Guitar Gear

Back in late 2017 when my friend passed on her late uncle’s guitars to me after she and her mom found them in their storage shed, one of the guitars she gave to me is this gorgeous Godin Artisan ST shown to the left. I was so enchanted by the Simon & Patrick PRO acoustic – which has since been with me on well over 100 gigs and is the acoustic I used on all my latest recordings – that I kind of forgot that I had this little beauty.

But while forum-lurking yesterday evening, I got into a discussion thread about Godin guitars and to jog my memory, I pulled the guitar out of its case where it has sat so I could give it a thorough inspection.

As soon as I took it out, I said out loud: Why did I wait so long to give this an inspection?  Things happen in their own time, now ow’s the time for this beauty queen to literally come out of the closet! 🙂 Okay… bad joke…

As I write this, I’m hoping to get information directly from Godin on the exact provenance of the guitar. But what I’ve been able to gather on my own thus far is that this is an Artisan ST-V. There were six versions of this product line. This appears to have a mahogany body and a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. I’m really not sure what the top is; hopefully, Godin can provide me with that information. But it is a two-piece top.

As for the body style, it is definitely quirky! But I absolutely DIG that huge upper horn! It’s actually a bit ergonomic in that it places the strap peg further left, making it feel much more balanced when I’ve got the guitar strapped over my shoulder.

I don’t know what they call this blue burst finish, but it’s absolutely killer! The photos I took don’t really illustrate the 3-d effect of the finish. Love it!

The pickups are custom pickups designed by Godin and manufactured by Schaller – at least that’s what I found out online (need to verify with Godin). I actually thought they were active pickups at first, but they’re not. Turns out that I had a bad cord, so I wasn’t getting any sound from my amp. Duh! The configuration is like an SH Telecaster with a single coil in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge. The tone knob will coil tap the humbucker to get a single coil sound.

The guitar is also equipped with a Floyd Rose tremolo system. It’s actually pretty cool. It’s missing the whammy bar, so I’m going to have to replace it. I know, you either love or hate a Floyd Rose, but I’m going keep this as-is and not block it off. I blocked off all my Strats’ tremolos, but with this guitar, I’m going to learn how to use the tremolo.

In a quick, initial sound test of the guitar, plugged clean into my Boss Katana 50, the sound is very much like a Telecaster, but a tad deeper. The neck pickup is very reminiscent of a Telecaster lipstick pickup – again a bit deeper and bridge pickup reminds me of a Les Paul humbucker sound with a little more midrange. So tonally, the guitar produces something in the middle between a Tele and an LP.

Coil tapping the bridge and playing in the middle switch position, the sound is truly a balanced mix of the two pickups. I was thinking that this would be my preferred setting, but only time will tell.

I’ve been writing this article in spurts – in between conference calls – plus testing out the guitar. I was originally intending to take it to my guitar tech and have him do a setup. But I checked the neck straightness and intonation, during a break, and even after all these years, the neck is ruler-straight. So I will do the initial cleanup and restringing myself. And if I mess it up because I’ve never worked with a Floyd Rose before, I can take it to my tech. But there are great videos that I’ve already watched on working with a Floyd Rose, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Once I’ve done the setup, I’ll post some sound clips. I’m really impressed with this guitar! It makes me wonder why I haven’t paid more attention to Godin all these years.