Landola J85-12

The guitar is made of such a fine chosen wood, and the sound just vibrates out of every part of the body.
when working in a studio, I got the producer to choose this guitar in stead of an expensive Guild 12 string. This sound was even more vibrant and open!

It's a pitty, but the neck wood wasn't tough enough to cover the enormous string tension.
The action for the guitar is HUGE and I'm affraid the guitar will collapse one day. The trustrod is completely to its end and that's a real problem.

You can still play up to the 5th fret. Everything above either sounds out of tune or will kill you fingers.

For this problem I cannot use the guitar anymore and I have to search for a new instrument!

The company suggested me to send up the instrument for reparation.
The only problem is, that sending the thing up to Finland would cost me more than the price I paid for the damn thing.

So this is bye bye to Landola for me...
pitty

I've been a professional guitairst in Belgium for 7 years now and do a lot of acoustic gigs as well as electric things.
Next to that I'm an official demonstrator for Roland/Boss pedals.

This is a follow up to the review below.
After a couple of months of playing my new 12-string the action had got worse, to the extent that I just couldn't play it, so I took it back to the shop. They told me that I had got a faulty guitar and they would replace it with a new one - which they did within a few days. The comments bellow are for the new guitar.

Still sounds great with that open sound!

The action is now just right. The guitar is easy to play with no buzzing anywhere on the fretboard. I would say the action is now as good as the Taylor 12-string I tried which was twice the price!

I would say this guitar looks slightly better than the first one! It has a two piece birch back with a rosewood joining strip. The birch has a much nicer quilted look than the original had. Apart from that everything is the same.

Although the hassle did put me off the company somewhat, I have to admit that have ended up with one of the best 12-strings I have played - and at a steal of a price! In this price range there is nothing that comes close to it and I am totally satisfied.

An employee at the guitar shop told me that Landolas' are either really good or really bad - as long as you make sure you get a good one you'll get your self a bargain.

Jumbo 12-string acoustic made in Finland. Solid spruce top with laminated birch back and side which makes this guitar look great! Solid birch neck and rosewood fingerboard with diamond inlays. The headstock has mini Scaller tuners and the rosette and purfling are abalone.

This guitar sounds great considering it has laminated back and sides. I tried lots of 12-strings before I decided on this one, including offerings from Martin, Takemine, Simon & Patrick, Taylor, and Lowden. The Landola had the same open sound usually associated with all solid wood guitars like the Taylor and Lowden but was half the price of the Taylor and almost a third of the Lowden. It just blew away all of the other laminate back guitars.

As I said earlier this guitar looks and sounds great but the one area where it is let down was the action. It is VERY high - almost so it is unplayable further up the neck. This should be resolved by a professional setup. Apart from that the fit and finish is fine.

Seems solid enough. The guitar doesn't have a scratch plate which adds to the look of the guitar but might mean the top becomes scratched over time. We'll see.

Emailed the company once for information about the guitar and they replied within hours. Can't see this being a problem.

For the money this 12-string was way ahead of its rivals. There were guitars I played that I liked more but they were at least twice the price! Before I played this guitar I had never heard of Landola and wouldn't have considered a laminate back guitar but this changed my mind. I would highly recomend that if you see a Landola you should try it.