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Guitars for Kids

// March 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Guitar

My oldest daughter has wanted her very own guitar since she was 3 years old. Initially we thought it was cute and made the determination that when she got old enough for a “real” guitar, I’d get her one. I fully expected this to occur around age 9 or so. By age 5, the guitar request started to become a recurring theme any time a birthday or Christmas came around. Just when you thought she had put it out of her mind, she’d see me playing ask me to show her some things and then say something like, “I can’t wait until I get my own guitar”.

The biggest obstacles in my mind to getting a young child a guitar were rather obvious ones:

• Kids are too small to play adult sized guitars, especially acoustics.
• Most kid size guitars have horrific intonation, can’t stay in tune and generally discourage the child.
• Quality small-scale guitars cost an arm and a leg and I’m not buying a kid a Baby Taylor.

I was never really concerned about her sticking with it, in fact, I pretty much expected it to be something she drifts in and out of. That’s normal for kids and I don’t want to be the kind of parent that forces them to sit down and practice and generally take the fun out of playing. If the kids want to learn, at least initially, I can show them a few things. When they’re ready to take the next step, I’ll sign them up for lessons and then I’ll start monitoring the practice time.

For my oldest daughter’s 7th birthday, my Sister-in-Law bought her a First Act Discovery. It is a 1/2 scale acoustic guitar that you can buy in most toy and department stores and in this case comes in a bright pink finish that both girls adored. In fact, the operative words there is “both girls”. We didn’t have this little guitar two days before the little one (5) started bugging us to let her play and when was she going to get her own guitar. Right about that time, Sal from TheSallyDShow.com tipped me off to something he saw on Musician’s Friend; the Rogue Starter Acoustic Guitar. We promptly ordered one for our oldest daughter and passed the First Act down to the youngest. As I demonstrate these two guitars, you’ll quickly see why this was a stroke of pure genius.

In the near future, I’ll be posting more in-depth information on these two guitars so stay tuned.

2010 Madali Tradition Standard

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Guitar

The Tradition series is modeled after the legendary Telecaster form from Fender. The guitar is designed to resemble the look,feel and tone of the rock and roll icon, but with some minor improvements. Among these improvements are the Grover tuners and the Wilkinson bridge and pickups. At just under $895, the Tradition Standard is a top notch pro build at a semi-pro price.

Body

• Warmoth Tele Type Body
• Top Control Rout
• Standard Tele Pickup Routs
• Candy Red and Spectra Blue with White 3 Ply Pickguard
• Aspen White and Gloss Black with Black 3 Ply Pickguard

Neck

• Warmoth Vintage Modern
• Maple Neck with Maple Fingerboard
• 1 11/16″ White Corian nut
• 9.5″ Fingerboard
• 6150 Fretwire

Pickups

• Wilkinson Single-coil Pickups
• Switchcraft Jack & Socket
• Chrome Tele Plate and Knobs
• CTS Pots and Switch
• Shielded Wire

Bridge

• Wilkinson Compensated Bridge
• 3 Saddle Design
• Chrome Tray
• Brass Saddles
• Vintage ashtray look

Hardware

• 6x Grover Midsize Rotomatics (Chrome)
• Chrome Strap Buttons
• Chrome Barrel String Trees
• Chrome String Ferruels
• Misc. Screws

Madali Guitars

// March 1st, 2010 // No Comments » // Guitar

For years now, I’ve been dreaming of the opportunity (read: money) to build my own custom electric guitar. You may even recall a couple of posts a few months back, including my very own dream Strat configuration. Well, I’ve decided to make that kind of post a regular feature on the site. The fictional guitar builder is “Madali” and there will be four series of guitars with standard, deluxe and the occasional custom editions for each model. All of the guitars will use Warmoth bodies and necks, but the rest of the parts can and will vary.

• Tradition – Based on the legendary Fender Stratocaster
• Signature – Based on the Fender Stratocaster
• Heritage – A clear-toned hollowbody.
• Legacy – Based on the rock standard Les Paul body.

This should be fun and who knows, maybe I’ll get the opportunity to actually build one some day.

Dean Exotica Koa

// February 10th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Guitar

It took me long enough, but I’ve finally purchased a new steel string acoustic guitar. I had been stalking the Ibanez Artwood 35 for well over two years, but never had the opportunity (or money) to go out and get one. It’s probably a good thing that I took so long to finally pull the trigger on this acquisition, because as the title of this post may indicate, it isn’t what I ended up purchasing.

I recently attended a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s house and one of the other attendees brought his new Dean Exotica FM acoustic guitar. Not only did the guitar sound great, it was absolutely striking. Before that night, Dean was synonymous with crazy looking metal guitars and that was about it. I played around with the guitar a little and determined from the feel, look and sound that this had to start somewhere around $750. It wasn’t until I looked it up online that while the MSRP is in the $600 range they actually retail for about $400. This put the guitar within reach as I received a fair amount of cash for Christmas. After doing a little research, I ultimately traded in my Yamaha Classical, got an extra 15% off at the Guitar Center in Danvers, MA and dropped $287 on a brand new Dean Exotica Koa guitar.

Guitar Features:

• Grand Auditorium Style w/ Cutaway
• Koa top, sides and back
• 25-1/2″ Scale
• Mahogany Neck
• 1-5/8″ Nut
• Under-the-Saddle Piezo Pickup System
• Custom Pre-Amp with 3-Band EQ
• Celluloid Binding
• On-Board Tuner
• Rosewood Fingerboard
• Sealed Tuners

The feel of this guitar is like nothing I’ve ever played before. The attention to detail and overall craftsmanship of the guitar is absolutely top notch. The Koa finish is absolutely stunning, but it is worth noting that this guitar has an amber tinted finish applied to it. Koa is a beige/tan color with lots of dark brown streaks in it. The Dean website currently features a picture of this guitar with what must be a clear finish over the koa. This guitar has a decidedly honey/amber hue to it that can only be achieved with a tinted finish. To be perfectly honest, I was real unsure if I’d like the traditional koa look and was pleasantly surprised when I took it out of the box.

The look of the guitar is completed by a number of nice features and extras that really add to the look of the guitar. It starts with the amazing figuring on the headstock and ends with the Frank Lloyd Wright-esque wood cut rosette around the sound hole. Add a generous amount of cream colored binding around the body and along the neck and you have one stunning guitar.

The hardware, like the finish, is also top notch. The tuners look and feel like Grover tuners, but lack the traditional Grover stamping on the back of the machine head. I would imagine that they are essentially licensed Grover designs, but actually manufactured by Dean. Regardless, the action on these tuners is fluid and precise and generally makes fine adjustments a breeze. The nut and saddle are made from some form of plastic and I suspect the bridge pins are as well.

The guitar is an acoustic-electric and features a piezo under-the-saddle pickup system and seems to do an excellent job of reproducing the guitar’s natural tone electrically. That being said, I haven’t plugged it in to an amp and really turned it up either. The controls feature all of the standard controls including bass, mid, treble, presence and volume. It also features a built-in tuner and while it does a reasonable job tuning the guitar it is far from perfect. It seems to struggle to pickup up the tone of the strings consistently and I’ve found the end result is less accurate than using the line-in on the POD.

Overall, this guitar is an amazing acoustic-electric guitar that features great tone, great features and absolutely stunning appearance. That being said, if the Koa finish isn’t quite your thing, Dean has a wide range of unique finishes available in the exotica line including Flame Maple, Quilt Maple, Zebrawood, Padouk among others. Given the price point, this guitar is a steal.

Photos

You can find more photos under my Flickr account here.

Audio

The following are just a couple of quick improv recordings of the guitar.

• Dean Review 1
• Dean Review 2
• Dean Review 3

To capture these recordings I used the following:

• Dean Exotica Koa – (Bass, Mid, Treble and Presence in middle positions)
• Line 6 POD 2.0 – (Tube Pre-Amp Model)
• Apple GarageBand – (No Effects)

A Tale of Two Stratocasters, Pt. 2

// April 19th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Guitar

Welcome to part two of my comparison of two very different stratocasters. As I mentioned in part 1, I was able to borrow a Fender American Standard Stratocaster from a friend of mine for the and thought it would be fun to do a comparison between this high-end Fender guitar and it’s twin from the other side of the tracks; my Squier.
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A Tale of Two Stratocasters, Pt. 1

// April 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Guitar

There is a hierarchy, or ladder, in the world of stratocaster guitars and my Squier may not be at the very bottom of that ladder, but it surely wont get hurt if it falls off. Somewhere near the top of that hierarchy is the Fender American Standard and while there are plenty of better strats than the AmStd, it’s high enough up that ladder to get a nose bleed.

This past weekend, I was able to get my hands on a friend’s Fender American Standard for the whole weekend to play with and I figured this would be a good opportunity to highlight the differences between the these two strats.
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