Although you recognise an Ovation guitar by its sound, you certainly know it by its shape! Before the company first hit the market 10 years ago, it seemed that acoustic guitar design and technology had reached its limit — Ovation changed all that.

Ovation's unique and original approach to guitar acoustics led to the 'roundback' design. This bowl shape, together with the exclusive 'Lyrachord' material used in its construction is what gives that characteristic Ovation sound — full, rich and clean with incredible projection. Within a short space of time the word spread about Ovation guitars and suddenly all the stars were playing them.

Not content with producing impeccable acoustic guitars, Ovation tackled one of the most difficult areas of instrument design — an electric acoustic. As with all their products, Ovation technicians by-passed much of the recognised thinking on the subject of amplifying acoustic guitars and set about their own research. The result was a pick-up which really makes the acoustic guitar sound like an acoustic guitar.

Not only did they place a piezo electric crystal under each string to pick up both string and top vibration, but added a FET pre-amplifier for greater flexibility and natural sound. These guitars, above all others, are used widely by artists on stage thereby completely eliminating the problem of miking up.

Finally, the only instrument left for Ovation to conquer was the solid electric guitar, and this they did in their usual style. A superb shape, which owed nothing to any existing design, plus a sound which could match and better anything around made the Ovation electrics instant winners.

The ultimate test of Ovation products has come in their use by many of the world's top performers, who were perhaps more than a little swayed by the desire to own an instrument which was every bit as individual as themselves.

The Ovation Viper

The Ovation Viper is a beautiful single-cutaway electric guitar which sounds as good as it looks. Utilising top quality alder and maple together with specifically designed pickups, Ovation have ensured that their reputation for individuality in sound and design will be enhanced by the Viper.

The one-piece maple neck, which is both glued and bolted to the body for extra sustain, houses a fully adjustable tension rod. The single coil pick-up has more windings for higher output, the individual magnets are firmly embedded so cutting out any unwanted feedback, and an additional capacitor has been added between the volume control and the output jack to ensure bright punchy response with plenty of cut even at lower volume levels.

The Ovation Preacher

The Preacher is a double-cutaway solid which features double pick-ups with a refined low hum design. The pick-ups are the essential of the Preacher guitar, because Ovation have engineered a double-coil humbucker pick-up that is totally new, yet preserves all the best tonal qualities of traditional design.

Each Preacher pick-up has two opposing coils, with six magnets set into each bobbin. By eliminating the single bar magnet concept by wrapping the coils in opposite directions, Ovation have produced a strong pick-up that is a full 20dB quieter than most humbuckers.

A stereo output jack fitted to the Preacher (as well as the standard mono output socket) lets you plug the Preacher into two amps or into both channels of a single amp.

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