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 Review of the MEWP
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| Forums Archive -> The Vault: 2004-2005 | Message format | |
an4340 |
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Joined: May 2003 Posts: 4389 Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Melissa Etheridge White Pearl (aka MEWP) I haven’t seen too many comments on the MEWP, so I thought I’d give a review of my new axe. Pictures are posted in my gallery. Price:10 The 2 epaulette MEWP is being replaced by the one epaulette MEWP-II. No more double epaulette MEWPs. Purchased in June 2004, list 2849, retail 1849, paid a LOT less because it was being discontinued. You can email me if you’re interested in sale price. How it looks/Features: 10 Based on the serial number, my guitar was made sometime in 2003. Here are my impressions. First, it comes in a plush deluxe case. Not ATA, but rugged. Case weighs a ton though. Comes with a truss rod wrench. Guitar has the OP-50 pre-amp, which has a notch filter and chromatic tuner. The soundboard is CVT, two layers of cross weave carbon fiber graphite sandwiching a thin layer of poplar. The top is smooth, a slightly iridescent white pearl color, with mother of pearl purfling, along the black binding. The epaulettes, two of them, are a smooth pearloid instead of wood. The bowl is mid-depth with two inputs: regular ¼ inch jack, and an XLR. The headstock is gloss black with “Adamas” and a Melissa thingy inlaid in MOP. The tuners are pearloid. The fret board and bridge are ebony. The fretboard has no markers. There are target markers in lieu of fret markers, along the side of the neck. The matte finished neck is two thick pieces of mahogany, sandwiching two thin maple slabs, sandwiching a slice of mahogany, instead of what appears to be the usual ebony center strip. In terms of neck profile, the neck is an acoustic. Due to the cut-away there are 19 (for me) playable frets, though in theory you could go higher to 22, but it feels too cramped for me. The strings are light D’Addario EXP’s. In terms of decoration the only thing I’d change is moving the Melissa thingy off the headstock and into the 5th fret and putting a target diamond into the 12th fret. Even so the whole thing is awfully purty, nice white and black contrast. It’s a guitar that says wow just based on its looks! I scoped-out the inside of the bowl. Nice, clean and smooth. No glue blobs, a sign of good workmanship. I was wondering though, what the extra input was for on the inside portion of the pre-amp basket? Upgrades? Sound: 10 Intonation is spot on, all over the fretboard. Holds its tune. I counted a tuning ratio of about 13:1. The top is sooo responsive. Pluck a string and the sound shoots out like a canon. Sustain is awesome. Strum all the stings, and you get that “Adamas” sound: Vibrant and responsive. The sound doesn’t get caught in the top. You can hear each string. Plug it in. You can dial in a nice acoustic sound, loud, thanks to the notch filter, but if you want an electric sound crank up the gain on your amp and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Interesting thing though about the CVT top --- It takes a little more pick energy to get the top vibrating, but once you hit critical mass it’s great. While you can play any style on the MEWP, for me, it asks to be played with a pick. Action, Fit, & Finish: 9 Action out of the box was 2.5/32 @ the 12th fret. There was a buzz in the first position. To make a long story really short, I passed it around with some friends, who have more experience than I, and the consensus was no buzz, but that my right hand technique is too aggressive and that the frets were a little taller than I’m used to. Out of the box set up, to me, was more like an electric. I seem to have grown accustomed to a higher acoustic bluegrass type action so I can dig in with the pick, and lower fret heights. Anyhow, one of my friends wanted to buy a MEWP if he could get it at the same price! So everything was normal; it was a matter of adjusting the relief and minor adjustment to the action. Unfortunately for me, the guitar only came with two shims, which were already installed; but after contacting Ovation thru the dealer, Ovation sent me three thin shims for free. Thank you Ovation. Thank you dealer. The manual states that the guitar could have from 0 to 4 shims installed. I replaced one of the thick shims that came with the guitar with one of the new thin shims. I then dialed in the relief and set it to about 3.0/32 @ the 12th fret. This way there was more room for the string to vibrate. I put on Dean Markley TLT’s (same gauge as D’Addario EXP 26’s, just a shade lighter than what came with the guitar; to me, the TLT’s have a little less sustain than the equivalent EXP’s, but the TLT’s feel smoother and have a lively sound, however, the acid in my sweat eats thru them faster). The slightly lighter strings compensated for my lack of finger strength relative to the fret height. There’s no more buzz, and the action feels GREAT and it’s within factory tolerance. I love it. Fit and finish are what you’d expect in a guitar listing for over $2800. Dimensions: Overall---41 1/4 inches Lowerbout-15 7/8 inches Upperbout-11 1/4 inches Weighs about 5.5 Lbs. Reliability/Durability: 9 This is without a doubt a professional quality guitar. As for durability it’s constructed really well and looks like it will survive some good knocks, but, geez, I really don’t want to test it. I also like the CVT’s resistance to humidity. This is good if you live on island like I do. Customer Support: 10 I needed to add another shim, and thru the dealer, ovation sent it to me directly. So no problems so far. Overall Rating: 9.5 Melissa Etheridge, her tech and ovation have made an awesome guitar. I had been looking for a guitar to be with me the rest of my life and I found it. PS: I was wondering if anyone knows how many of these were made in 2003? Anyone? | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Now this is the type of post that makes this site great. enjoy! | ||
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