Godin A6 Ultra Koa Review

[jonfields45]

I've had this guitar a few months as an upgrade to my former performing guitar, a Fender (Fishman Aura IC equipped) Acoustasonic Telecaster. Aura systems have always sounded good to me, but somehow a little too processed. I bought the A6 thinking the beautiful Koa was too good to ignore and at least I had to pay round trip shipping to check it out. What surprised me was a simple UST could sound a bit better than the Aura in my Tele. The A6 neck humbucker is as usable for my purposes the Tele single coil, but what was a surprise is how well the A6's two pickups blend together. It never sounded right, to my ear, to mix them on the Tele. For the A6, I am perfectly happy switching from pure acoustic rhythm to a lead line by mixing in the neck humbucker (I guess from my Tele training, I do have the A6 active EQ treble railed for the humbucker...) until I get the volume boost (and better punch for the high E and B strings) that I used to achieve by switching entirely to the neck single coil on the Tele.

So out of curiosity I pulled the back plate on the A6 and took some pictures, which are posted below. What shocked me was the complexity of the A6's design. I can only speculate that labor must be very inexpensive in Quebec as I can imagine a much simpler design.

The top is a Koa veneer on solid book match quarter sawn cedar. The maple bridge plate extends to the sides of the guitar and is shaped at the ends like a brace. Two longitudinal spruce braces are notched to pass over the bridge plate. A third center line longitudinal brace only runs from the neck to the bridge plate. The cross brace in the lower bout runs between the two longitudinal braces. The two cross braces between the bride plate and neck are notched to pass over the three longitudinal braces. The back is made of three pieces of silver maple with a bookmatch veneer under the finish. The back has three spruce cross braces. The back is not milled to full depth all the way to the edges in the lower bout, presumably to reduce the size of the resonant cavity. However, the top does run most of the way to the side before being glued to the back.

For the electronics installation, they used push on connectors to attached the output jacks to the main circuit board, but hand soldered the pickup wires to copper pedestals with good clearance from the back route. Thus if you wanted to swap out the UST or neck humbucker, it would be a relatively simple soldering job.

As a retired engineer, I could easily imagine thickening the back; and then dispensing with the back bracing, the wider lower bout sides, and much of the complexity in the top design. I can only assume Godin in 40 years of building this type of guitar feels the complexity is justified in the tone of the product. And my experience seems to verify that.

Jon

















http://s646.photobucket.com/user/jon...%20Ultra%20Koa

[southpaw pete]

Thanks for the review and pics.
What a beautiful guitar! I currently play their Exit22 model, and am VERY happy with it. It just feels like an extension of me when I pick it up, if that makes sense. I have also been very curious about trying the A6 Ultra one of these days. I've watched a few demos of them online, and thought the plugged-in acoustic tone is surprisingly nice. However, all of the videos I saw had the musician playing a clean jazzy sound on the electric side (which also did sound very nice). But how does the humbucker sound and respond to some low to mid gain overdrive?

[jonfields45]

The neck humbucker, with the EQ set flat, is definitely a fat jazz tone. But, if you pull back the bass and rail the treble on max, it sounds great through an overdrive pedal for crunchy rhythm and leads. I am using the Twin Reverb model in a Zoom MS50G for my overdrives. The A6 is live enough acoustically for practicing at home and is probably too resonant for high gain distortions at anything more than modest stage volumes. As you can see in the pictures the strings are not grounded. I kind of like not providing a ground return through my body to my guitar! So far rooms that would make my Tele neck pickup hum are dead quiet with the A6's neck humbucker, even with ungrounded strings.

A few other thoughts... The A6 Ultra ships these days with pure nickel wrap 12s. I put nickel plated steel 11s (still a wound G) on it and that brightened the electric tone considerably and did not change the amplified acoustic tone noticeably. It also gave the A6 a much more electric feel.

I don't think any of the A6 videos on YouTube do it justice. I think it sounds as good as the best UST systems in full acoustic guitars when amplified.

My A6 is a few ounces over 6 lbs., which makes it more than a pound lighter than the typical (now discontinued) Acoustasonic Telecaster.

Finally the Acoustasonic Tele used to get about 25 hours of battery life. The 200+ hour plus rating of the A6's very simple preamp is a nice plus.

Jon

[Joe F]

Heyo, it's "joecobra99" from eBay! Small world.

That Koa model sure is pretty! As you may remember, I have the Fender Tele model. How is the quack factor on the Godin? That is what I've liked most about the Aura on the Tele. It's very quack proof. Also is the nut width the same? That's probably the only thing I don't like about the Tele when coming back to it from my Taylors. My fretting fingers just feel all squished together.

[jonfields45]

Hi Joe,

No quack, but I also find the latest Fishman Prefix systems perfectly acceptable (so you know I'm no golden ear). I measured the nut as 1 11/16".

It is my theory, that the 1000+ tap FIR in an Aura introduces just enough latency to sound unnatural to me (not claiming that everyone would be bothered by this) and makes blending it with the low/no latency neck pickup even worse, to my ear.

Thanks,
Jon

[GrandDadgad]

Another endorsement for the Godin A6 Ultra. I have the original cedar topped model and use if when part of our worship team. I have alot more control over the sound by blending the humbucker witht the ust. It gives the sound more depth and substance.

I have also run it split: ust into Fishman Loudbox Mini and hmb into Roland 80xl. (Talk about stereo separation!) I found I tweaked too much when I run it into two amps though.

Thanks for the photos of the internal stuff. I was curious but not brave to open it up.

One more thing. When our electric guitar player heard the guitar in the mix he was surprised when he saw the humbucker on it. Actually was confused. The acoustic sound sold him and he is a stickler for sound!

[jonfields45]

I am running the A6, unsplit, through a Zoom MS50G directly to our mixer. I have cascaded a few boost stages in the MS50G programming to get its output up to line levels (our low end Mackie does not have enough instrument/mic channels to use one of them for my guitar). For acoustic parts I am adding a small amount of hall reverb, though I do have the graphic EQ inserted into the programming, set flat, in case I might need it (not so far). For electric parts I am using the Twin Reverb model, EQ set flat with the "presence" at 50%, followed by the spring reverb model. I've got the the Twin model set with the initial gain high enough that railing the neck volume on the A6 gives me a good lead overdrive tone. The A6's native equalization is typically set with a slight treble cut for the UST, and the bass all the way down with the treble all the way up, for the neck humbucker.

Jon

[kramster]

I have an A6 Ultra too...I really like it

[jonfields45]

I tried out an unwound G-string and thought the impact to the plugged-in acoustic tone was not noticeable and it enabled all sorts of old rock licks I gave up playing 30+ years ago when I went acoustic in grad school. The intonation with the compensated saddle was not good for that string. Graphtec makes a G+B compensated saddle, but it is for a Taylor (probably T5) and for some reason Godin's saddle is 1/16" longer (why the world needs yet another saddle dimension I do not know!). So I made an uncompensated bone saddle using a Stew Mac blank. Leaving the same strings on before and after, and having no expectation of hearing any difference, I was quite surprised that both the acoustic tone and the plugged-in acoustic tone are noticeably improved. I no longer want to back off the treble when plugged-in. The overall intonation sounds fine and is as close as can be measured with a Snark.

Since I've lightened up the strings considerable from the 12s it was shipped with, I loosened the truss rod. My second criticism of Godin is it appears to me they designed the truss rod opening for a nut driver, even though it takes a hex key, and more wood has been routed away than necessary. There is also a guide pin hole under the truss rod cover, which considering the propensity for headstocks to crack, seems like not the best location either.

In-spite of these small gripes I am liking this guitar better than ever.

Jon

[pjbelsch]

Hey,
I am really interested in getting the Godin a6 ultra koa. i am trying to view the pictures of the instrument you initially posted but they are no longer there any chance you still have them and can repost?

[hotroad]

I have a mint Godin A6 Ultra in Koa and is it stunning. I agree with all of the comments here about the tone and the versatility. How cool to be able to sound electric or sound acoustic or any blend of the two. Mine is up for sale so if you know anyone looking, please pass the word. I love mine but the stable is getting too small for all these great horses.

[jonfields45]

I must have deleted that library of pictures on Photobucket. I uploaded all of them again and here they are:

http://s646.photobucket.com/user/jon...n%20A6%20Ultra

It is a great guitar considering the price point. A T5 or T5z is more versatile with a bridge electric pickup but I think blending the UST and neck humbucker on an A6 is a prettier acoustic tone than the Taylors. I experimented with several different neck pickups and even added a string ground using a Platemate. I did not think any of the neck pickups I tried were worth the trouble and none worked as well as the stock pickup dual sourced with the UST. My local tech confused the 1/8" no glue perimeter around the bridge with it lifting and I had that reattached glued edge-to-edge (which Sweetwater paid for under warrantee).