Plug It in, Turn It Up
The Fishman electronics sound great and
give the player a lot of flexibility. You’ve
got Notch and Volume knobs, four slider
controls for Brilliance, Treble, Contour, and
Bass, and another slider between the Phase
and Tuner buttons to set the EQ’s center
frequency between 250 Hz to 3 kHz.
Plugged into my Baggs Core 1, the C770T
sounds, well, tremendous. I pushed the
Contour Frequency slider slightly toward
the 3 kHz side, left everything else flat, and
sat on my couch for over an hour just enjoying
the rich, full, satisfying tones in as many
tunings as I could think of. The Fishman system
offers plenty of sparkle and definition.
The guitar’s amplified sound is warm, but
not mushy, with round bass and clear mids
that let the C770T soar, growl, snap, and
sing. It’s a beautiful thing. The preamp is
intuitively laid out and changing the battery
takes mere seconds.
I did have a chance to test this guitar in a
live performance. With my very rambunctious
drummer and bassist, this guitar held
up extremely well. I was able to turn up
loud enough to keep up with them and
had absolutely no feedback issues at all
using a Bose L1 sound system. We were
in a medium-sized club with surprisingly
good acoustics, considering that two of
the walls were almost entirely windows.
The warmth really enriched the total sound
of the trio, but the guitar and bass never
competed for sonic real estate.
The Verdict
The under-$1000 acoustic price range is
getting seriously competitive, with more
guitars than ever ramping up the quality,
playability, and tone to compete with
much more expensive instruments. The
C770T offers all that plus Fishman’s most
popular pickup and a really nice preamp,
making recommendation of the C770T in
this price range a no brainer.
Buy if...
you want a stage-ready, great
sounding, awesome playing $2000
guitar, but your budget will only
bear a fraction of that price.
Skip if...
you aren’t a fan of mahogany.
Rating...
