Product: Dean Guitars Artist CE
Price Paid: 260 (GBP)
Submitted
07/27/2004
at
08:50am
by
Anonymous
Features
:
8
Korean made compact electro-acoustic, 21 frets, single cutaway, solid spruce top, mahogany back, sides and neck, rosewood fretboard with abalone dot inlays. Has quite a thin body and a slight bowl back (carved I believe), making it pretty comfortable to play sitting or stading. All in all, a great looking guitar.
This newer model has excellent Fishman electronics (bass, mid, treb, brill) and solid Grover tuners.
Sound
:
9
I use this mainly for slow acoustic ballads or folky covers (Dylan, The Pogues). It sounds sweet straight into a PA, although my band usually has a mixer in front for vocals, keyboards etc as well.
Acoustically, it sounds good considering the thin body; I compared it to deeper-bodied Crafter guitars and was impressed with the warm tone.
I think its sound is more suited to freely strummed (esp open) chords rather than funky chops or anything more challenging.
As an all round guitar for me its perfect.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
I love the way this guitar plays, great playable neck, very comfortable. Looks great, the finish is good, I can't see any obvious flaws.
Nice action near the nut, obviously gets higher further up the fretboard but thats not where I spend most of my time playing anyway.
Great tuners (Grover), but dissapointingly cheap plastic saddle and nut. It doesn't bother me that much though, depends how important you think that is.
Reliability/Durability
:
7
I intend to use this guitar live quite a lot. It looks well put together and has a solid feel to it. There is no pick guard but the finish seems durable, remains to be seen.
I feel confident at the moment but I don't really know much about Dean reliability so we'll see. The electrics are Fishman, good brand, but I've learnt never to trust electrics.
I can't afford backups!
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
No idea, but they're a big corporation from the States so there's no chance they will be friendly!
Overall Rating
:
9
This guitar suits me fine at the moment, its my first electro-acoustic but I'm confident I won't need another in the near future. I think it retails at #340 so I got a good deal and I tried out all the other similar guitars, and couldn't find anything that was equal to it as a complete instrument.
Definitely worth a try.
