Returning to Canadian-made Godin brand guitars after many years of exploring other brands/makes, and a very happy return it has been. This is a beautifully made and robust-feeling guitar. The focus of the guitar is on quality tonewood selection and build, with very simple but well-executed decorative elements, such as the guitar stain/finish and painted rosette. The neck shape is very comfortable, a bit of a flat C shape, and the fit and finish is top-notch. The top, back and sides are Sapele as confirmed to me by Godin customer support. The tone when it arrived was good, but not particularly unique or notable. I swapped the strings to John Pearse nickel strings which adds a bell-like definition to notes and moderates the zing on the bottom strings. After setup and a few days of heavy playing between finger-picking and strumming, the tone has opened up significantly and specific characteristics such as a bit of growl on the lower notes, ringing high notes, and richer fuller notes across all strings have become more present. The tone is dark and warm, with a touch of brightness that balances out well. Projection and resonance are there in spades and the guitar really sings after having a bit of a break-in period and a custom setup. The only negative comment I have is that I wish they would've included TUSQ bridge pins instead of the ivory plastic ones that came with it. Since the nut and bridge are TUSQ, it would've made sense to have the bridge pin material match as well.

Godin guitars have always presented excellent value and quality for the cost, especially when compared to other popular brands. I'm glad it has only improved since my first Canadian guitar over a decade ago!

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It's beautiful, a fun size to play, great value, and I love the North American construction and tradition. The onboard electronics have a small dynamic range (little difference between the top and bottom end of the dial), which seems typical of onboard electronics generally. Whatever the finish is on the headstock, it must be very soft because it is easily chipped by a String Swing guitar hanger. These hooks that a lot of us use have a hard plastic cap on the prongs, and it turns out that that plastic, which has never damaged my other guitars, actually has the potential to leave a mark.

I purchased one of these as a quality gigging guitar a few months ago and it really shines for that. The Fishman Presys VT pickup is warm and full sounding, not harsh or "quacky" at all--it's the first UST pickup I've ever liked (and I'm pretty finicky about "tone")and it has plenty of output! My other guitar is a Martin with a K&K and I feel no need to swap out the stock pickup on this. I don't have to tweak my rig when switching between my Martin and my Godin Folk.
Like all guitars, it needed to be set-up to my preferences, and has great playability, resonance and sensitivity to touch for chording and single note leads. The neck is comfortable and the tuners do their job.
Acoustically, mine was a little too bright for my tastes stock, and so I changed the strings to GHS Silk and Bronze medium lights and swapped the saddle out for a bone one. These inexpensive changes warmed it up considerably and I love it. The all mahogany body with these strings on it really "growls" now in the mid and lower registers and overall, the tone is quite balanced. I have subsequently tried other examples of this guitar in stores and they have not been as bright acoustically as mine was stock.
As I play it more, the guitar seems to be "opening up" and sounds progressively richer. If you're looking for a quality, all solid mahogany, smaller body guitar (it's about the size of a standard classical guitar) I recommend The Godin Folk guitar! It has some sweet, musical mojo in it that makes me want to keep playing it.

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