Gear

Planet Waves O-Port

10 May 2012

Yesterday evening I installed the Planet Waves O-Port into my Takamine GS430S acoustic guitar. As you may know, the O-Port is touted as making "any guitar from beginner to custom sound richer, fuller, and louder, with more clarity and better projection." Due to the body size of the GS430S, I find the mid-clarity and overall projection to be a bit lacking. For under US$20, I thought I would give the O-Port a try. (I should clarify; for a guitar with a street price of around US$300, the Takamine GS430S sounds and plays great.)

I chose to remove and replace the strings instead of trying to simply loosen them (as Planet Waves suggests) and try to get my big paws around the strings and in the sound-hole. It's likely because of my big paws that the O-Port wasn't quite as quick to install as Planet Waves or YouTube would have you believe. But, it was simple enough. I can't complain and it's not their fault my mitts are so big. The photo above shows the unstrung guitar and the uninstalled O-Port in the foreground. The upper left inlet photograph shows the installed O-Port. It looks nice and unobtrusive.

I am happy to report that I did notice a distinct change in the overall tone and clarity of the guitar and I have to admit it is an improvement. It didn't make this US$300 guitar sound like a handmade Martin or a (more than 10X-the-price) Gibson Hummingbird, but it did elevate the sound to something comparable approaching the US$500-$600 range. (It's just an estimate, but trust me, I've played A LOT of acoustic guitars!;)

The bottom line is I wouldn't dream of sticking this US$20 piece of plastic in my  Epiphone Masterbilt DR500ME acoustic-electric, my TAKAMINE EG523CDX Honeyburst Jumbo acoustic-electric or my Cordoba GK Studio "Gipsy Kings" Signature Model. But it did serve nicely to improve the acoustic quality of a mid-market Takamine. I suspect the improvement is a result of the smaller body style of the GS430S and I'm thinking the device would have less of an impact on dreadnought and jumbo body styles. I absolutely love the sound of the Cordoba GK studio, so I wouldn't dream of toying with that.

Planet Waves makes some claims regarding the improved quality of recorded guitar tracks. To be fair, I can't make any judgement on that. As I mentioned, it is highly unlikely I will be sticking an O-Port in any of my other instruments and it's unlikely I will use the GS430S to record, so I will leave it to others to argue those particular points. What I can tell you is that the device clearly had a positive (and inexpensive) impact on the sound quality of my GS430S.

I hope this helps!

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Gear Talk and Painful Admissions

19 Apr 2012

Over the past few weeks I have been both downsizing and upgrading my music-making gear. Instead of a dozen middle-of-the-road guitars, I have swapped, bartered and sold to come up with a solid roster of unique, excellent-sounding instruments. I'll post more about them as I begin to upload videos. Today, I wanted to focus on my acoustic-electric nylon string guitar and make an amusing confession.

My final "rearrangement" of instruments saw me acquire a gently-used, sweet-sounding, Cordoba GK Studio nylon string acoustic-electric guitar. I have always loved playing "classical" guitar, but I could never rationalize spending more than a couple hundred dollars on one because of how seldom it might get used. Consequently, I was never satisfied with the sound or playability of any of the half-dozen or so classical guitars I've owned over the years. When I came across the used Cordoba GK, I was blown away by it's sound -- both acoustically and amplified -- and by how well it played. I got a very good deal on it and I've been playing it to death for the past few days.

Now, for the painful -- but somewhat humorous -- confession. I knew I would be replacing the strings on the "new" guitar within minutes of it coming home with me. It is at this point I must confess that prior to yesterday, I had always used ball-end classical strings. (Pauses while my fellow musicians roll their eyes in disgust...)

With this new guitar, I was determined to finally take the time to learn to tie classical strings. I was mostly successful. You can see that as I started with the low E, I got better as I went along. I am happy to report that 24-hours later the strings have not slipped and it plays and sounds fantastic! I promise to never-ever use ball-end classical strings again! (And yes, it really was just about as easy as it looks. Now, I just need to master the art of making the restring "pretty" by looping the ends consecutively. Next time!)

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