Takamine EG334-SC

I used to try and write reviews for guitars, but now I’m just going to write my personal experiences with them. Paul Riario does enough work for everyone.

This is my Takamine EG334SC. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. For 4 years running, this is a guitar I have always had handy, and it’s also the guitar I will never sell. It’s a 600 dollar guitar that was a correction of a mistake: I drunkenly purchased a different acoustic guitar the day before and in a bit of generosity the salesman gave me a “Learn from your mistakes” deal. I still think the guitar feels good to play no matter how hungover I was. Here are some unrelatable facts about it.

The Specs: Laminate ovangkol back and sides on the body, I don’t have to worry about the back getting broken. The spruce top is  as memorable as any top on a sub-1000 dollar guitar (it’s not memorable). I have taken it with me to be the “Guy in the park with a guitar” many times, and the only thing that’s ever happened to it was a guy with a mohawk, Black Flag t-shirt, and studs everywhere put a sticker on it. (Sticker application is apparently a territory marking statement for Punk Rockers, but I’ll save that for my anthropology blog.) Luckily the finish is a thick coat of gloss Polyurethane, so it can stand up to some stronger solvents like acetone.

The Neck: 20 frets with cutaway access, an average C-shaped neck profile, Grover tuners, rosewood fretboard, dot inlays and all other standard neck-related things for an acoustic. Acoustic necks need to be a bit more robust to handle the extra tension of acoustic strings, but this one fits me fine. Reminds me a bit of my Telecaster neck. It’s not a well built neck. The fret tops are level, but the fretboard isn’t. It looks crappily made, but it plays fine. It adheres to my rules of guitars being played/heard and not seen. It’s an acoustic guitar, any more talk about it and I’ll end up convincing myself it’s worthwhile to buy a 6000 dollar acoustic guitar…

What I did to it: This is the fun part: it came with a big set of electronics (Stay tuned for an anti-electronics-in-acoustic-guitars post…). It was a large black plastic box with a built in tuner and some equalizer junk cut right into the side of the guitar. Like any reasonable guitar owner, I removed it and threw it away, leaving a large hole in the side. I had read about sound ports in guitars, but I have never been gutsy enough to cut one into my own (I’ll happily do it to yours. and by ridding my guitar of the extra weight of cheaply made electronics, I got an added bonus: it sounds great. The sound comes straight to me as a player, and I get more nuances. I also put a microphone near the accidental hole for recording. Makes me feel like I’m Jimmy Page doing some weird recording voodoo.

After removing the “box of gross” I needed to put a new saddle in the bridge. I wanted something fast and cheap so I spent 3 hours making the slot bigger and lowered the bridge so I could use a piece of water buffalo horn. That sentence is nonsense, but truthful nonsense. I wanted water buffalo horn in my guitar, dammit. So I made my wish come true. I noticed no difference in sound, but I felt great about my choices in life. I would love to say I could hear the differences in all of these things, but I’m not Eric Johnson, and I might even doubt that Eric Johnson is Eric Johnson.

More to the story: I leave this guitar out in my apartment in hopes that someone I live with might pick it up and start learning. It’s also a conversation piece to see a big ugly hole in a purely utilitarian acoustic guitar. It’s my campfire guitar (by the fire, not in it) that I can take with me. I’ve had the same frayed Elixir strings on it for 2 years, and it’s still a dream to play with its “almost-too-buzzy” action. It’s the guitar I keep around in hopes that when I’m famous, I can sign it and sell it for charity and get a gigantic tax write-off. It may be the next Blackie hanging in a billionaire’s music museum. That would be a shame, I want it played. Alright, I’ll keep it.

If only guitars could talk. Wait.