Posted 2014-11-24 10:15 AM (#501212) Subject: The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
Joined: October 2012 Posts: 1091
Location: Yokohama, Japan
I never use my CC54i iDea guitar for performances of any kind. I love the way she looks, but...well, her built in mp3 player/recorder comes in handy when composing or practicing my chops with backing tracks, but she's no tone queen. My son has an iDea also, and his sounds pretty good; but I can tell that mine was poorly assembled and has a variety of issues that make her a colossal sonic underachiever. What can I expect from a, made in Asia, Celebrity? I only paid 200 bucks on the Bay to get her! She's my summer project guitar, and I'm sure that just re-assembling her properly will be a vast improvement, but I'll be installing a new Sakura (Japanese cherry) soundboard with the signature 3 oval iDea sound hole design with Elite style Quintad Bracing...but, that's another post for the summer...
So, anyway, I decided to use my CC54i as a slide guitar for one song this weekend, and I just could not believe the reaction I got. Afterwards, people were asking about the guitar and marveling how good she SOUNDED! One guy said, "That thing must cost thousands of dollars?" He was floored when I told him I bought it for 200 bucks. Even the sound guy was raving about the slide savvy iDea. Imagine that! The worst sounding O in my small (but beloved) collection is a stellar slide guitar!
She's no USA made gem, but I will never mock a Celebrity again. It just kinda made my weekend. Round backs rule!
Posted 2014-11-24 12:42 PM (#501223 - in reply to #501212) Subject: Re: The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
Joined: March 2005 Posts: 12759
Location: Boise, Idaho
They were really made as a practice tool. The first Ovation demos I remember were all about the preamp functions. For someone who know how to use it, it can be really slick. We saw a live demo at an Ovation Roadshow and I was amazed at how much it could do with the looper, but I never used it enough to feel comfortable with it. It was another example of Ovation innovation that never really caught on. I thought it would really appeal to the youngsters, but obviously it didn't.
Posted 2014-11-24 10:18 PM (#501275 - in reply to #501212) Subject: Re: The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
Joined: October 2012 Posts: 1091
Location: Yokohama, Japan
If you're going for sound, the OP-Pro is hands down...way, better than the iDea. If you buy the iDea pre-amp as a boxed item (as they come up on the Bay from time-to-time), it comes with a can, but the 'can' can be a pain to swap out. Like Mark in Boise says, it really is a practice (and/or writing) tool, but with the cool functions, you can do some pretty neat things with it.
I know I'm probably at odds with a lot of O fans, but I really like the design of the iDea guitar and always kind of felt it was a shame that it wasn't geared more toward the performance minded. Of course, I think that way because I live in Japan, and the iDeas sold for a whopping $900 bucks when it was introduced. It caused a lot of fanfare, and we thought it was going to be embraced by the "gadget" loving youth crowd; but alas, it was not to be. At $900 bucks, who can blame them! Still it really is an innovative piece of technology and expands a solo guitarists spectrum in spades, and at 200 bucks, I kind of got the iDea pre-amp with a so, so, guitar included free-of-charge! That's a pretty good deal, even if she is a sonic underachiever!
Posted 2014-11-26 1:23 PM (#501330 - in reply to #501324) Subject: Re: The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
Joined: August 2002 Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee
I think the iDea guitar was better than most people give it credit for. We bought one for my son and I was surprised at the relatively good build quality and the solid top that was on that guitar. Unfortunately, it never made it back from Afghanistan after my son was airlifted out of there. But it was very fun to play with and the sound on that guitar was better than almost any other Chinese ovation I played.
As far as slide guitar goes, I set up my old USA Ultra (1983) as a slide guitar. It has an original ovation pick up and single volume control on it. It gives a great slide guitar sound. I've used it on a number of my recordings and it was even used by Paul Templeman to back up Crosby Tyler when he played at Cameron's one night. There is a snippet of it here:
Posted 2014-11-26 9:54 PM (#501333 - in reply to #501330) Subject: Re: The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
Joined: October 2012 Posts: 1091
Location: Yokohama, Japan
stonebobbo - 2014-11-26 3:23 AM
I think the iDea guitar was better than most people give it credit for. We bought one for my son and I was surprised at the relatively good build quality and the solid top that was on that guitar. Unfortunately, it never made it back from Afghanistan after my son was airlifted out of there. But it was very fun to play with and the sound on that guitar was better than almost any other Chinese ovation I played.
As far as slide guitar goes, I set up my old USA Ultra (1983) as a slide guitar. It has an original ovation pick up and single volume control on it. It gives a great slide guitar sound. I've used it on a number of my recordings and it was even used by Paul Templeman to back up Crosby Tyler when he played at Cameron's one night...
Thanks for sharing stonebobo. Very cool! The USA Ultra sounds sweet, especially when played together with the harmonica! It's a shame that your son had to leave his CC54i behind; but I sure am thankful for servicemen like him who defend our nation. I pray he's doing well.
For those who are interested (you all have probably seen this before, but...), Matt Smith has an excellent 2 part basic slide guitar lesson that was really helpful for me, when I started playing slide several years ago:
The Best Sounding Slide Guitar
