Larry Carlton G5N Natural

Against my better judgement, I decided to keep this guitar, assuming that I would be able to improve it with a decent set up. I rarely fail but on this occasion I don’t have the skill to perform a miracle. When the guitar arrived the battery carrier kept rejecting the PP3 battery supplied. I noticed the battery was a bit on the fat side so I fitted a good quality replacement. No joy, it would close properly but wouldn’t stay locked in place. I applied a little heat to the carrier locking mechanism to improve the locking tab engagement. Success. The PP3 and holder stay in place and are electrically engaged. The battery carrier is of poor quality in my opinion. I’ve never had to resort to that kind of repair work before. The on board mixer is quite effective so it is possible to maximise the overall sound of the amplified instrument, accepting that this is not an expensive instrument so the outcome is relative to its cost. Unfortunately there’s no means of balancing the output of each string so the E A and D strings tend to dominate. The action set up was appalling on delivery but I was able to improve this using the truss rod adjustment as this was without any tension applied to it. Sadly the action is still a little high but I’m loathe to make any reduction to the bridge insert as there isn’t much room for manoeuvre here. In my view, the last problem is the worst one and that is how bad the intonation is, particularly after the twelfth fret. With the existing fixed bridge there is no obvious way of correcting this and I don’t think the quality of the instrument warrants asking a skilled luthier to address this issue. Personal choice of course, you may feel differently. Intonation of a classical guitar is a much discussed subject with many varied opinions of how best to achieve it. My thoughts are that a change of strings could be all that is required as only the second string is really out of tune. Which make of strings to choose though? If I find a brand of strings that sorts out the intonation I will, of course, pass that on.

Habe mir diese Gitarre bestellt, weil ich eine Nylongitarre für die Bühne suche und mir 2200€ für "das Original" fehlen. Leider hat diese Gitarre auch das bei Piezos bekannte Problem, dass der Diskant leiser als der Rest der Saiten abgenommen wird. Bei diesem Modell war es so, dass man die hohe E-Saite gar nicht gehört hat und G&D am lautesten waren. Zusätzlich dazu musste ich die G-Saite, mit der die Gitarre ausgestattet war wechseln, weil die Saite offensichtlich einen Defekt hatte und die Intonation nicht vorhanden war. Ganz bundrein war sie nach dem Austausch aber auch noch nicht. Verarbeitung habe ich bei günstigeren Modellen bereits viel besser gesehen und die äußeren Saiten sind viel zu nah am Bundende, so dass man bei Pull-Offs abrutscht. Das ist inzwischen die zweite Sire Gitarre, die ich zurückschicken muss, ich werde diese Marke in Zukunft meiden und wundere mich, warum Larry Carlton seinen Namen für diese Ramsch-Gitarren hergibt.