Adamas 1881-NBBG 87

Adamas 1881-NBBG 87

I played an Adamas at Guitar Center a couple weeks ago. I wouldn’t have taken notice to it, but a few weeks prior I had done some research on Kaki King’s new signature Adamas. Considering she’s a percussive fingerstyle guitarist with hands that are probably the same size as mine, it seemed like it would be a good guitar to check out some day …when I have 2-3 grand just laying around.

So then I played the Adamas at GC. I had no clue what to expect. I don’t know anyone who owns an Adamas and I had no history of them. But I saw it there and saw a price tag on it: $1700.

Now you’ve gotta know something about Adamas to make that mean anything. Adamas is a branch of Ovation. And Ovation is notorious for making absolutely nothing special. Some people swear by them, but not many. Neat guitars, but more novelty to most. They’ve got this bizarre fiberglass bowl for a back rather than wooden sides/back and a lot of them also have weird soundholes. They also have a very distinguished headstock. Basically, they are extremely easy to spot.

At first they are intriguing, but after picking a few up, you’re not overly impressed. They generally don’t make anything above a low to mid ranged priced guitar. Not that price determines a lot, but when you’re looking at Taylors and Ayers, you the average Ovation does not catch your eye.

Naturally, when I saw what appeared to be an Ovation guitar with a $1700 price tag, I was rather befuddled. How? Why? Then I noticed the Adamas name. Sure, it was $1700, but a GC trip entitles you to play guitars out of your price range.

So I played the Adamas. It was great. Genuinely great. Then I left. The end?

Fast forward a couple weeks. I’m on Craigslist.

I’m rarely on because I want to buy something. Lately I have bought a lot off of it, but I’ve had a project of finishing my pedalboard and now that is done. Mostly though, CL is what keeps me informed on guitar equipment. Sure, it’s used stuff, but used gear has history. You find everything from vintage guitars that I’ve never heard of to boutique effect pedals that have a 12 month waiting list. It’s interesting to look around.

Then, around 2am, I see a post come up for an Adamas guitar. I look at it. Then look at the price (much less than the previous Adamas guitars mentioned). Then look at it again. Then look up Adamas guitars online to see some reviews/prices, etc.

I decide that I’ll check it out. If I buy it, I’ll sell some gear. The guitars stay, but other gear can be sold …mostly.

So I check it out the next day. Sure enough, it’s a winner.

Let’s go over some specifics:

The Neck:

There are a few different neck styles. The basics are your radius cuts (flat, thin profile), C shape (bulky and thick), V shape, and soft V shape. There are some variants of all of those, but that’s most of them. Of those, my guitars mostly resemble the radius cut necks. I don’t do bulky necks because my hands are small and the V shapes are just very uncommon.

The Adamas neck is an unfinished soft V. I’ve never played a soft V before. Since buying the guitar, I’ve compared it side by side to my Taylor. The Taylor has a nice thin neck with a satin finish. The two are as different as night and day. I’m very particular about the necks that I play (I won’t play Martins, Gibsons, Schecters, etc. because I don’t like the feel), but I have no preference one over the other with these two. Which is strange, because the Taylor neck is so amazingly smooth and fluid and the Adamas isn’t. But it feels so natural.

The Top:

There are many different types of materials that guitars can be made out of. Most of them are wood. Then you’ve got some electrics that have been made of acrylic and even a few made of aluminum. It’s only in the last few years that you’ve been able to easily find a guitar made of carbon fiber. They’ve been made for some 20 years, but have just been so rare that you never see them.

Yeah, this has a carbon fiber top.

Highly responsive and durable. It won’t break from any thumps, bumps, or nail hits. It has a very distinctly different sound from wood, but it still sounds good.

The Pickups:

I’m not sure whether it’s Ovation or Adamas specific, but they’ve got something wonderful going on inside of this. The pickup is actually the bridge, itself. The entire thing is a giant contact pickup. It’s interesting because of what the acoustic properties are like at that point. They should be tinny and shrill. However, they’ve got it balanced really well to give a nice full sound from each string.

Additionally, the previous owner did some experimentation with other pickups blended to give some more response from the body of the guitar. The ones in now are K&K piezo transducers. A LR Baggs Blender allows for blending the signal of the two different pickups to dial in on tone. I’m a fan.

As noted in my last post, this resulted in some damage to the bracing of the guitar. However, I’m going to fix it. The braces to repair it are in the mail right now. For FREE (see Customer Support (Ovation Guitars)). So the next 2 projects are pickups in the Taylor and braces for the Adamas. Busy week ahead.

Playing for the Blue Marsh Canteen Idol competition. I play in the final round October 5th.

EDIT-

The Taylor is done! Tonight I'll take the strings off of the Adamas to let the body adjust to the lack of tension, then I'll add in the new braces next week.

Customer Service (Ovation Guitars)

It seems as though when I deal with customer service with guitar equipment everyone is always extremely helpful. Customer service through a computer company, on the other hand, is notoriously bad. Everyone’s been there, talking to someone overseas who barely speaks English – it sucks.

A while back I wrote a blog about a situation where I landed a free guitar case through customer service at American Musical Supply. They were extremely helpful and went above and beyond what I expected.

Not long ago I had a run-in with Musicians Friend. There was a cello string that didn’t come and didn’t come. They were really easy to deal with, but it sounded like there could have been problems had there been a more expensive order in question. Regardless, I received the string in good time once I contacted them. In 10 or so orders from them, one mistake is permissible.

Today I had another run-in with customer service; Ovation guitars via KMC Music.

Why would I be dealing with them, you might ask? I mean, I don’t have any Ovation guitars. Well, that’s not entirely true. My 12 string is an Applause, a company that Ovation bought. It’s basically the Squier of the Ovation name.

So what do I need for my 12 string? Nothing. Because this isn’t for my 12 string.

It’s for my Adamas.

Yes, that would be #8. Going on the Fender analogy, Adamas guitars are the Fender Custom Shop of the Fender brand. They’re the top of the top, at the forefront of technology and performance. I’ll post on the actual guitar later.

So what do I need for my Adamas? Well, I bought it used. And the guy I bought it from is very hands on. In searching for some body sound, he decided to install some additional pickups. However, in doing this, he ripped out some of the fan-bracing :gasp: under the bridge.

Observe:

Was it a bad idea? Yes. Will it ruin the guitar? Most likely, it won’t. The top is carbon fiber. But, that still leaves me and my rather aggressive playing style to want to not take chances.

So I emailed Ovation (KMC Music) this afternoon, and explained my situation. Within half an hour I heard back from them. The guy asked for which braces I needed to fix and my address. He’s going to find some spares and send them and it sounds like it’ll be for free.

It’s not so much that I’m getting them for free. It’s more the fact that all I had to do was ask and they’re going out of their way to help me out with an odd request. And they have never seen a dime from me on any purchase. The mere fact that I now owned one was enough.

What does this do?

1. It endorses the brand. Regardless of whether I would blog about this or not, I’m more likely to get another Adamas down the road because of my positive experience with these guys.

2. It protects the brand. Adamas guitars sound great and look real cool too. If I saw a guitar in disarray or saw one “randomly” break, regardless of the brand, it would paint a bad image of the brand for me. Enabling users to take care of issues like this prevents that picture from ever being formed.

There will be more to come in the next few days, as I get to play the guitar more and eventually do a little write-up on it. Stay tuned!