// February 10th, 2010 // No 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.
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)
