Guitar Check

Ovation Preacher Deluxe

£511.06 inc VAT

 

This addition to the Ovation electric guitar  range appears to combine the body shape of the standard Preacher with the on-board electronics of the Breadwinner. It has additional pickup-mode switching, de-luxe gold-plated fittings and an unusual and attractive pattern of abalone decoration in the fingerboard. This is one of many guitars now fitted with "active electronics''. Although the electronic circuitry does its intended job very well in this instrument, it does not appear to offer quite as much tonal versatility as some more recently-designed "active electronics" guitars. For example, on the Preacher Deluxe, the player has one tone control knob giving a blend between bass emphasis and treble emphasis, and one switched, on-off midrange filter. Personally, I am perfectly happy with simple electric guitars, but if you want complex filtering arrangements, there were several guitars at the Atlanta N.A.M.M. show with one or more complete 6-band graphics built-in.

The Breadwinner was one of the first widely-available production instruments with built-in electronics. In this field, Ovation now have much competition. If they wish to be in front in this particular "added-features" game, it might be appropriate to invest in a new circuit board and a few more knobs and switches. If, on the other hand, Ovation just want to make good guitars, and to leave the fancy electronics to the amp and pedal manufacturers, I would have some sympathy with that approach. As I see it, there is a continuing demand for complex guitars and for more simple, straightforward guitars. From the way consumer electronics is going at the moment, the complex guitars are likely to become out-dated much sooner than the simple ones.

I would prefer to consider the Preacher Deluxe as a conventional guitar with a fairly conventional sort of control system, but augmented and improved by its internal electronics. One advantage of the electronics fitted to the Preacher Deluxe (and to the Breadwinner) is that, for all practical purposes, there is no interaction between the pickup and your guitar lead or amp. this is not a spectacular feature which is easy to advertise, but you may find it of real value if you are particular about your guitar sound.

There are many factors involved in transferring a "studio'' sound to a large stage, and you are not going to solve them all with a few bits of electronics inside your guitar. However, if you can remove even one unnecessary variable, it should be that much easier to cope with the others. The circuitry in the Preacher Deluxe (and in the Breadwinner) removes the variable factor of interaction between pickups and guitar leads. It also, incidentally, isolates the pickups from the considerable mis-matching presented by some of the less expensive effects units and pedals.

The on-board electronics are powered by two standard 9-volt batteries, accessible through a metal hatch in the back of the guitar body and the circuit is switched on when you plug a lead into the guitar. For a few seconds after plugging in, the volume control makes a swishing sound when turned, and the mid-filter switch (which normally makes a faint click) will produce a snap like a small fire-cracker if operated during this initial period. It appears that the internal voltage levels take a little while to settle after switch-on. This may be a feature of my particular sample. In any case, all controls work smoothly and quietly after about half a minute. It is not a serious problem, although I am surprised that if should appear even in one sample, but it might be sensible not to turn your amp up full until the guitar his been plugged in for a half a minute or so.

The Preacher Deluxe has one small 3-way pickup selector switch which operates in the usual way, except that the "combined" position is at the right-hand end. It has one volume control and one tone control which covers a range from bass emphasis to treble with a "normal" position marked in the center of the dial and a second small switch which operates a mid-range filter.

The volume and tone controls have a smooth feel when turned, and produce evenly graduated changes in sound level and tone. I feel that the volume control on this sample is just too stiff for easy "violining". It may become easier with some use but, on a guitar in this price range, I think it should be right from the beginning.

There are two additional switches on the guitar, which you may not see at first, because they are up against the ends of the pickups. The effect of these switches is small and fairly subtle. Examination of the wiring indicates that they probably arrange the two coils of each pickup in either series or parallel connection. This is a popular and well-advertised feature of various types of high-output, accessory and/or O.E.M. pickups. In the case of a high-output. high-inductance pickup with widely spaced coils, connected directly to the guitar lead, the alternate series/parallel coil connections produce markedly different voicing of the overall sound. However, when the pickup is buffered from the lead, and the coils and pole-pairs are closer together, as in this review instrument, there appears to be rather less difference in sound between the series and parallel connections.

I found the overall sound from this guitar to be slightly heavy in the lower bass and over-bright at the extreme top end. This is, of course, only how the guitar sounds to my ears, with my amp, in my room. I found that I could easily adjust the top end to taste with the treble control on the amp (Peavey Vintage), but I had more trouble with the bass end. Some guitar amps have a fairly severe bass-end roll off and the Preacher may have been designed with this in mind. To get a fair balance from the fingerboard-end pickup, I found it necessary to turn the bass well down on the amp, use the less bassy pickup mode and, with the strings supplied with this guitar, to adjust the bass side of the pickup further from the strings than the treble side. I experienced no difficulty with the treble pickup, and I found both pickup mode settings equally useful. The overall sound was rather bright, but the treble control on the amp tamed that with no difficulty, leaving the guitar's own tone control available for more general tone adjustments. I did play the Preacher through a different type of amp and although the result was more manageable, there was still a generous amount of bass from the fingerboard pickup.

Although the pickups are mounted on the scratchplate and not directly on the body, there was no obvious tendency to uncontrollable feedback, even when the guitar was held close to the amplifier at high gain settings. There was some tendency to feedback at high settings but this was mainly at harmonic frequencies of any undamped strings. The Preacher is a solid-body guitar but seems to have something of the lively character of a good semi-acoustic. A mild tendency towards controllable feedback is perfectly normal for this kind of guitar and may be, for some players, a very desirable feature. The more lively sort of solid or "semi" often has a tendency to produce harmonically related "echoes" on adjacent undamped strings. This feature is also noticeable on the Preacher, and is probably assisted by the unusual bridge construction, sounding faintly like echoes on a sitar. Our review sample was regrettably not set up as well as it might have been. With the strings supplied. there were quite a few buzzes from various strings in various positions. There does not appear to be anything basically wrong with the instrument: with the action a little lower at the nut and a little higher at the bridge, it worked much better. In particular, the nut was poorly fitted to the guitar and some of the string slots were higher than necessary, even for string-bend enthusiasts. The nut material is some form of moulded plastic, but it appears to resist string-wear fairly well.

The fingerboard looks like good quality ebony and it seems to have most of the small pores in the wood filled with some sort of sealer. It has a smooth clean appearance and is neatly inlaid with large abalone position markers. These are attractively shaped and of good quality, but not particularly well matched. It may be worth laying out a few inlay sets on the bench and shuffling them. to improve the matching of colour and texture. The frets are neatly and accurately fitted and smoothly finished at the ends. The top surfaces have a superficial high polish, but there are plenty of residual deeper scratches and string-bending will be easier after the instrument has had a little playing-in. On this sample the fret-end bevels on the treble side are quite wide, and there is some tendency for the top string to slip over the end of the frets. This may not be present on all samples and it is easy to check before purchase.

The body and neck are made from good quality American mahogany and finished with a clear, hard lacquer, in their natural colour. The neck is nicely shaped at the back, but, to my taste, it feels a bit hard-edged where the sides of the neck meet the edges of the fingerboard.

The Preacher has 24 frets on the fingerboard and the bolted-on neck joins the body at the 18th fret. The body is deeply cut away on each side of the neck up to about the 23rd fret, so all 24 frets are accessible. Access to the top frets is a little cramped unless you have fairly small hands. I would be happier with a slightly wider cutaway, at least on the treble side. The bass-side cutaway looks interesting, but the body joint behind it is sufficiently square and bulky that I don't find the cutaway on this side to be of much practical use. A 24-fret guitar with a bolt-on neck is almost bound to involve some compromise, and there is at least reasonable access to all 24 frets on the treble strings, where it is of most use. The back of the neck changes from a rounded to a "square" cross section around frets 16 to 17. I do not think it would present any terrible problems to move this transition point up to the point where the neck meets the body. At the moment, the highest playable part of the neck is completely "square" at the back and I think this makes playing in the highest positions unnecessarily difficult. It is quite possible — but it could be easier.

Most of the metal fittings, including the solidly-constructed bridge, are gold-plated. Do not be misled by the plastic cover over the bridge assembly. It seems to be there for the player's comfort. The bridge underneath is made from substantial brass and/or bronze parts and has a solid 3-point mounting to the body. The angle of the bridge assembly, and the height of the hand-rest relative to the strings, can be varied over a limited range by a large nut inside the battery compartment. On our sample, the B-string machine head has a slightly tough and imprecise movement and is below the standard of the other machines on. the instrument.

Stephen Delft

 

Measurements on Ovation Preacher Deluxe No. 12324

Scale length 628mm

String spacing at bridge 53mm

String spacing at nut 35mm

Fingerboard width at nut 42mm

Action as suplied 0.4mm treble/2mm bass (see text)

Depth of neck at 1st fret 20mm

Depth of neck at 12th fret 22m

Depth of neck at 15th fret 23mm

Body begins at fret 18 at back of neck

Cutaways begin at fret 22