Seagull Guitars Maritime SWS CH CW Presys II Acoustic-electric Guitar - Natural Reviews

I ordered this for my son. He's been playing guitar for about a year now and has been diligently practicing his picking because he wants to learn to play some modern acoustic rock songs. He's been playing my guitars. I thought it was time that he had his own acoustic guitar so we could play songs together. I gave him a few options that were all in about this price range, different sizes including a Rialto (which looked really fun to play) and an all-Mahogany topped model (which would have been my choice for recording), explained as best I could the differences in size and body style and tone, and let him play demo videos for as long as he wanted. He picked this one as a relatively middle-of-the-road model with the classic spruce/mahogany combination. I chose the actual guitar based on the pictures - I picked one with a little more character in the top, some little stripes in the grain, and we got that one. It's a very pretty top in my opinion! We also got a nice Gator case and humidifier packs.

It arrived very well-packed in perfect shape, and close to perfectly in tune. I really, really like the matte, not glossy and not thick, finish. It feels very nice and doesn't look like the whole thing is covered in a thick layer of syrup like some guitars do. I had paid for a basic setup job and it is pretty well set up. I thought they were going to ask how I wanted it, but they didn't, so it arrived with a middle-of-the-road setup. No buzzing anywhere. The action is not super-low so it's not great for a beginner, but the intonation is absolutely spot on. It sounds great although I wouldn't call it super-easy to play. I will see if tweaking the truss rod a bit might help. I might put silk and steel strings on it to give his fingers a little break while he develops as a player. The nut slots are cut fairly high. I probably should have sprung for Sweetwater's bone nut upgrade. Maybe next time, or maybe we can get the nut replaced somewhere locally, but there's no great rush.

Right out of the box it sounded a bit brassy and twangy, a little too bright for my taste, but I told my son that after breaking in the strings a bit _and_ simply playing it a lot the sound of the body would "open up" and become more resonant in the mid and low tones, and I was right. It's been a couple weeks and I have restrained myself from playing his guitar but today I borrowed it and gave it a good workout to see how it responds to some louder strumming and the tone is just gorgeous - very long sustain, a lot of natural reverb - I'm surprised by how long it "rings," great projection, and it puts out a whole spectrum of harmonics that you often don't hear on less resonant instruments. In fact some jazzy chords with very closely spaced notes that I avoid playing on other guitars because they produce some nasty overtones, really sound very consonant and beautiful on this guitar.

The locking strap pegs are great. The electronics seem pretty middle of the road but the tuner works well and it sounds fine through an amp. I haven't recording it with my Focusrite interface or run it into my SSL SiX but I expect it to sound fine.

Overall I'd highly recommend this as an "intermediate" quality guitar that really is built very well for the price. It should age well if you keep it humidified and play it regularly. If you can afford the upgrade I'd recommend going for Sweetwater's bone nut upgrade since the stock nut doesn't seem great, although it works fine.