review of Epiphone Hummingbird Acoustic Guitar

Advantages: very playable
Disadvantages: short sustain

...The Epipiphone Hummingbird is my first Acoustic guitar i have not stolen off my dad. £300 is not a bad deal, seeing as the Gibson acoustics are all around £3000. The looks and finish of this guitar are very nice, i enjoy graphics on my guitar as long as they arent too loud, and this 'mockingbird' illustration is just plain pleasent. The shape of the guitar is perfect so that it can sit on your lap for hours and not ache, partly due to its incredibly light weight. The playability is pretty much perfect, the best you can get for a £300 acoustic, and times I thought I was playing an electric, the fretboard was just so slim, the strings were at perfect distance from the fretboard. The sound is not as good as the playability I must admit, probably because of the lightweight body, it is not hard enough to sustain the notes for a very long...

Diamond_Joe 01.11.2005 · Read review
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Review of Epiphone Hummingbird Acoustic Guitar

THE best electro acoustic guitar!

Advantages: Sound, build, playability
Disadvantages: Rounded back can be awkward at first.

...If you have read some of my other guitar reviews, you will know im a bit of a collector of guitars. In fact, you could almost say its an obsession. Therfore no collection would be complete without an axe from one of the world's finest and best known acoustic producers. Ovation. I own the Ovation Celebrity Deluxe which i believe is the finest looking in the Ovation range. However, you will also know that from my other reviews, Im left handed with the guitar which narrows your choice in colour. For a Right hander, the choices include, Black, Natural, Wine, Green and a sunburst effect top and also available in vasious mapel finishes. Im afraid to say my only choice was Black. Still it does look rather fetching and contrasts well with the Marquetry effect leaves around the multiple sound holes. Being an Ovation, it does come...

andycharger 31.10.2007 · Read review
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Review of Ovation Celebrity Deluxe CS257-RRB Acoustic Electric Guitar

Getting back to Bass-ics

Advantages: Good quality budget guitar
Disadvantages: none really

...I have been hankering for a Bass guitar to fiddle with as a project and when I earned a few extra quid for a private job I started to browse eBay for a likely candidate. I found a Yamaha RBX170 4 string bass on a pick up only deal in Ringwood, a place that I pass through regularly. This bass retails between £120 - £150, putting it in the higher end of the beginners' market. When I collected it, along with the 30 Watt amplifier which I got with it for a very reasonable £73, it was a bit grubby and looked as though it had been used for serving pizza. There were several torn and grubby stickers on it and I feared that I had bought a pup. I got it home and plugged it in. The first thing I noticed was the weight, for a full scale bass guitar it is very light, I can hold it out at arm's length with ease. The range of tones is...

JeffFromPoole 14.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Yamaha RBX170 Bass Guitar

Applause AE64 Acoustic Electric Guitar

Advantages: Beautiful sound, playability and look
Disadvantages: Disadvantages?!

...So I'm sat here in my room at my halls of residence playing on my acoustic electric guitar, when it hit me..."could I review this on Ciao?"...yes, I could!! Applause Guitars are the younger brother of guitar manufacturers Ovation, who have been making trustworthy guitars for over 30 years now, and here have used this experience to make a guitar that doesn't sound like a guitar that is as cheap as this, but is a high-quality product. My model number is actually the AE 28, rather than the 64, but trust me, from what I know about Ovations and what else I can work out, there are no differences here except the numbers! I brought it in November last year from a local music retailers, who I purchased my two other guitars (both electric), so trusted them fully when they recommended me this offering, and they've not let me down...

carl.mcqueen 19.03.2006 · Read review
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Review of Applause AE64 Acoustic Electric Guitar

1 of the elite trio of acoustic brands!!!

Advantages: will last a life time, sounds great, plays great, will not depreciate
Disadvantages: costly to begin with

...have no idea what the guitar actually plays like so how are you going to know it's the right one for you? One of my heroes Hank Marvin uses a black Martin which is available in his signature series which offers a fantastic sound. Unfortunately it did not work for me as it is a full bodied guitar which means it is quite large so me being quite short found it very difficult to play. Alternatively if you do not have enough to purchase something like a martin, then there are some great brands out there set at £500 - £1000 mark that will work extremely well in the professional environment. Guild is one brand that I can recommend having owned one for the last 5 years. So to summarize, In my opinion Martin is one of 3 equally fantastic acoustic guitar brands that I strongly recommend. They are the industry standard tools that will provide...

kylehall99 21.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Martin D-28 Acoustic Guitar

Seiko SAT100 Guitar and Bass Tuner

Advantages: Economical, Easy to use, Great for beginners, Comes with batteries! Input and output sockets.
Disadvantages: Won't tune cheap acoustics properly.

...I bought this item for £15 from a specialist guitar shop and I have to say it was well worth every penny! I have an electric guitar, one of which was terribly out of tune. It corrected the tuning perfectly and now my guitar doesn't sound in pain every time I play it. This tuner can be used on acoustic guitars, as well as electric ones, also for bass guitars, but I do not own a bass so I don't know how it performs in that area. Electric guitars can be plugged into the side of the tuner for more precise tuning. It does have a built-in microphone, so connecting it to your guitar isn't completely necessary. Due to the microphone, this allows acoustic guitars to be tuned as well. It has a very simple interface, and as a beginner to the world of guitars, I found it extremely easy to operate. It has a digital display (two AAA batteries are...

shadysladyangela 20.08.2007 (19.07.2007) · Read review
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Review of Seiko SAT100 Guitar and Bass Tuner

My luvverly cherry red Washburn bass.

Advantages: *
Disadvantages: *

...Having started playing bass with a cheapo Fender Precision copy, after a year I decided it was time to move up to a better make. It was a toss up between a classic jazz bass with all the tuning pegs lined up a la the Fender or one of the newer "Gothic" style ones like this. In true Mr Pink fashion a beer or six was consumed whilst I perused the choices avaliable, finally deciding to take a chance on this beaut and the deed was done! The purchase was made from a firm in South Bend, Indiana, USA (isn't the internet wonderful) for a total of $303, approx £165, of which the actual bass cost $202 around about £110, pretty good considering the going price for this make in the UK is around £150-£200, and it arrived in less than a week so I was very pleased. A quick run through the scales showed that it was tuned up nicely too...

pinkmatchstick 23.02.2006 · Read review
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Review of Washburn XB120, Bass guitar

Taylor 810 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar

Advantages: Superior tone, easy to play
Disadvantages: Expensive

...I wish I was the proud possessor of a Taylor 810 guitar! The one I'm writing about belongs to a friend of mine, and he's very protective of it, will let very few people touch it (I appear to be one of the favoured few!) The guitar itself is made of Indian rosewood back and sides, with a Sitka spruce top, with distinctive Taylor ebony bridge and scratchplate. The neck is tropical American mahogany, the fingerboard is also ebony. The soundhole is decorated with Abalone,however this is not excessive. Machine heads are gold plated for a touch of luxury. As much care has been taken on the inside of this guitar as on the outside, and the finish is smooth, even on those hard-to-reach corners inside the guitar. This particular guitar does not have a fitted pickup, however I use an ebony Mimesis acoustic pickup which is excellent...

Carole2512 15.09.2003 · Read review
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Review of Taylor 810 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar

Talor Big Baby Acoustic Guitar

Advantages: Lightweight, Excellent Build Quality, Beautiful tone.
Disadvantages: Not A Lot

...in guitar construction, this is not an expensive guitar. The old argument of which wood sounds best will run and run long after you and I are departed, so my advise would be to listen to one and make up your own mind. The fingerboard (the part your fingers touch to make the chords) is made of ebony, which is a rare treat on any guitar let alone on one that can be picked up for less than 230 notes!. Now for the important bit, how does it sound. Well I have to say I was blown away by the clarity and evenness across all of the strings. The mid range and treble sounds are excellent, with a bell like quality that belies the price of this instrument. At the lower end (bass) it lacks a little punch due to the size of the body of the guitar but this does not detract from the overall tonal quality on offer here. Volume is also quieter than...

mrchriswill 15.03.2005 · Read review
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Review of Taylor Big Baby Acoustic Guitar

KORG GA-30 Guitar/Bass - Tuner, good buy.

Advantages: Very easy to use, very accurate.
Disadvantages: Quite small, loud noises can interfere with tuning with built in mic.

...This is a must for any musician on the move, or simply someone who needs to tune guitars often. The whole thing is incredibly easy to use, with three clear lights that light up according to the note. To use it, you can either use the built in microphone, and it will pick up the sounds very easily, but can be troublesome if there is too much background noise, things like a tv, even other guitars playing in the background can be fine, but there are times when it becomes difficult. The other way is to simply use your musical cable (same type you use for an amplifier) and plug it into the jack socket in the side of the tuner. It will then pick up anything you play. The small dial alternates between the right and left sides, making it very clear how far you are from hitting the right note. The red lights will turn off and the middle...

Hawiz 17.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Korg GA-30 Guitar/Bass tuner