The Workhorse: Takamine ETN40C

The Workhorse
Takamine ETN40C
LIST: $1,649.00
WEB: www.takamine.com

Import brand guitars fight an uphill battle when attempting to sell in the states. In the relatively short time Takamine has been exporting to the U.S. (since 1975), they have enjoyed an amazing amount of success. Although the Takamine luthiers are top notch, what gave Tak their sales foothold was their proprietary electronics. In the 1980s, acoustic guitar pickups were terribly primitive; they sounded thin, had feedback issues and no controls. Takamine took a giant step forward by introducing six individual piezo transducers embedded in the bridge plate to sense both string and soundboard vibration. Takamine also pioneered the slider control preamp style for the acoustic-electric guitar. Takamine’s system quickly became the gold standard of acoustic electronics; a pickup-preamp system so good that Ricky Skaggs actually bought a Tak, removed the pickup, and installed it in his vintage Martin. (Ricky told me that he now wishes that either he or Joe Glaser, the Nashville repair guru, had the foresight to save the chunk of wood they hacked out of that poor, doomed Martin.) Garth Brooks, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen among others embraced Takamine as their go-to live acoustic, which helped confirm Takamine’s status as the workhorse among plug-in acoustic players.

The ETN40C is the latest version of Takamine’s popular Natural Series, first introduced in 1987. The idea behind the Natural Series was to remove all the glossy finish and fancy inlay and boil the guitar down to a basic “austere” look for a more “natural” feel and pure tone. Tonally, the ETN40C, a mini jumbo, aims for a balanced sound that fits nicely between the boom of a dreadnought and the chime of an OM body. In particular, Takamine’s design team worked to get a very even response for passages played above the 5th fret and beyond with enough bottom end to support finger-style lines and sweet mid range to sit well in a mix. The ergonomic cut-away gives players access above the 15th fret.

Takamine flawlessly constructs the ETN40C with a dovetail neck that helps bring out those low mids. The setup is perfect right out of the box, with the action a bit lower than most acoustics, which makes the ETN40C very easy to play. Some old bluegrassers will argue that low action hurts the tone, but if you’re going to plug in, those little nuances are almost always lost and worth the trade for playability.

Tak’s utilized a very practical bridge design in the ETN40C. The saddle is compensated for tuning, which is about as accurate as you’re going to find. They have eliminated bridge pins in favor of top-loading strings much like a 1958 Tele. Again, a design made for the working musician who has to change strings often and sometimes quickly and can’t afford to lose a bridge pin right before a 10 p.m. show. Of course, the main reason to buy a Tak remains its electronics, and the ETN40C is no exception, coming equipped with a CT-4BII, which includes a warm-sounding 3-Band graphic with an extremely stable and accurate chromatic tuner powered by one easy to reach 9-volt.

Read the rest of our “Recession-Ready Acoustics” feature from the July/August 2010 issue here.

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