Posted by Ken Link: Cole Clark Guitars - Melbourne, Australia, American Website, Acoustics
on 10/10/2009, 10:02 pm
Message modified by board administrator 10/10/2009, 11:09 pm
Hi Folks,
It's about a 40-minute drive to Roxy's Music Store and it was my first time there. It's a goodly sized place for a small town like Batavia, New York, and they had some nice gear covering many brands. I immediately bee-lined for the Cole Clark guitars that were towards the rear of the store.
Their Cole Clark wall had about nine hanging guitars ranging from the Fat Lady FL1 acoustic-only to the FL2AC acoustic-electric with several other FL1 Series models, including a FL1 12-String, and FL2 Series models available for trial. Being that Roxys Music Store is also the regional North-East Cole Clark distibutor, they have numerous guitars in inventory which can be requested for auditioning. More on that in a bit.
Firstly, I acoustically auditioned several guitars off-the-wall and before playing, I tuned them with my little Meisel Clip-On Tuner because I always tune my guitars to concert pitch and that gives me a reference point to judge them by to my ear.* So here we go:
I started with a Fat Lady FL2AC acoustic-electric, which is a cutaway model with a Bunya top and Queensland Maple back/sides/neck with rosewood fingerboard and bridge. This is the wood combination that Jack Johnson plays and this is my first-ever auditioned Cole Clark guitar! So, not really being a maple man, I thought the guitar was okay and very even in response but not lush like you'd hear a Martin dreadnought. It was okay and the Cole Clark neck isn't too bad for ease of play and thumb-fretting is pretty easy too.
Next up was a more rarely-configured FL2A non-cutaway acoustic-electric with a burst-finished Bunya top, Blackwood back and sides, a Blackwood neck and with an ebony fingerboard and bridge. This guitar was more to my liking in its acoustic tone and had more lingering sustain and a deeper bass than the bunya/maple combo.
Thirdly, I brought down another FL2AC acoustic-electric cutaway that was an all-gloss finished model, whereas the first two guitars were satin-finished. This guitar had a nicely-grained spruce top with Blackwood back and sides. It also had a beautiful wood-inlay rosette and no pickguard. It was an elegantly simple beauty and it's tone wasn't too unlike my recently purchased 2009 Taylor 410ce Spring Limited but didn't have quite as deep a bass resonance. This Fat Lady winked at me!
Last up, I noticed there wasn't a Fat Lady FL3 model of any kind on the wall and asked the salesman, Rand, if he had any. He said he'd be right back and a few minutes later, he came out of the stock room with a Fat Lady FL3AC. This guitar looked really pretty and was an all-gloss, acoustic-electric cutaway with a beautiful spruce top and rosewood back and sides. The Rosewood back was ONE-PIECE! The guitar had pretty top inlay and abalone fingerboard markers and a nicely contrasting wood peg-head overlay. Acoustically, this guitar was very familiar in that its spruce/rosewood combo had an overall tonal flavor not unlike other spruce/rosewood dreadnoughts. The tone, however, wasn't as bass-heavy as a Martin or even a Taylor spruce/rosewood dread but had a nicely balanced sound with a pretty midrange ring to it. This Fat Lady also gave me the eye!
Before plugging-in these guitars, let me say that acoustically the Cole Clark tone is a very balanced one and quite bright but, to me, it's not unappealing and I come from a Martin, Huss & Dalton and Taylor background. I found the Bunya/Maple, Bunya/Blackwood, Spruce/Blackwood, Spruce/Rosewood acoustic tones worthy of my potential purchase.
Regarding Cole Clark acoustic-electric tone, some perusing of specifications reveals the Fat Lady-3 Series is the model line that has the full acoustic-electric system that includes the UST-piezo pickup, the Face Brace Sensor top pickup and the Back Sensor back-brace pickup. The Fat Lady-1 and -2 Series acoustic-electric systems are identical but don't have the Back Sensor back-brace pickup.
Now, on to my Cole Clark plugged-in acoustic-electric audition results:
My first candidate was the one I already held in my hands, the Fat Lady FL3AC Spruce/Rosewood with the complete acoustic-electric system. The salesman plugged me into a Roland AC-60 Acoustic Chorus Amp with all EQ set flat. The guitar's EQ was flat too and I proceeded to pick a little at moderate volume. The amplified tone was better than most that I've heard and I tried moving the pickup blend slider around and got decent tones all around. Probably the best setting on this guitar and the others too was a slider-control blend of about middle to slightly favoring the Face Brace Sensor. This guitar had the Back Sensor and overall, at the volume level I was playing at, I slightly favored the FL3AC amplified tone over the other guitars without the Back Sensor but the other guitars didn't have rosewood back and sides that may have given them a bit brighter amplified tone. I would buy this guitar!
The second guitar was the FL2A non-cutaway Burst Finish Bunya/Blackwood combo. This guitar didn't sound all that different when amplified compared to the full acoustic-electric system equipped FL3AC. It had a pleasing amplified tone and I would buy this guitar too!
The third acoustic-electric was the FL2AC Bunya/Queensland Maple combo. It too had a nice full amplified tone with a quick and dry response and I would most certainly consider buying this guitar.
The fourth guitar was the FL2AC cutaway, all-gloss Spruce/Blackwood combo. This guitar along with the Fat Lady FL3AC Spruce/Rosewood combo would be the ones I'd most favor buying out of the four I auditioned.
To summarize, I think Cole Clark has a super acoustic-electric amplification system and although I didn't take one of my Martin Aura-equipped guitars with me for comparison, I'd say Cole Clark's two- or three-way blendable systems rivals an Aura amplified tone for naturalness and fullness. I think I could be more than happy with a Cole Clark acoustic-electric guitar in any of its wood combinations. I did mess with a few others but the ones featured in this review are the ones I would most certainly buy. Roxy's Music Store has many models in the stockroom and I'll have to conjure up my desired wood/model combo and see if they have it in stock when I next visit the store, which could be very soon because Brad Clark, owner of Cole Clark Guitars, will be there this Monday, October 12th!
I'll have more to say about Cole Clark's build factors and overall mojo in my next post. There's nothing alarming other than one factor that I would definitely change if I was Brad Clark. Maybe I'll tell him about it?
The North American Office for Cole Clark is in Lockport, New York, another 20 miles west of Batavia, New York. I'm in Cole Clark Country!
Regards,
SpruceTop
*I think tuning a prospective guitar purchase to your usual playing pitch, concert A440Hz or otherwise, is very important as a parameter for judging the overall tonal characteristics of a guitar. Have you ever noticed that guitar stores seem to tune their display models one or two steps below concert pitch? Does EVERY guitar tuned a step or two below concert A440Hz pitch sound good or is it just me? My advice, take a little clip-on tuner with you! For me, once I tune to concert pitch, a lot of the ethereal tonal mojo that ALL guitars have a step or two down often disappears at concert pitch where most of us play.
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