Sent the D'angelico back....

davismanLV

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It's difficult when you've never dealt with one of these guitars before, you know? So we played and played and then Chris gave us the clue to intonating the floating bridge. 3 videos later and with expert direction from you amazing forum guys, we came to the same conclusion. This guitar just sucks. We changed the action height, reintonated the bridge. I tried it in open tunings and standard and honestly it was so difficult to play. Here's the deal, it was out of tune on almost every fret, always. Then we went through the whole process again and then you had to be so careful not to fret too hard or it would sharp, but if you didn't fret hard enough you got buzz and then we went through the whole thing again. Start to finish. Either this guitar SUCKED or we're just not cut out for a non-flat top steel string guitar. Never had a problem with a guitar like this before. So after a week of neither of us enjoying it..... it went back.

Maybe this was just a bit beyond our range, but .... I'm not sure as I've never played an archtop before. So it was time to part with a PHYSICALLY beautiful guitar but... just not what we'd imagined and ..... it's gone.

Musician's Friend is ALWAYS amazing to deal with. It's good to know they'd have taken my blue Breedlove back in a minute..... like THAT would ever happen!! That guitar is going nowhere, but it's good to know they're super cool.

Now..... there's got to be another guitar out there....... LOL!!

Just kidding friends, don't tempt me.

Much love, TIV!! :encouragement::encouragement:
 

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Sounds like a dog to me. Sorry to hear that it didn't live up to the billing.
 

GAD

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Never regret returning a dog of a guitar. Playing should make you happy. The end.
 

davismanLV

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Yeah, thanks, guys.... it was hard making that decision, but ..... some things are just not meant to be. Thanks to Chris for a heads up!! He was a champ tipping us off on this great deal!! Honest, you couldn't find a better deal and it's some shipping and now..... there's money for something else. Like maybe a Fishman Loudbox Mini??? LOL!!
 

Walter Broes

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Strange, sounds like you got a lemon. The current D'Angelico's have very little if anything to do with the originals, except cosmetically, but the ones I've played ranged from typical to actually quite nice for the price range they're in.
 

fronobulax

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:-(

Keep your eyes open for another chance to play an arch-top so you get a sense of whether you had a lemon or whether it is just not the type for you.
 

walrus

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:-(

Keep your eyes open for another chance to play an arch-top so you get a sense of whether you had a lemon or whether it is just not the type for you.

Good advice - my guess is the guitar was a lemon, you should not have any issues playing an archtop - you should love it!

walrus
 

bobouz

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Guitars with floating bridges are typically a breeze to set up for intonation, because you can put the bridge anywhere you want & totally dial it in. One thing that could mess a person up is if they tried to put an electric-oriented unwound 3rd string on a wooden archtop bridge compensated for a wound 3rd. I'm assuming that wasn't the case here, because the guitar was new & set up by the factory.

At any rate, I'll just throw out there again that the Guild A-150 Savoy is a very interesting beast, with a solid spruce pressed top & X-bracing. Reviews have been all over the map, but I believe this depends tremendously on your playing style and quite possibly on pre-conceived expectations. In the '70s, I would purchase old & forgotten acoustic archtops at flea markets & fix them up. My very favorite was a Gibson-made Wards guitar from the '30s with a carved solid spruce top & X-bracing, so I already had a certain type of tone I was after, and the Guild Savoy's specs clearly caught my eye. Acoustically, my A-150b is loud & punchy, just the way I want it for fingerpicking, and recreates that old tone in my mind's eye quite well. Currently, I've got acoustic phosphor bronze D'Addarios on there. Plugged in with these strings, the floating D'Armond picks up that acoustic tone in a very pleasant way.

The thing with these guitars is that they really only do a few things well. If your playing style happens to match with that, you'll be smiling. If not, you'll be scratching your head a lot!
 
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jp

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Too bad, Tom. It's such a shame that a guitar bearing the D'anglico's name was of such poor quality.

The search continues for the perfect blue guitar for you!
 

davismanLV

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jp, don't forget, I've already got my perfect blue guitar!! Don't know if you missed it, but I bought this one a few months back!! Couldn't be happier!!

8ONrkZ.jpg
 

shihan

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It was like some pepole I've met; beautiful to look at, but ugly in action. You did the right thing sending it back. You'll find what you're looking for eventually.
 

bobouz

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No offense to anyone here, but I'm not totally convinced the guitar was a piece of junk. If strings are old, cheap, worn, or not stretched out, a trapeze-type tailpiece will play havoc with tuning, since the tailpiece can move & impact multiple strings with each adjustment.

Best bet might have been to first put new strings on it & give them a while to settle in. These guitars truly are a different kind of animal.
 

davismanLV

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I did put new strings on it before I intonated the bridge the second time, just to be sure. Definitely a different kind of animal, for sure.
 

bobouz

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I did put new strings on it before I intonated the bridge the second time, just to be sure. Definitely a different kind of animal, for sure.
Hmm - Sounds like you gave it an all out effort.

Guess it just wasn't meant to be, and good that you sent it back.
 

Los Angeles

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I'm very curious about what gauge strings you had on there. (Please don't think I'm blaming the victim, surely you had a lemon! :) )

I have had trouble even with great classic Guild archtops when I chose strings that were too light for the instrument.

The saddest part about this is that the cheaper archtops often ship with electric 10's slapped on them because those sets can be bought in bulk for much cheaper than the strings the guitar was designed to use. If that's what happened here, again, that's the manufacturer's fault and worthy of a return.
 

gilded

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......The saddest part about this is that the cheaper archtops often ship with electric 10's slapped on them because those sets can be bought in bulk for much cheaper than the strings the guitar was designed to use. If that's what happened here, again, that's the manufacturer's fault and worthy of a return.

Those guitars probably aren't made to use the 'big' string sets that were needed to really move and energize the top on the original D'Angelico guitars. In fact, if you put a set of 12s or 13s on the guitar, the top might start sinking (seen it happen on another PacRim hollow-body Jazz guitar when I put 12s on it for a friend 3 years ago)!

Moreover, I listened to some similar new D'Angelico guitars on YouTube and heard a 'whole lot of pickup', but not a 'whole lot of guitar'. That ain't good.

Finally, I have seen import guitars where the distance between the nut and the first fret was incorrect, which in turn permanently threw the rest of the fretted notes way off.

So, if the guitar sounds out of tune up and down the neck, then either the fret slots are not where they should be on a the guitar's neck/fingerboard, or Tom can't set a bridge on an Arch-Top correctly.

And, I bet that Tom did everything right and the guitar is a dog!

Harry/gilded
 

jp

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jp, don't forget, I've already got my perfect blue guitar!! Don't know if you missed it, but I bought this one a few months back!! Couldn't be happier!!
Oh, that's right! I forgot about that one. Perfect blue guitar -- check!
 

davismanLV

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Thanks for the vote of confidence, Harry. It was all new to both of us but with instruction from those more skilled than I here on the forum and the videos found on youtube and also referred to us by D'Angelico themselves, it seems a pretty straight forward thing. It's not exactly rocket science. First time went according to plan, but the guitar still wouldn't play in tune. So then the next two times were done with new strings, Dean Markley light acoustic strings, and things went pretty much the same. That's when I'd have loved to hand it to one of y'all and just said, "Is this guitar messed up or is it me?" Neither of us wanted to send the guitar back but after fussing with it for almost a week, we both were avoiding it like the plague. I am going to take frono's advice and next time I'm near an archtop and going to play a couple different ones and see what I think.

The living room was getting a little cluttered looking anyway...... LOL!!
 
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