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Ovation CC245 12-String

 

Review of the Ovation CC245 Electro-Acoustic 12-String by The Man in the Jar 

Features of the Ovation CC245 12-String  

Tuners - Twelve sealed, Ovation branded mini-tuners work well. For those not familiar with the logistics of a twelve string, the strings are arranged in six pairs and are tuned like this:

E - octave high;
E - concert pitch;

A - octave high;
A - concert pitch;

D - octave high;
D - concert pitch;

G - octave high;
G - concert pitch;

B - concert pitch;
B - concert pitch;

E - concert pitch;
E - concert pitch.

Headstock - The headstock on a 12-string has to be large to accommodate the extra tuning machines and sometimes looks unbalanced or even unwieldy. But the distinctive scalloped Ovation headstock remains very elegant after the required stretching and retains a good visual balance. The truss-rod is accessed through the sound-hole so there's no truss-rod cover on the headstock.

Nut - The white plastic nut abuts the fretboard and is accurately cut to fit the varying string gauges.

Neck - The nato neck has a nice slim depth which emphasises the extra width of the fretboard; 47mm at the nut and 57mm at the 12th fret. The extra space is needed for accurate fingering and, once you get used to it, becomes part of a pleasurable playing experience. 

Fretboard - The light brown rosewood fretboard has a subtle stripe in the grain and is finished all round with white binding. The markers are very small abalone dots. 

Frets - The medium flat-profile frets are well finished but, as with many Chinese-made instruments, are not as well polished as they might be. This solves itself after short time once the frets are "played in".

Action - The action was good straight from the box. It's an absolute necessity for a 12 string to have a decent action otherwise it's virtually unplayable.

Body - Ovation are the Daddy of bowl-backs and this one is of standard Ovation Lyrachord construction. The bowl-back is a very comfortable type to hold and play but there are negative effects for the acoustic (un-amplified) voice of the instrument. The top of the guitar is spruce with a pinstripe edge-binding. The rosette decoration on the sound-hole is a simple and attractive abalone ring. The single cutaway offers increased access to the upper frets for the more adventurous amongst you. 

Bridge - The large rosewood bridge supports a white plastic saddle that is compensated at the 2nd pair of strings for improved intonation. Behind the saddle is an integral stop-tail. Each pair of strings dives through an individually routed hole and the ball-ends are secured in a slot at the base of the bridge.  

Pickup - An Ovation Slimline pickup sits under the bridge.

Controls - The Ovation pickup drives an Ovation OP4BT preamp. The control panel sits in the top "edge" of the bowl at the waist, just behind the separate battery compartment. There's a small rotary to control the Gain and three sliders for Bass, Middle and Treble. There's also a nifty onboard tuner which is very useful for spot-checking the tuning.   

Strap-buttons - Two quite small strap buttons, one on the upper bout by the neck, the other is on the base of the body.

Output This is well out of the way on the lower back of the bowl. 

Finish - Very good apart from the minor niggle about the frets.

 

Sound of the Ovation CC245 12-String

I find that the standard Ovation voice is very well-suited to the 12-string format with the drone effect of the paired strings making up for any depth of tone that the plastic bowl-back body may lack. This translates particularly well to the amplified sound with the Ovation chiming sweetly with a lovely Harpsichord-like tone. The EQ has a wide enough range to tweak the tone to your personal preference and I had a very hard time to get the Ovation to feedback at all. 

 

Overall Impressions of the Ovation CC245 12-String

The Ovation CC245 is a pleasure to play. It's a very comfortable guitar to hold or wear and this makes the necessarily more difficult job of controlling 12 strings a lot easier to master. I've always considered Ovation to be the natural choice for a musician who has to play in an amplified situation because that is what this series of guitars has been specifically designed to do. This is doubly true if you need the fullness of tone and distinctive voicings of a 12 string.

Buy the Ovation CC245 12-String

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