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The Godin 5th Avenue Jazz. I've seen a few threads here about it, with many people saying - without having played one - that they would opt for an Eastman instead. Well, after playing one today, and having played a few good-quality Eastmans in the past, I would say that honours are even.
This Godin is a VERY good jazz guitar, and nothing at all like the other 5th Avenue guitars. I wish Godin had given it another name, as the association with the cheaper 5th Avenues is way off the mark.
It sounded good acoustically, which is often a good sign, but when put through a Peavy 30 watt valve amp, it really, really blossomed. One volume, one tone, one floating Godin minihumbucker - the bass was velvety, not at all boomy, and the trebles just jumped out with a punch and sparkle. Great for complex chord voicings, but bebop and blues lines too. The action was easily adjustable without detuning the strings.
I was impressed. Did I buy it? I'm VERY close. Can't make my mind up between it and a Peerless Cremona. Unfortunately, I've not been able to get my hands on a Cremona, but they look very attractive. UK prices are way above US prices (we can't believe it when you US guys moan about prices!) but whether Eastman, Peerless or Godin, they are all expensive here.
Now I'm home and writing this, I keep hearing those beautiful sounds, still resonating round my ears...Maybe...They've offered me a very generous discount too... I wonder if the store is open on a Sunday?
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09-22-2012 10:12 AM
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It sounds to me that no matter which one you pick, you'll wind up with a great guitar. From what I've gathered from this site, they all have great reputations. Good luck with your choice.
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Hi,
I do own a 5th avenue jazz. I agree with you that it suffer by being listed as "another flavor" of the 5th avenue line. The first thing I did was to replace the wierd .10 string for chromes 12 and lower the action. I am happy since.
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They're beautiful guitars...bad naming/ marketing by Godin.
They've got a Fifth Ave. composer model out too...single set humbucker...saw it advertised in the latest downbeat...
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thanks for the interesting news Rob! I agree that the name choice was a bit unfortunate as many people have been scratching their heads in view of the price difference. I certainly like Godin guitars and have several - but for some reason I have never strongly bonded with my Kingpin II and hence I have also never seriously considered the Jazz model.
IMHO, Godins are generally nice sounding, well made and are quite innovative. Perhaps they lack a bit of the mojo of a nice Gibson but maybe I am also hearing with my eyes on the headstock :-) ... the Godins are nice and have excellent price/performance ratios.
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I know exactly what you mean, Frank. I would love a classic Gibson jazz box, a Super 400, L5, 175, etc, but they are so expensive, and, quite frankly, of varying quality. I actually went to the store to ask them about part-exchange for the gorgeous new 1959 reissue 175, but, alas, they were not interested in what I had to offer. Anyway, as they crunched numbers, thinking about things, I took the Godin down to pass the time - and I was REALLY surprised by it. I honestly prefer it over the Peerless Manhattan and Eastman (can't remember the model number, but it was one of the more expensive ones) so it seems to me to be a good purchase.
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Rob, very interested in your assessment of the 5th Avenus's acoustic properties. My next purchase is a solid or carved archtop with a floater that is strong acoustically.
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Well, my main archtop for acoustic work is The Loar LH700, which is a fine guitar, but it has no pickup. When I came to thinking about buying an electric archtop I thought it could go one of two ways - an amplified acoustic sound, like the normal acoustic sound but louder, or something which does not hide the fact it is an electric guitar. The Godin Jazz seems to be placed about half way, and with the right amp could go either way. Through an acoustic amp, I think it could have a great acoustic archtop vibe; through a slightly overdriven amp, I think it could sound great for anything from Charlie Christian to Kenny Burrell, maybe even as far as Pat Martino (though not from my hands - I can only dream of that virtuosity!).
I'm in danger of claiming it to be the greatest guitar ever, which of course it is far from being. But in its price range, I think it is a solid jazz guitar, and deserves respect. Maybe in a week or so I'll manage to throw a video together.
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I have a Kingpin, and while the Jazz is a higher end model in almost every way, there are still a lot of similarities.
As far as i know they have the same size except for the cutaway, the neck is identical, the tuners are the same, they are both laminated, they have the same frets, binding, saddle and (similar) tailpiece.
When I played a Jazz model recently I was wowed by the sound, but the actual playing experience was similar to the Kingpin, which is a truly comfortable guitar to play. The light weight is a real plus.
On the other hand, the glossy finish and figured veneer really sets off the Jazz in appearance, and the floating pickup gives a more traditional Wes/Kenny type sound than the Kingpin, which has a grittier, more acoustic, gypsy jazz kind of vibe.
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Just made a video of the Godin Jazz - unplugged:
Carl Kress, Godin Jazz Unplugged, and Me
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What I'm waiting for is one with the Jazz's specs but with a single P90.
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+1. And with the price of a regular kingpin too...
Originally Posted by RyanM
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Very nice Rob! You are a wonderful guitar player and I always enjoy listening to you. I was actually surprised by full and rich the guitar sounded accoustically. I did not expect that at all from a not-so-big, not-so-thick laminate guitar and the regular kingpin is a bit underwhelming in that respect (IMHO). I think one difference that I saw Robert Godin mentioning in some video is that it has a thicker top that also is built differently in the jazz compared to the regular Kingpin. Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I think many people here would be interested to also here how the guitar sounds plugged in as there is not too much out there on YouTube.
Anyways, I hope that you enjoy your new guitar and have much fun with it!
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Thanks, Frank. I do want to record it through an amp. I bought it because of its sound through the Peavy Classic 30 I tried it with in the store, when it sounded magnificent. But my amps at home are terrible, and I would be doing it a disservice by using them. So, I'm on the lookout for a better amp. A student of mine brought me a Vox 4w all-tube amp, with an attenuator down to 1 watt and a 1/4 watt, but I don't like the sound of that either. I don't want a Classic 30 in my living room, so the search continues. I've been in touch with Mambo Amps, and will be getting a trial amp from them before long. Stay tuned.
Glad you like the acoustic sound. It is a very different experience from a regular Kingpin - I have hands-on experience of both. The Jazz is a higher-quality instrument.
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Rob, I'll appreciate your input on the Mambo amp. Put up a few clips, if Jon Shaw does not mind.
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No sign of it on the Godin website, unless it is the Composer which, with its rosewood fingerboard, is placed lower than the Jazz model.
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I agree, the Composer or the Kingpin with 2 p90s, though both with fairly rich sound, are far below the Jazz. And I know the cost is significantly higher than Godin's price range, but remember is still about half what costs some other of that quality, lets say a Gibson 175.
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any more Composer reviews here? I have one on order!
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I played a Composer, a Jazz, a new Gibson ES-175 1959 VOS, and a current standard ES-175 back to back recently. I was really interested in the Composer, because on paper, it seems like a nice, less expensive alternative to a 175. The '59 VOS ES175 sounded and played the best of all the guitars. It is very light compared to the standard ES-175. It also cost more than twice the price of either of the Godins, but was not twice the guitar. The floating mini-humbucker Jazz surprisingly had more punch than the fixed-humbucker Composer and would be my choice of the Godins. Both are light and very easy to play. The standard 175 was heavy and the dog in the bunch. It also cost a lot more than the Godins, but a little less than the '59 VOS 175.
My assessment after having the opportunity play all these in the same sitting is that you get a lot of bang for the buck with any of the Godins. I'll probably jump on a Jazz when the right deal comes along.
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I have owned a Godin jazz for about a year. When I was considering buying it I saw many people suggesting you should just get an Eastman, but I had come to Godin by way of Seagull and wanted to give their top of the line jazz box a shot.
It plays beautifully, looks great, and feels great in your hands. Put it through an amplifier and make the proper adjustments and it sounds great as a jazz guitar, everything I'd hoped for. But, unplugged or plugged in, there's also a nasal flatness to the sound that means I've been rolling the tone off to 2-3 to get the sound where I like it. I assumed that as an archtop played as an acoustic guitar, I couldn't hope for more.
Then I picked up an Eastman at my friend's house (Ar-145CE-SB). And acoustically it sounded like the full, dialed in tone I get the Godin to, except fuller. I happened to have my guitar there at the time and went back and forth playing them. My hands liked playing the Godin just as much, but the Eastman sounded many multiples better unplugged, and my playing was that much more creative as a result. I didn't compare them plugged in because I didn't have an amplifier.
So I'm selling the Jazz. I've decided to give Godin one more shot and ordered the Godin Montreal. I think it should be able to achieve a full warm sound (I love mahogany as a tonewood) that will be rich and full since it's carved from real wood. It will also let me reach outside the jazz tone to play more easily in other styles.
If I'm not happy with the Montreal, I'm selling both the Jazz and the Montreal to get an Eastman and never looking back.
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Prepare to be dissapointed. Sounds like you want a solid wood archtop. Why not get one?
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Exactly what my friend said. And to be fair, I can easily sell both these guitars and get an Eastman and that's what I'll do if this guitar doesn't work out.
But I'm also not exclusively a jazz guy. My playing is a little more diatonic, a little less substitution ridden than most jazzers, but I also am continuously walking my own bass lines. So... It's complicated? I don't think I have the chops to call myself a jazz guitarist, but I also play music that's way more harmonically diverse than most rock, including a bunch of standards. So I'm torn. And maybe the point is I need to have a separate guitar for both.
Still, you don't think the Godin Montreal will be able to pull off a convincing jazz tone? I'm not positive, but I do love Godin's playability, and have even owned and enjoyed their solid-body Mahogany guitar.
I'll see. And maybe you're right. I'll know when the I get the Montreal in the mail!
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Oh, absolutely it can...but it's not going to have that acoustic tone of the Eastman...the Montreal is very much an electric guitar. A fine one...the only thing I didn't like about it was it sat kind of weird on my lap...nothing a strap can't fix.
You should try that Eastman plugged in...you might be surprised with the brightness.
9 out of 10 people say "warm fat jazz tone" and the guitar they're describing is a laminate box with a set neck humbucker.
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Chazmo,
Funny you should mention it. I was just taking some pictures and about to quote you here:
Make me an offer! I was about to drop it on eBay for 850 and see where it went from there. If you want to pursue this, I'd still want to do it through eBay so we'd both have built in protections against fraud, but I'd be happy to coordinate so you know when it posts and can grab it. Originally Posted by Chazmo
Here she is:
The back of the neck is fairly hard to photograph, but it's in great shape and I can post the pics if you want them. So here's the flaws:
There is a slight indentation you can see here, just at the octave on top of the guitar. The indentation pushes in about a grain of rice worth, and as you can see no finish was lost. Honestly, I've come to find it useful as a way of knowing where the octave, but it was the biggest flaw when I got it.
Here you can see there are extremely fine scratches at the center of the back of the instrument. These same scratches aren't visible in the picture of the back above, which should give you some impression how small they are. They were honestly difficult to photograph, but I want to be honest here.
And here you can see that above the tuning peg for the A string, there is another hairline scratch.
Whether you're interested or not, it's fine, but I'm glad I took the time to take the pictures either way. She's a beauty, but not for me.
If you'd like, you can request a standard and I'll a part of it on her so you can see she's still fully functional and can make fun of my chord voicings.
Oh, that's bullshit spellcheck, voicings is definitely a word.
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Mr. Beaumont,
You may be right on the acoustic vs. electric thing. What it's really going to come down to for me on the acoustic side is whether I need good volume overall or just good tone that I can hear resonating through the instrument. Really no way to know until I put the instrument in my hands.
How do you guys deal with this, as players of somewhat rare and great instruments? Do you have preferred stores where you go to try out the stock? Mostly try friends guitars?
If all I ever wanted to play was Fenders and Schecters I wouldn't have to ask, but there's no store near me that carries a complete line of Godin's, Eastmans and other great brands I wish I could be testing out.
Thoughts?
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Moffa Mithra
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