Ovation Adamas guitar

[powerpopper]

When I was growing up and playing guitar in the 70's, I used to see a good many Ovation guitars. If only because my heroes played them back then, I probably would have gotten one but I was young and poor. What application do these guitars have? Are they just a fad that went out with that decade? I realize we are all trained to love and adore solid wood, but is there some scenario under which one would want to play a guitar such as this?

 

This isn't a wiseass question, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to these instruments.

 

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Ovation-Adamas-I-30th-Anniversary-Reissue-AcousticElectric-Guitar?sku=513492

[davidbg63]

I have owned two of the Ovation guitars over the years. I had one around the late 70's and another around the early 80's.

 

Other than the jokes people made about playing a tupperware bowl, they really didn't sound all that bad when plugged in if I remember correctly. The two I owned were very "twangy" not much bass at all.

I just hated trying to play one when seated or standing, it was always trying to "roll" away from you.

 

But come to think of it I haven't seen one being played in years.

 

They remind me of the saying, "seemed like a good idea at the time"

[Jinder]

A friend of mine has one, and whilst it sounds okay (kinda twangy, as David said, and a little plastic-y acoustically, but quite reasonable and very distinctively 'Ovation' when plugged in), I can't abide that bowl-back design, to anyone other than a player with a concave stomach they make for an odd playing experience, and I find the way they hang awkwardly on the strap and kinda bobble about whilst being played looks kinda silly to me for some reason.

 

I think they definitely have their uses, though-I'm sure Preston Reed and Kaki King would corroborate that, too.

[ksdaddy]

I've probably owned a dozen in the past 5 years. I have mixed feelings about Ovations. Conceptually I'm okay with them in that they are allegedly able to withstand rougher treatment than the average guitar in addition to the claim of more volume with the whole parabolic bowl thing. However in reality most are just 'okay' tone-wise. As to durability, I just don't see it. There's something just screwed up about putting a solid spruce top with the dimensional instability of wood onto a synthetic bowl that is less likely to move.

 

I dunno. Get me started on Ovation and I'm liable to rant a long time, as I really really go into the "if I were running that company, THIS is how it would be" mode.

 

I've got a 70s Applause with laminated top and aluminum neck, bought as a basket case for $12 on ebay. it stays out in the bus as a community guitar, 38 degrees to 98 degrees, rain, sun, the whole thing. It will be here long after I'm worm food. I even went one step further, seeking and buying an Ovation Academy. Aluminum neck, standard bowl, plastic top with braces built in (no separate assembly like a Garrison).... the only wooden part on it is the bridge itself. I wish each and every one of you could play this guitar, it would make your jaw drop. It sounds like an old J45 but louder... much louder.

 

As to seeing them more in the late 70s, you are absolutely right. Think about what was happening in the american acoustic market then. Were new Gibson and Martin acoustics held in high regard? Nope. Seems like Guild was popular. I beleive Ovation aggressively pursued artist and/or tv show exposure. Witness the old reruns of 'Pop Goes the Country' circa 1980. You could fill a spare room with Connecticut Salad Bowls.

 

Ovation is pretty much dead in my eyes. Fender will shred them apart and reinvent them much like they did Guild. Applauses have been imported since the early 80s and the Korean Celebrity line has been around since shortly afterwards. I hear that some of the traditional Ovations are being made overseas now.... the Balladeer for example. I suspect there will be an empty building in New Hartford within a couple years.

 

I would like to see Ovation making 100% synthetic guitars on a small scale and drop all the flavor-of-the-month crap. But FMIC has it's tentacles into Kaman now so I guess I can cancel that loan application to buy the company.

[ballcorner]

but is there some scenario under which one would want to play a guitar such as this?

 

 

I had an Ovation Custom Balladeer back in '88 - and at that time it was probably one of the best plugged in guitars on the market. I liked the plastic back because I didn't have to worry about buckle rash and the guitar was very roadworthy. The tuners were very high quality and the pickup batteries lasted for decades.

 

The guitar's apparent twanginess could be tempered with a Boss EQ pedal and a very slight amount of chorus on an amp or through another pedal which made the bass open up.

 

Today I use a Fishman SoloAmp and a Martin 000C-RGTE Aura for stage -- which is far superior and more about today's technology. In the day, however, I would say the Ovation was about as good.

 

The alternative for me back then would be a Takamine A/E guitar that had built in EQ and pretty good feel. However, it was twice the price of a decent Ovation and much harder to work with as far as feedback was concerned. It was also more sensitive to temperature and humidity changes and buckle rash was guaranteed as the bulk of these guitars were black.

 

To use an Ovation today, I think a person would need to be duplicating sounds from the 70s and 80s. Even brand new Ovations sound exactly the same to me as they always did. As far as adjusting to playing the rounded back - that is just a matter of getting used to it.

[Rosewoody]

The modern LXs are decent, and cost effective at $600-$900. Good on-board electronics, good neck, acceptable sound.

 

The Adamas are a level up, some sound spectacular.

[L5Larry]

I own a original design Ovation Elite (super shallow bowl cutaway). At the time it was their second from the top model behind the Adamas. It served it's purpose very well in it's day, live performance, but I seldom play it anymore.

 

Ovation was quite revolutionary in it's day, with it's developement of on-board electronics and use of alternative construction materials. The plugged-in sound of an ovation defined the acoustic guitar sound of the seventies, and I would think that because of this they caused other acoustic guitar manufacturers to develop and expidite their own on-board electronics and use of other than traditional materials. Their Kaman Bar truss rod system was also very different than anything else in the industry at the time, or even now.

 

The Kaman Corporation's main business was building rotor blades for hellicopters. That's what the "plastic" and other composites used in Ovation guitars were developed for. Mr. Kaman, being a guitar enthusiast, decided to build a guitar out of the stuff to see what happened.

 

When I bought my guitar I HAD to have an Ovation. Would I still buy one if I had it to do over again, probably not. I think in it's day Ovation was good for the industry (if you like their guitars or not), by turning acoustic guitar design on it's ear, and making other companies rethink what they were doing.

[TommyK]

Last Ovulation I saw was a year ago on a 30 minute, Saturday, infomercial selling 1970-80's country music. The guit tar player? Why Glen Campbell, of course. I think the "O" got a lot of face time on "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour."

 

I think they were popular amongst the professionals at the time because it was new and different and pretty to look at. I really liked the leaves around the upperbout, cluster of sound holes. Not sure about Martin, but Gibson and Epiphone were going through some tough times with quality, engineering and desirability, during the bad-old Norlin Years in this time frame.

[H]

I've got an Ovation Celebrity that never goes in its case, just hangs on the wall behind my head when it's not in my hands. It's my noodling guitar and it's an essential item in a house with five kids (a couple of them under 7 years of age) who don't care whether it's a Gibson or an Ovation that gets in the way of their games.

 

I'm not a total snob when it comes to guitars and I've happily played some real cr*p over the years. However, I'm sensible enough to realise that my good stuff should stay good and that the Ovation fits the bill as well as anything else when I'm noodling or doing scales. I could go a stage further and say to those knocking the lower end of the market that there's a Jack White argument to be made. The work he does on those Airlines makes my neck hairs stand up in admiration.

[ksdaddy]

The work he does on those Airlines makes my neck hairs stand up in admiration.

 

And David Lindley.

 

[larryp58]

Those were really popular in the 70's and 80's. Glenn Campbell, Nancy Wilson (Heart), and Melissa Etheridge come to mind. The electronics were pretty decent in those days. Which led to their popularity as acoustic guitar was being incorporated more into rock and pop music. The grinding metal music in the early 70's was giving way, sadly, to the "hair" bands which soon followed. I believe the "true" acoustic players never really went to the "fishbowls". Artists like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, David Crosby, Steven Stills, etc. always stayed with wood guitars. Hence, their lasting sound! One who repented and came back was Nancy Wilson, who has played Takaminies the last few years! And I agree with TommyK, they were visually appealing guitars. As with popular commercial music, just a fad that soon faded.

[elantric]

The big deal about Ovations in 1969 was that they had a Neck profile and low action of a Gibson SG electric , and more significantly they were the first production guitar with a piezo Bridge saddle pickup- which meant they were the loudest acoustic sounding factory instrument you could buy and feed into a PA to compete with a rock drummer with minimum feedback. By the mid 70's - these guitars defined Rock at the time - featured in the middle break/hook of songs by Kansas, Heart, Boston, Neil Diamond. They created the market demand for piezo bridge pickups, which simply did not exist on other factory instruments until the Takamine's arrived later in the mid 1970's - and several big names today ( Fishman, L.R. Baggs) - got their start by offering the Piezo bridge saddle Technology as a retrofit kit for luthiers to install in real instruments - around 1977.

 

Other factory "Acoustic Electrics" back then like the Gibson J-160E with its Neck position MAg PU or the sound hole mounted Rowe DeArmand mag Pickup didn't capture the sound of an acoustic guitar live. And most acoustics pre 1976 were installing single point Barcus Berry hot dot crystal pickups or FRAP accelerometer pickups - and the need for a multiband notch EQ filter to get any decent SPL through a PA without feedback.

 

 

 

Before the piezo bridge PU innovation (pioneered by Kaman/Ovation) Acoustic guitars were typically constrained to the realm of coffee houses, -or Acoustic sets. In 1973, I had an Ovation that I mounted on a stand - while I played my Les Paul - just so I could play those acoustic breaks in popular current songs with my cover band.

 

Now that a Fishman Piezo bridge with active onboard side mounted EQ is a standard $80 upgrade option on most any new Acoustic guitar, the Ovations have lost their luster and brand demand in the marketplace.

[ponty]

Don't forget that Gibson had a shot at plastic too. The Gibson j-25 was a direct competitor to Ovation.

Not sure how long it was in production, but I dare say there will be no re-issues. My Ovation was a steel strung folk-lore with slot head and no electronics. It was nice too.

[ksdaddy]

No idea how many Nashville J25s were made. I had what I truly believe was a Kalamazoo-made J25 with serial number 012. Should have kept it just for freak value. It's in the UK somewhere now and last I heard, he was really happy with it. My sunburst was markedly different from what Nashville was putting out at the time also.

 

I know the leftover bowls were sent to Bozeman and were renamed the OP25 (for Oil Pan) and about 200 were made. The Bozeman ones were solid-topped while the Nashville ones were laminated.

 

Something tells me the Nashville ones came in natural tops and sunburst while the Bozeman ones came in sunburst and black. I could be stupendously full of it but that's what my burnt brain said.....

[Michael]

I have a Custom Balladeer and I love it. It's not as good as my SJ but it serves it's purpose.

[asmith9509]

Yuck.