This guitar is of all solid wood construction featuring mahogany back, neck and sides; a Sitka Spruce top with spruce bracing; a beautiful African Ebony fingerboard and bridge
I have long heard of the Larrivee brand and the high standard of instrument they produce. Unofortunately I had never been able to get my hands on one, but now that I have, they're not getting it back!
This guitar is of all solid wood construction featuring mahogany back, neck and sides; a Sitka Spruce top with spruce bracing; a beautiful African Ebony fingerboard and bridge and features an LR Baggs “iBeam” pickup system. You also get symmetrical parabolic X-bracing, hand fit dovetail neck joint, Abalone Rosette, Pearl Logo w/ Sterling Silver Border, Chrome Tuners (18:1 Ratio), ivoroid fretboard binding, Larrivee custom beveled pickguard, TUSQ nut, compensated TUSQ saddle, and Microdot fretboard markers.
The first thing that strikes me apart from the beauty of this guitar is how great the neck feels. The neck has a matte finish which makes it feel “fast”. It's a little thing but something a seasoned player would notice and appreciate. Next thing that struck me was the TONE! It is so well balanced with just the right amount of bass, mids and treble. This guitar excels at fingerpicking with the notes ringing loud and clear across the room! There is a mid range “brashness” that enables this guitar to really cut. When it comes to strumming, more of that mid range things becomes evident, whilst not a big, luxurious type of sound, probably due to the body size, it has a nasty dirty “hill country” type of thing that I really love. I think you could probably get a little more bottom end “bloom” by raising the action slightly, but straight out of the case this one feels and sounds fantastic.
Upon plugging this baby in I was impressed by the amount of tonal adjustment you can get. The “iBeam” features a powerful three-band EQ, phase switch and notch filter for taming nasty feedback and a blend knob that allows you to blend between two different pickups! I personally found that having about 75% “element” pickup and the remainder “iBeam” gave the plugged in sound the right amount of direct signal with just a little bit of air around the sound.
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This instrument is incredibly stable both tuning and tone wise. It looks elegant and not overdone and at around $2,500 is well worth the investment. The craftsmanship is faultless and it is set up impeccably. As I say…they are going to have a hard time getting this guitar back out of my hands…its feels like the kind of instrument that you should be inspired to write with and perform on. Now…where to hide this thing?