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July 2003
Posts: 35
Location: Canton,GA | My God yes Bailey is right they should have went with that design and if they had we probably could not afford them now!! Because a breadwinner/deacon is one of the most unique rock n roll guitar shapes ever, and with a more solid bridge and simpler electronics and pickups man there would be all kinds of records with the big O's on them!!!!!!! Thank you for sharing this ICON with us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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December 2001
Posts: 7233
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I would call customer service and ask them if they would restore the finish. I don't think they would charge too much (Al might be able to get a qoute). Then it would really be "restored." |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Deaconstrat, I fail to see how a non-production guitar, cobbled together from spares & imported pickups and used by people who have been consigned to the "where are they now" file, could be classed as "Iconic".
Regardless of what you may think about the sound of the guitar, or for that matter the bridge design (which is perfectly solid) what makes the Breadwinner & Deacon interesting from a historical standpoint is the active circuitry. Without the preamp it's just a guitar with an interesting shape. I know this from personal experience. I own several Breadwinners & Deacons, my main stage slide guitar is a white Breadwinner where I've removed the pickups & preamp and replaced them with 3 Viper pickups. I use it because it makes a visual statement, is very comfortable to play & sounds great, but I could get the same sound from my Viper 3. |
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Location: Canton,GA | Paul.... Chill!!!!!!! Whether we agree or not David Cassidy and the Partridges are an American Icon. A lot of teen and preteens watched this show and maybe before FM radio exposed them to different players in the back of their minds full of mush the shape and look of these Ovations stuck in their head,the look of Susan Dey stuck in mine!!! The reason Jimmy Page,Hendrix, Clapton, Marriott, didnt play them was due to the pickups feeding back at high gain settings,The backwards pickup selector switching and that totally useless (in most cases) phase switch and the bridge pieces that killed sustain. All of those guys were given these guitars and I am sure they loved the shape and the neck but face it they are not the most friendly sounding guitar plugged in a turned up fult tilt Marshall or Fender twin!! My hats are off to you if you can use the stock guitar and make music with it, its just that most us mere mortals cant!!!!!We want it to be just like a Les Paul, a strat or a tele.
Stock Deacons and Breadwinners sound fine for clean sounds and chords but blues-rock machines
they are not!IMHO!!!! |
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June 2002
Posts: 6202
Location: Phoenix AZ | Speaking of Susan Dey. Yes as a young teen I too was fasinated by the sight of her playing the organ (do you see where this is going?). Luckily there was just enough commercial break between the rolling Ovation credits at the end of "The Partridge Family" and the start of "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father", that I could make a quick trip to the bathroom. Anyway, fast forward to the spring of 2003 and the rerunion show of "L.A. Law." Well, um, hmmm ... There she was. Maybe she's 50 years old at the most, but looked like she could have been 80. I'm not usually one to criticize peoples looks as they "gracefully age", but I've got to tell you - this was a shocker. And believe me, there as NO trip to the locked bathroom necessary this time. Well, maybe all my dreams are not shot (no pun intended) - I heard that Phobe Piccalilly ("Nanny And The Professor") is still pretty hot. Dave |
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Location: Scotland | I find Deacons and Breadwinners to be totally unusable in a live situation & I aggree that they sound terrible with anything but mild distortion. They produce lots of useful clean sounds but the control layout & circuitry makes those sounds difficult to find quickly, so they're a nightmare onstage. I also find the lack of a treble roll-off a big problem. That's why I put Viper pickups in one of my Breads & pulled out the Pre. It absolutely screams for slide, but it's no longer a Breadwinner strictly speaking. I use my other stock Deacons regularly for recording because of the variety of cool clean sounds they can produce.
The Deacon/Breadwinner is interesting from a number of standpoints, notably the shape, the fact that it was Ovation's first original design solidbody & the fact that it was one of the first guitars to have active electronics (though Burns had active circuitry on the TR2 in the mid 60's) My point was simply that the production guitars were a dismal failure commercialy and consequently therefore in any iconolatry. A TV prop version would be an icon only to a fan of the show. Incidentally you referred to the TV prop guitar as Iconic, not the cast of The Partridge Family.
While a Breadwinner or Deacon with a pair of Seymour Duncan or whatever pickups & the preamp ripped out may be a good-sounding useful guitar for a player, to a collector it becomes a completely different thing. As for wanting your Breadwinner to be a Strat or a Les Paul, you'd get a better result by accepting it for what it does well, leaving it as it is and buying a Strat or a Les Paul. Or maybe even a Viper 3 or a UK2.
I'm perfectly chilled, incidentally. |
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Posts: 35
Location: Canton,GA | Paul forgive me for my poor choice of words in describing this guys Breadwinner. You and I are in perfect agreement regarding the stock guitars by the way. I got mine cause I wanted to have something I could use that would sound like me and look different you know the old what the hell is that thing. Anyway I have enjoyed the banter back and forth long live the O!!!!!!!!!! |
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June 2003
Posts: 194
Location: Las Vegas | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
I would call customer service and ask them if they would restore the finish. I don't think they would charge too much (Al might be able to get a qoute). Then it would really be "restored."
You mean they might be able to re-do various stucco finishes after all these years? Now that's fantastic news, thanks!
Les
:) |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | It's "bowl-paint" just the "spackle" finish they use on the acoustic bowls. They also used it on the Eclipse & currently on the Elite-T |
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March 2002
Posts: 1380
Location: Central Oregon | There's one of the spackled jobs over in Bend. I don't have any idea what model it is, but the body looks a lot like my 1858 Elite,(maybe a little deeper?). It was easy to play & sounded good unplugged, but the finish looked a lot like the "spray-on bedliners" we use in pickups around here, grey pickups in this case. Actually, I suppose that would make it nearly indestructible, but I'm afraid I don't find it "aesthetically pleasing". Then again, I like the looks of the MOB so what do I know?
(Btw, do you suppose they might make some in red at some point?)
Nils |
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Location: SoCal | Nils, that's the Elite T. The t stands for textured. Do a search on the board. There's some interesting reading on it. |
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December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | what is amazing is the textured finish is much thinner than others. |
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Is this a Breadwinner Proto-Type ?????
