1980 Ovation Celebrity CC65 12-String Guitar

In the back of my mind, lately, I've been steering my own instrument hoard towards having a good assortment of random gear to use for work on a few albums. I have a group of songs that I wanted a 12-string for so I went upstairs to see what was in my own stash of broken toys.

This is an Ovation Celebrity (read: Korean-made) that was given to me some time back as a thank-you, though I immediately spied the bad neck angle (and the fact that you can't reset it without tremendous pain) and so I left it for a very rainy day. I fixed this one up on a Sunday morning for myself, though to get it to play well required shady tactics -- the bridge got a shave, the saddle got brought down almost to the deck at the E pairs on both sides, and I changed the stringing method to "through top" stringing to get good back-angle on the now-lower saddle.

That means I just drilled a bunch of 1/16" holes and (tediously) loaded the strings through the soundhole rather than using bridge pins (because the bracing pattern prohibits pins on these). Hilariously, these drilled holes run through a ginormous ladder brace that sits directly under the bridge, so the ball-ends are snugged-up on the rear of this brace. Whatever works! After a level/dress of the frets and setup, it's now playing nice and easy -- and with that chimey, sustained, shimmer thing these synthetic-back 12s do so well. I also yanked-out and filled all the old holes for the pickup and wiring harness that used to be in it.

I have misplaced, ill-gotten, fond memories of those cheeseball shallow-bowl Ovation 12s from the late '90s (they sound like super-bouzoukis to me and couch-potato with you so easily) so eventually I hope to trade-out for one of them, but I figure one will walk-in someday so I don't have to hunt. This sucker will suffice in the meantime.