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Ovation iDea -- Acoustic-Electric Guitar with Built-in Mp3 Player/Recorder ($599)


Jon Chappell

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Ovation has always been a leader in technology, but that’s usually been in the realm of guitar construction and amplification, not recording. However, that’s all changed with their new iDea guitar, the first—and only—guitar that features onboard recording and playback and USB connectivity with your computer. The iDea is a normal, fully functioning acoustic-electric guitar with a side-mounted preamp, as is common to many other acoustic-electric guitars. The preamp features dedicated controls for volume, bass, midrange, and treble, plus a built-in tuner. In this way the iDea looks and behaves just like every other acoustic-electric. So far so good.

 

But within the preamp housing also resides the recording/playback/USB engine that allows you to play back mp3 files and to record yourself in several ways, all of which are geared toward the creative guitarist and songwriter.

 

You don’t ever have to deal with the recording features of the iDea if you don’t want to, and you still have a guitar that works in the normal way: plug it in, tune up, sculpt your sound via volume and EQ, and play. But when you do want to start capturing your ideas or performances, or you want to jam along to tracks or take a lesson, the iDea acts as your own six-string mp3 recorder and player.

 

What’s especially nice is that Ovation has made an effort to pack a lot of features (like an A/B looper! I love that!) into a solid, well-playing, nice-looking guitar while keeping the price under $600—well within reach of musicians on a budget. Let’s take a look at the unique features of this groundbreaking technology and the instrument that delivers it.

 

Ovation_iDea_full.jpg

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All of the iDea’s innovation takes place in the preamp, which is a removable module that fits comfortable in one hand. This modularity serves two purposes: 1) it allows you to retrofit an existing guitar with just the preamp, because it’s available separately; 2) when you decide to hook up the preamp to your computer to offload your user-created recordings or to download lessons or jam tracks, you don’t have to wield the whole guitar around. You just pop out the preamp, stick in the supplied USB cable and do your computer thing.

 

The iDea keeps all of the recording and playback functions contained within a small area, which you access with a single five-position joystick (four compass points and a center push) and three small pushbuttons. There’s a surprising amount of information that’s imparted on the display, and working the stick and buttons is fast and intuitive, once you learn the navigation routines. Ovation includes a quick-start guide as its only manual, but it’s really all you need to figure out how to tune, record, play back, set the recording modes, and manage the files that you record and download. Let’s first look at the recording and playback features, because that’s the stuff of headlines with the iDea.

 

Ovation_iDea_preamp_wide.jpg

 

 

Ovation_iDea_preamp_close.jpg

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The Ovation iDea has four main modes that you see when you power up the preamp:

 

Tuner

Play

Record

Advanced

 

We’ll go right to the Play and Record modes to investigate these unique features. First, the Play Mode.

 

Ovation_iDea_play.jpg

 

The iDea’s preamp is activated when you either plug-in the supplied earbuds (you could substitute your own, if you like, but the included ones are perfectly fine) or a guitar cord. You can turn the preamp off without unplugging, so it’s a sensible system. (You can also activate the guitar by plugging in the USB cable, described below.) If you’re using the headphones, you hear the guitar only acoustically and you hear the playback tracks through the headphones. This works well enough in a quiet environment, but it would be nice to be able to hear both sources through the phones, as it would allow you to play soft enough acoustically where you didn’t want to be heard (such as in the corner of an airport lounge).

 

When plugged in via the guitar cord, however, you hear both guitar and tracks through the sound system. You adjust the volume level of the tracks with the joystick (which is not documented anywhere in the manual, by the way) and the guitar’s level and EQ via the onboard sliders. It’s a real treat to be playing full-band backing tracks and wailing on an EQ-tweaked lead through an amp. It means you don’t have to plug anything else into the amp or into a separate sound system to jam. And it means your jam tracks move with you inside the guitar. If you’re an instrumentalist, this is the iDea’s best feature.

 

What’s more, you can define a loop point using a single pushbutton: tap it once, that’s the start point (shown in the display). Tap again, and that’s the B point, and the track loops indefinitely between these two points. Tap again to cancel the loop. This is great for isolating and working out difficult passages.

 

I appreciate having two modes for repeat: full-track repeat and A/B (user-defined) repeat, but I wish that you could turn the repeat mode off completely, which you can’t. At the end of the track, it automatically begins again. I could see some performance areas where you wouldn’t want this to happen. So in order, I wish that you could either 1) turn off repeat so that playback would simply stop when the track concluded, or 2) have the unit advance to the next track to keep playing through the sequence of tracks you’ve set up. As it is, you can effect a work-around by creating tracks that end with a long tail of silence—5 or 6 seconds—which would allow you to reach up with your hand after a track concludes to stop playback.

 

The Play mode allows you to play back not only the recordings you make on the iDea, but regular mp3 files that you download from your computer (see the details of this operation in the next post). These could include jam tracks or lessons, which the iDea separates into two folders in the preamp and as two pages on their website. But they’re both mp3 files, so the distinction is more for file organization than formatting. Remember, the playback of the mp3 files comes out through both the headphone jack and the guitar-cord output jack located on the back of the guitar. (Incidentally, I prefer having the jack on the back, rather than the strap pin, so I applaud Ovation’s choice here.) The signal coming out of the guitar jack is not stereo (channel-separated), so you can’t route the guitar signal to one destination and the playback to another for separate processing. You handle the blend by manipulating the sources’ respective level controls on the preamp.

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After checking out the pre-loaded files, I plugged in the included USB cable so that I could download some of my own tracks. This worked without a hitch. For those of you new to hooking things up to a computer (especially an acoustic-electric guitar!), it couldn’t be more straightforward. Once you plug the USB cable into the guitar (actually, you plug into the preamp, which, as I said, can be removed easily from the guitar’s body), the iDea shows up on your computer as an additional disk drive (exactly the way a USB “thumb” or “flash” drive does).

 

Ovation_iDea_USB.jpg

 

 

Open the drive icon and you’ll see the corresponding folders for Jam Trax, Lessons, RECORD (for user recordings). Simply drag and drop files into those folders from your computer, or drag and drop files from the folders to your computer to copy the files. Disconnect the cable, and you’re ready to play—and play along with—any newly copied tracks. (This of course works in reverse, where you can take any file you created on the guitar—which we’ll discuss later—and copy it from the guitar to the computer.) Deleting files works just as easily, and you need to do this periodically to clear out storage space. Simple and idiot-proof.

 

 

Here's what you see on your computer screen when you plug in the Ovation iDea into a USB port:

Ovation_iDea_window1.jpg

 

__

 

Click open a folder, say, Jam Tracks, and you see the contents.

Ovation_iDea_window2.jpg

 

 

From there, you simply drag and drop--in either direction--to copy "files into the guitar" or to copy files recorded on the guitar to the computer for editing, uploading to the Web, or burning to a CD.

 

This is also the place to rename files that you've recorded on the iDea, as the unit assigns generic names (REC0001.MP3, etc.) to each file.

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  • 8 months later...
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Hi, just found this thread and it's interesting but seems like you stopped in the middle of the review and you're just talking about novice things where I thought this guitar was a songwriter invention??? Please describe how you can sing and play and record what you're doing as this would maybe be a cool thing in my world. I don't need lessons or jam tracks. I need to record ideas and as to the name, just thought that's what this guitar was all about???

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I don't need lessons or jam tracks. I need to record ideas and as to the name, just thought that's what this guitar was all about???

 

 

Operation is about as simple and straightforward as you can imagine. You press record, and begin singing and playing. The mic picks up the guitar and voice acoustically, so you don't have to mix anything--except by singing louder or softer.

 

Because the mic in omnidirectional, I found that it didn't matter if I faced my mouth downward toward the mic or sung straight out (as you normally would).

 

I too am less sure about the use of jam tracks and downloading lessons, but Ovation is supporting this by making the importation of files a prominent feature. It means you can get stuff into the guitar without having to sing or play it. Jam tracks have more appeal to me personally, as I work on flatpicking fiddle tunes and bluegrass instrumentals to keep my chops up.

 

But by far the biggest convenience is not having to have another gizmo along to record. If you're on a beach or a campsite, positioning a recorder is problematic. On the iDea, the recorder is not only built into the guitar (avoiding the issue of how to steadily place your device on a towel or rock), the mic is in an optimum position to capture your voice and guitar in a good balance. And the headphone jack for your headphones is also right there (on the shoulder of the guitar), though this means you have to have the guitar in playing position for playback.

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When my guitar is plugged in and the removable disk drive appears 'Removable Disk (F;) it only displays 'iDea demo' and not any of my other files that are on my guitar? why?

 

thanks,

seb

 

 

 

 

After checking out the pre-loaded files, I plugged in the included USB cable so that I could download some of my own tracks. This worked without a hitch. For those of you new to hooking things up to a computer (especially an acoustic-electric guitar!), it couldn’t be more straightforward. Once you plug the USB cable into the guitar (actually, you plug into the preamp, which, as I said, can be removed easily from the guitar’s body), the iDea shows up on your computer as an additional disk drive (exactly the way a USB “thumb” or “flash” drive does).


Ovation_iDea_USB.jpg


Open the drive icon and you’ll see the corresponding folders for Jam Trax, Lessons, RECORD (for user recordings). Simply drag and drop files into those folders from your computer, or drag and drop files from the folders to your computer to copy the files. Disconnect the cable, and you’re ready to play—and play along with—any newly copied tracks. (This of course works in reverse, where you can take any file you created on the guitar—which we’ll discuss later—and copy it from the guitar to the computer.) Deleting files works just as easily, and you need to do this periodically to clear out storage space. Simple and idiot-proof.



Here's what you see on your computer screen when you plug in the Ovation iDea into a USB port:

Ovation_iDea_window1.jpg

__


Click open a folder, say, Jam Tracks, and you see the contents.

Ovation_iDea_window2.jpg


From there, you simply drag and drop--in either direction--to copy "files into the guitar" or to copy files recorded on the guitar to the computer for editing, uploading to the Web, or burning to a CD.


This is also the place to rename files that you've recorded on the iDea, as the unit assigns generic names (REC0001.MP3, etc.) to each file.

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hello, please help: buy a guitar from them, and as you describe, the preamp can be removed completely from the guitar. my guitar is that I can not do that, because the preamp is attached to the body of the guitar through cable. What should I do with this cable? What is the point? appreciate your help

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This sounds like a fantastic guitar for solo acts. How much storage space does it allow for MP3's?

 

Could a busker get through a 50 minute set w/backing mp3 tracks? 3 sets?

 

Also if playback & guitar are both going through the guitar jack, how do you balance the volume between them?

 

Finally, the headphone jack does not mute the output jack does it? Some devices mute the output if you plug in headphones.

 

Thanks. This seems like a brilliant idea for solo acts.

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This guitar has some annoying features and I hope some one can explain where I may be going wrong. Just bought this guitar for the lady and I notice that the display blanks after 10 seconds in order to save battery life. Quite useful until you are tuning... Can this be changed?

In order to use the tuner, is it really necessary to find a headphone jack?

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