20mm wide, it would certainly have stopped a lot of the top from resonating correctly. Perhaps the bowl back did increase the volume, but then this caused the top to over-vibrate and so they then added the thick rosette. Should have been time to re-think the design!

[Wonks]

And when I said acoustic with pickup, I was talking about one trying to get the acoustic sound rather than one with a magnetic pickup such as the J160E.

[bertie]

until Takamine came on the scene.

Yamaha for me - Id never even heard of Tak until the late 80s/90s, but I remember loads of "APX a like" predecessors before then

[ICBM]

And when I said acoustic with pickup, I was talking about one trying to get the acoustic sound rather than one with a magnetic pickup such as the J160E.

The funny thing is that these days I prefer the J160E-type sound to the ubiquitous piezo. It's not any less "acoustic" in my opinion, but it just flat-out sounds better... warmer and more natural. I think this might be due to over-exposure to the piezo sound - at first, they did sound "good" (or at least not like an electric guitar) but I think that over the years my ears have tuned into and learned to recognise the signature piezo "tone", and I now find it quite irritating.

The other reason that the piezo was originally though of as such an "improvement" over the magnetic was that acoustic amplification was poor or non-existent, and even PAs weren't that good - and a piezo into an electric guitar-type amp (all that was really available were things like Fender Twins) does sound more "acoustic" than a magnetic into one does. But now, with much higher-quality magnetic pickups (eg the LR Baggs M1A and the Fishman Rare Earth) and decent acoustic amplifiers, I think it's actually swung back the other way.

[evilmags]

If you're going for Al di Meola style rapid-fire runs, and you need something with a low enough action and electric guitar-style string spacing to achieve this, then Ovations are perfect for this. Anything else though, as has already been said, and you're better off getting a proper acoustic.

As are most other accoustics. McLaughlin does plenty of fast alt picked runs on a Gibson accoustic and plenty of other "technical" players don't use Ovations. If I wanted an accoustic to play like an electric I'd probably go for a Taylor.

[richardhomer]

As are most other accoustics. McLaughlin does plenty of fast alt picked runs on a Gibson accoustic and plenty of other "technical" players don't use Ovations. If I wanted an accoustic to play like an electric I'd probably go for a Taylor.

Taylor probably occupy a very similar position in market as Ovation used to - though they are far better as pure acoustics that Ovations are/were.

[Viz]

Someone on another forum had a nice line about Ovations (i paraphrase): "the best thing about an Ovation is that once you get it burning nicely you can use it to set fire to a banjo"

Excellent!