Review: 2000s Applause AE-28 Thinbody Acoustic/Electric Guitar

Another customer's guitar... and gold-sparkle at that! These inexpensive Applause creations used to be all over the place but I haven't been seeing them much of late. They're practical and sturdy, don't sound too bad, but compared to the US-made Ovations they tend to have structural problems as they age: most notably the bridge will need to be shaved (as in this case) to get the action lower as the bracing on these lends itself to a rising belly and a pulled-forward neck area. It comes with the territory.

The gold-sparkle finish is 50s cool but the guitar itself is so far removed from the 50s that to my eyes it's a bit space-alien. The undersaddle pup... sounds like an undersaddle pup... but it's perfectly useful for rock-band performance if you like to fiddle with the EQ a lot.

The thin body makes this ideal for lugging around, of course, though you get a pretty mid-range response pattern because of its depth. Also because of the thinness you get notes leaping out right up front rather than bouncing around for longer sustain which could be a benefit to someone who plays a lot of choppy closed-position chords.

So... that's that!