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Pros:
- 12 strings
- Relatively Affordable
- Great Tonewood Combination
- Captivating Sound
Cons:
- Need an amp for full effect
- High pressure on the neck
Hollow body guitars are a lovely type of instrument, one with many sound and play benefits. Unique in so many ways. So when you take a 12 string guitar and combine it with a hollow body guitar, you are entering a whole new dimension of interesting sound. The combination of the good would technically make a guitar like this up for consideration already, but the fact that there is one such instrument of high quality, makes it worthy to talk about. Let’s a look at the Dean BOCA 12 String Semi Hollow Body.
Body Quality
The design of the guitar follows more or less in the traditions of all the other hollow body guitars in the industry. The dual cutaway shape of the neck, the two wings and the rounded bottom of the guitar all make for a rather handsome, if a little classical, looking instrument. The solid, full body color styles of the guitar make it look classy, though the black version is my definite favorite. The f holes are on both sides and look rather appealing. Overall, a nice design.
The body of the guitar is made out of a combination of maple and mahogany .The top of the guitar is flamed maple, while the back and the sides are made of mahogany. This results in the very nice accomodation of all of the guitar’s 12 strings. The maple top allows the guitar to have some very bright and expressive high and mid tones, while the mahogany back and sides provides the guitar with a nice level of bass resonance. The construction is sturdy and resistant to most types damage.
The neck of the guitar is made out of maple. THis is a traditional choice of tonewood for most guitars, and it is a good one. It provides the instrument with a good level of sturdiness and warp resistance, promising a long and fulfilling life for the guitar. Unfortunately the level of pressure exerted by the 12 strings on the neck of the guitar make the job so much harder. To further enhance the stability and the sturdiness of the guitar, the neck is set into the body of the instrument. The fretboard of the guitar is made out of rosewood.
Hardware
The guitar comes with an adjustable bridge system and a tailpiece. This allows the guitar a customizable level of action, god string stability and the ability to bend your notes a whole bunch.
The nut of the guitar is made out of a mid-level synthetic material. This allows the guitar to mitigate most of the string noise that would be associated with a 12 string electric guitar.
The tuning machine of the guitar is very well designed and does its job properly. The instrument is able to keep its tuning for adequate amounts of time, which is always nice with a 12-string guitar.
Electronics
The guitar comes with a two-pickup setup, with one pickup at the neck the other at the bridge. The two humbuckers are designed to be able to pick up as much sound with as much output and detail as possible. Anything else would be inadequate with a 12 string guitar. They do their job decently enough and have a long enough lifespan. Good stuff.
The controls of the instrument are fairly simple, you get one master volume knob, one master tone knob and a three way pickup configuration selector.
Dean BOCA 12 String Sound
The sound of the guitar, as you would expect of a 12 string instrument, is rather captivating, though you will have to keep your humbuckers on if you want to get the full effect. The thing with the hollow body guitars is that they are not able to express the full range of sound that comes with a 12-string guitar in acoustic mode. Though the output is great and the humbuckers and the tonewoods do a rather great job of resonating and producing all of the 12-string sounds. Overall, rather lovely.
Conclusion
There are not a whole lot of 12-string hollow body guitars out there that I would be so confident in recommending. This is one of them. Providing a great sound and being relatively affordable, it is definitely a great choice for many players.
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