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The Hard Body series was produced sometime between 1983 and 1987, and consisted of
the Ultra GP (Guitar "Paul", like Les Paul) and the Ultra GS (Guitar "Strat", like
Stratocaster). There was also an Ultra Bass model. The bodies were made by Samick
(Korea), and assembled in North Carolina. Jerry Freed who was with IMC at that time
convinced the marketing people at Ovation that this idea would work. Korean wood,
American or Schaller parts, assembled in the States. Sounds good in theory.
The Ultra GP was an outstanding guitar. It was a set-neck guitar, an archtop and
two DiMarzio humbucker pickups and a tune-matic style tailpiece in a rather traditional
guitar design. This is probably the best "production" electric solifbody guitar Ovation
ever sold in the early days.
The Ultra GS guitars were less notable. Although an extremely nice guitar, with an
especially appealing routing around the body, the quality was very inconsistent.
They had bolt-on necks, but so do many other great guitars. The GS model came in
a variety of pickup and bridge configurations. The pickups used were Dimarzio single(S)
coil and humbuckers(H) and came in configurations ranging from a single humbucker,
to S-S-H, S-S-S. Most of the configurations involving the humbucker pickup had a
pole tap switch also. All of the GS models had either a Kahler Locking Tremolo system
or a Wilkinson style bridge. As stated, this "sounds" like a great guitar, but alas
they were very inconsistently built, and the materials used for the neck and nut
were not of the highest quality.
The Ultra Bass guitar was a fairly nice Bass. It had a P-Bass design with a Dimarzio
P-90 style pickup. This Bass came with a standard Schaller bass bridge and in a version
with a Kahler Bass Tremelo system also. Additional info"...In around 1985, Ovation
contracted with a Korean company to make guitar necks and bodies which it imported
and assembled in the U.S. using Schaller hardware and DiMarzio pickups. These were
called the Ultra Hard Bodies (advertised with a cute chick in spandex), and consisted
of at least four guitar models and one bass. The guitars included three bolt-neck
Strat-style models, the GS-1 (one humbucker), GS-2 (two humbuckers) and GS-3 (humbucker/single/single).
Most had locking Kahler vibratos, although at least one GS-3 has been seen with a
traditional fulcrum vibrato. The bodies had a German carve relief beginning at the
waist and extending forward to the cutaway horns. The necks had 21-fret rosewood
or maple fingerboards with dots. The six-inline heads were kind of squarish and
bi-level, with a carved relief along the lower edge, kind of an Ovation trademark.
The logos said Ovation Ultra GS. The GS-1 (volume only) and GS-2 (volume, tone, three-way)
had pickups mounted on rings on the top. The GS-3 featured a black Strat-style pickguard.
One source refers to a GSL model, but nothing is known about what this means, if
it isn't a typo. Most of these came with typical exposed-pole DiMarzios, but the
previously mentioned guitar with the fulcrum vibrato also had twin-blade pickups
with DiMarzio stenciled on the covers."
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