Godin Flat Five

Semi-hollow thinline style guitar, 24-3/4" scale, 24-fret, dual humbuckers, 5-way switch, volume and tone. Rosewood fretboard, mahogany neck, maple/poplar body. Bolt on construction. Hard shell case. Light-burst finish.

Extremely bright guitar, even in neck position. I would almost say the sound is "scooped" in nature. In my opinion, with my limited Gibson exposure, it is not Gibson-esque in sound. The tone control is useless, the guitar is quiet in all pickup selections. It can be extremely bassy, but not "deep" like a Gibson. I have somewhat compenstated for this by using a compressor inline, in order to shave off the brightness. My amplifier is a Marshall JTM-45 reissue fitted with NOS Mullard & Raytheon preamp tubes, and Svetlana power tubes. I use en EBS MultiComp pedal, and a DOD Yngie Malsteem preamp overdrive. I agree with some of the other reviews concerning the 24 fret neck, in that it degrades the sound of the neck pickup, since it is placed too close to the bridge. In my opinion though, all the sound options presented by this guitar are different in nature. Personally, I only use the neck pickup. BTW, I down tune half a step, so this may have an impact on my point of view.

Mine was a factory blemish, with a 3mm round indent by the neck pickup on the upper bout, almost impossible to see. There were also two pin head sized black dots on the fretboard. The fretboard was dry as a bone, and I did not appreciate the strings. I conditioned the fretboard, and used Fender bullet 9s, and set the action to just shy of 1/16" on the low E @ 12th, and aboud 1/32" on the high E @ 12th. The action was OK from the factory, but not my preference. I would prefer low action still, but the fret work, bolt-on construction, will never rival a set neck Gibson. The book-matched top was not perfectly lined up, and I have seen other Godin with this problem, i.e. look at the catalogue. The strap buttons are rather small, but I wear my guitar high and close to my body, so no worries here. It looks like the pickups are wax potted as well. IMHO, the way the strings are anchored through the body is a pain, but it does provide an extremely comfortable right hand position. The f-hole edges were/are not 100 percent polished.

Seems reliable, though the 5-way switch may give troubles down the road, as indicated by others.

Local guitar store, SRC Music, is pretty decent to deal with.

If I was to buy a guitar again, I would most likely go with a Gibson ES335, bite the bullet, and pay the price. In reality, this is a good, almost excellent guitar. They should fix that tone control, it goes from full on bright, to dull nothing, useless. Liking Gibson style guitars, I also feel the volume control is too close. Initially I was knocking the volume down all the time.

I was able to take this guitar home for a week to try it out with my set-up. It is a beautiful guitar, however I had one problem with it, which was enough to make me decide not to purchase it. By putting 24 frets on this guitar, the neck pick-up is placed too close to the bridge. I just couldn't get that really warm jazz sound out of it no matter what I did. I have been playing for over 20 years and own, or have owned, way too many guitars. I know how to get that sound out of just about any guitar, but the pick-up placement is just a bad idea - especially for a guitar like this, that certainly could have been used by jazz players.

No complaints here at all. They make beautiful guitars!

A solid (not laminate like most) carved, AAA figured maple top
The back is Maple with Poplar wings (to add a touch more warmth to the tone as well as reduce weight)
The neck is mahogany, Fingerboard is rosewood

There are 4 hollow chambers (2 per side) and a chambered center block

24 ?" scale
1 11/16" nut width
24 Frets
16" fingerboard radius
Jumbo Frets
String through body design

I am toying with changing the pickups... Godin uses Duncan's on some models (and are very nice), but these look like they may be made by Schaller (as were most of their past pickups)

These are nice, but lack a little bit of warmth... as I said, I am very hard to please, as there are so many folks that absolutely love this guitar stock.

In general the guitar is pretty flexible... good for jazz, blues and when used with overdrive, it sings and sustains beautifully

The finish is excellent! looks like a polyurethane with an amber tint added.

The neck is the new 2002 design with a tad more thickness

First off, Godin's are a very well made, under rated, hand made instruments.
It mystifies me as to why a company that makes such a fine instrument, would choose use a piece of crap Taiwanese 5 way switch. But alas they do. I believe they use the Yamaha switch or copies of it.(these fail very quickly)

I have 4 Godin's (lookin' at a 5th) and have replaced all the switches with either the Schaller Mega or the Dimarzio 24 lug 4 pole switch (which is even more solid than the Mega,as they can fail in time too)

I have had a few email interactions with Godin.

They have been less that helpful and in one case actually spewed out incorrect information.

I was inquiring as to what wood material was used for my Artisan TC (tele)because it was much lighter weight than my Artisan ST (strat)

They told me that they were both solid maple, yet it turned out that the tele was basswood (limewood) with a maple top (much more to my liking)

Ok... I have been playing for 34 years
Currenty own far too many guitars (15) I will spare you the list.

It may be interesting to see what the guitar would be like if they reversed their design and used mahogany for the body and maple for the neck.

I also would have preferred a 22 fret neck to allow the neck pickup to be a bit closer to the neck and therefore warmer.

I made a few enhancements that I fell improves upon an already nice guitar ... anyone who knows me knows that I am very demanding and rarely satisfied with "off the rack" guitars.

I changed the wiring on the Flat 5 from stock:

pos1 neck
pos2 neck split
pos3 neck/bridge
pos4 bridge split
pos5 bridge

To Paul Reed Smith's configuration: (Using Mega switch model "P") All
choices remain hum canceling!

pos1 neck humbucker
pos2 neck/bridge outer coils in parallel
pos3 neck/bridge outer coils in series
pos4 neck/bridge inner coils in parallel
pos5 bridge humbucker

I then added a push / pull pot to activate neck and bridge with all coils on.

Pos 2 gets me a very pingy bell like tele tone

Pos3 is warmer, darker bell tone

Pos4 is that psuedo, PRS, semi, not quite, almost, strat quack tone :-)

Push/Pull activated (all coils in parallel) is the standard Gibsonesque 335 or even 175 warm bell tone.

As I have mentioned in other posts on the news groups, one of the extra special way cool,undocumented things about the Mega switch, is that in between the clicks are other choices!

Between pos 1 and 2 you get the neck in single mode (north pole)

Between pos 2 and 3 you get the bridge (north pole) coil

Between pos 3 and 4 you get the neck (south pole coil)

Between pos 4 and 5 you get the bridge (south pole)

Next alteration was a treble bleed circuit that I add to all of my guitars:

270K ohm resistor with a 560 pF cap

This will compensate for the slight loss of treble when the volume is
lowered without sounding harsh.

In summery... The flat 5 is a very nice instrument, very balanced, light weight, extremely resonant, versatile tone choices (even more after my changes)

the flat five is new this summer so this is pretty new. it's the first one i found locally, I'd been looking for a while. SOLID carved, highly figured/quilted silver maple top. 5 way selector, volume and tone. two HB's with tapping for pos. 2 & 4. the semi hollow (carved) body has a solid block with chambers. mahogany neck w/rosewood board. 'flat-five' (passive) pu's. body is a larger version of their lgx line. through the body stringing (good for tone but the only really aggravating part about godin's set up). good tuners - no problems. 24-3/4" scale ('gibson' scale - shorter then the lgx's) a good hard shell case included

I'm a jazz - fusion player but i free lance for money gigs on the weekend: weddings, private parties etc (the only gigs in this town that pay good money) so I play a lot of pop tunes from 1940 to the present. I have tons of gear but I've been playing this primarily through a Carr slant 6v or a Dr Z Rt 66. effects are chorus and/or delay when needed. very quiet, full sound. pu's are actually quite hot as compared to 57's or Tom holmes - a surprise. I posting this because I've read not so positive reviews of this and the more I use it the more I like it. I even bought a nice 335 (a good one out of several clunky ones I tried) for twice as much as the Godin AFTER i bought this. So I thought I'd be really digging the 335 more. I'm not. This guitar is much better live playing 'parts' in bands. the notch positions help greatly. The 335 gets that great 335 sound but it's harder to dial in the right sounds on the fly for ensemble work with both pu's. And you still don't get the lighter, spankier sounds you get from 2 & 4 on the Godin - plus (on the Godin)you mostly just get there with the 5 selector switch. less stress. It actually has more sounds - not less that some people claim. Nice light guitar!. plays easily. it has 24 frets which pushes the neck pickup further away - you'd think you wouldn't get the darker jazz sounds - but that's just not true. It can sound fuller and woodier than the 335. It can also sound stratier too (in a subdued way)

It was set up like most guitars are - hardly at all. you know - no tension on the truss rod, poorly intonated. So what, big deal! You SHOULD do it yourself after you get it. geez. All manufacturing and fitting was imaculate.

I've owned 4 Godins - I still own 3 - and I'm keeping them. It'll last. they're as well made as anything out there. who brings a backup up 20 floors in an elevator in downtown Chicago? I'm not touring with roadies.

Never had to call them.

'been playing professionally for 25+ years. I own strats, lp, 335, chet atkins, alvarez yairi, Dearmond, ibanez, boogie, fender, marshall, carr, drz, vht, etc, etc..whatever. this guitar will get used. and will stay at the front-end of the 'rotation'. it sounds like itself, it's somewhat innocuous in that you need to take the time to play it and listen to it. It's seemed to have gotten lukewarm reviews - maybe from people in too much of a hurry or with other 'expectations'. It's really a keeper with a complex, mature voice that will serve me well for years - i think, i hope. and with the solid carved top - it should get better! for half the price of a GOOD 335.