Ovations are a sore point with me, although they do have their merits.
Some of the older ones from the late 60s can actually sound fairly decent
and have great projection. Those are very rare however. They were only
built very briefly with shiny, un-pebbled backs which made them very tricky
to hold while playing.

When they first came on the market Ovations gave incompetent recording
technicians a weapon with which they belabored any poor musician who would
put up with it. They recorded dead flat, which meant that recording
engineers who lacked the skill to properly record the true sound of a 'live'
acoustic guitar could take a musicians' real instrument off him and demand
he play a soup bowl in order to make the life of the recording crew easier.
If the musician objected, he or she was often told 'oh don't worry about
it, we can add the overtones in the final mix.' Nonsense, of course,
and the techs failed to take into account the negative effects of denying an
artist the use of his familiar instrument under trying circumstances.

Over the years acoustic artists came to expect to have to use the musically
dead Ovation in the studio, and gradually their sound became the accepted
norm on a huge percentage of recordings. This wasn't quite as prevalent
with classical recordings as it was with steel string acoustic tracks, but
it did eventually mean that the flat, unmusical sound of plastic and epoxy
became the accepted norm. When plywood Take Mines etc. started to appear
with sophisticated onboard electronics, they fit right in. As a result we
now have an entire generation of younger players who mistakenly think the
febrile gruntings of things like Takemines and Ovation Adamas etc. are the
sounds of real acoustic guitars.

On the other side of the coin, Ovations did offer several advantages
especially for touring musicians. They were tough, and they had good,
playable necks with decent intonation and reasonable scale length. Enviable
qualities, especially in the time frame of the late 60s and early 70s.

I actually suspect Charlie Kaman was on an interesting tack with his
'parabolic reflector' theory for his instrument bodies, but the
heavy-handed use of epoxy and assembly line production methods tended to
ruin any possible gains. Workmanship inside most Ovations is terrible,
with rough-sawn bracing held to the top with lashings of epoxy.

It is possible to retro-fit the 'Lyrachord' bowl with a carefully made top
of good materials and surprising results can be had. Unfortunately
re-topping them is a genuine chore and very few techs will bother. When an
Ovation top is irreparably damaged or fails due to its' original structural
inadequacies almost all repairshops advise scrapping the thing due to the
cost of repairs vs. value of the instrument.

Years ago I developed a cheap and nasty method of retopping them without
removing the original binding. In effect I inlay the new top inside the
purfling lines. Given that the tops are epoxied onto a fibreglass 'L'
bracket 'round the inside of the body in the first place, it is an
acceptable and workable solution. It certainly beats scrapping an
instrument some poor bugger may have paid $1,500 for a few years ago.

KH


"Andrew Schulman" wrote in message
...
On Dec 27, 8:29 pm, "Kevin Hall" wrote:
No, they're not. I use one which has had the top removed as a
long-handled bowl for catching waste oil during oil changes. It excels in
that job.


Congratulations Kevin, word for word one of the funniest RMCG posts,
ever!

Andrew