I've been a guitar enthusiast for about a decade. Most of my time dabbling with guitar involved electric and heavy styles. I've gone through several electrics, amps and peripherals always weening on and off interest selling and buying equipment. Only regret out of all my gear I didn't keep a hold of was my Fender Cyclone, not that it was all that special really… it sucked lol.

Well time has come were I am really itching to play again and I've thought back to my acoustic playing days. I kind of realized now that it certainly has been the point in all my guitar dabbling where I have really been in my element musically. I was also in a much more peaceful time then too.

I started playing as a teen and my Uncle helped me pick out my first guitar. Of course being the 80s prog/shred metal fan he was, with about $300 to spend he suggested a Blue Peavy with a Floyd Rose Patent Bridge. Yeah that thing was a nightmare for me back then, always wanting to change tunings for different songs, etc. Keeping that bridge maintained was out of my teenage tunnel vision. My Uncle wanted to train me the “right” way of E standard only and always, yeah I grew up in the 90s and millenium so that didn't stick.

I couldn't be bothered to learn how to intunate and maintenance a normal guitar never mind a Floyd Rose. So I visited an elder man who had a guitar repair sign in his yard. I He did not show much regards in a Floyd Rose guitar for me and showed me how to fix it while he did it but it never stuck. He tried hard to teach me the old “Teach a man to fish” but I was just too naive.

Well this man who's name I don't even remember, he had been a Folk Enthusiast all his life with several originals some of which he played for me as I played some of my stuff for him. He hadn't ever sold any of his songs he wrote (as of then) but ultimately became a very handy repairman. I became good friends with him and visited him often for a short while. He showed high regards in my sense of musicality in comparison to his, thinking back I realize now I wasn't that great, he just never explored much past basic folk style. Anyways eventually he gifted me my first and only acoustic for only $50. He told me it was one of his favorites and his wife was surprised he sold it to me.

This Simon and Patrick was something else(for what it was). It had my friend jealous of this guitar because it sounded better than his more than $1k Martin and this SnP was suppose to only be a $250-$300 guitar if I recall. I knew then he was handy with acoustics and I think it might of been possible(though I don't know) if he put a good SnP neck on another guitar body like a high end Seagull, then glued the cheap model SnP sticker inside.

I loved this acoustic and I all but forgot about my Electric guitars and my Marshall Half stack(that made most use of annoying the people who lived below me). I certainly wasn't an adept acoustic player but most anyone I knew appreciated my endeavors with that acoustic.

Well one day in an arguement with a girlfriend I jumped out of bed and stepped right on the face of the body and made a huge crack on the front panel. In that moment I remember the ONE thing my friend told me about acoustics... Just NEVER break the front panel because it can never be fully repaired to sound the same again. I actually cried when this happened which of course infuriated my girlfriend even more than she already was...

After that, I couldn't bare to go to my old friend's and show him what happened and have him do the best he could to repair it. I played it for awhile with the split in the front untill one day a jaded friend mocked a recent song I wrote and this was after him poking at it being broken. I ended up smashing the guitar to pieces. Well I lost a lot of spirit for playing acoustic when I smashed that guitar and never owned a half decent acoustic since.

TLDR… Don't blame you if you jumped to here.

So I haven't owned an acoustic in a long while. I have often picked up acoustics from time to time in Guitar Center and other music shops. Of all of them, Ovations have stood out to me a lot over the time.

It has been awhile since I played one but I am thinking of buying one. Ovation CS24-RR Celebrity Standard is the one I have been looking at and I am pretty sure this is the model(or a more recent) I wanted to buy a couple years ago. Going to buy this from AMS since they have the EZ pay and I can make 3 payments on it.

Only big question I have about this guitar is string gauge. I plan to buy a pack of Nanoweb 12-53(matching gauge that comes on the guitar, but I am curious if the slightly higher gauge(medium light) would be an issue?

I would just like to try to get a slightly thicker sound than what I've heard from the ones I've played before. Different String brand and gauge suggestions are welcomed.