Alan Horvath | 2006 Takamine EG540C-STRY Guitar

Alan's Instruments | 2006 Takamine Acoustic-Electric
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This is my 2006 Takamine (say tak'-a-mee-nee), Acoustic-Electric, Cutaway, 6-string guitar, Model EG540C-STRY ... Serial #5025004. I bought it new, from Guitar Center in East Brunswick, New Jersey - June 30th, 2006 ... mostly in the interest of performing at churches and having a guitar to "kick around" with.

I honestly took dozens of pictures trying to capture the absolutely gorgeous, dark Candy Apple Red color of this guitar, but just can't make it happen. Even Takamine's pictures of this model look brown and they call the color "Translucent Red" ... so I guess they can't get it to photograph either. You would simply have to see it with your own eyes to appreciate it.

The top, side and back are all solid Flamed Maple ... the fingerboard is Rosewood and the rosette is Abalone.

I played dozens of guitars, priced from $300.00 to $1,200.00, before picking this one ... and this one, priced at $450.00, beat them all in terms of sound, fret and string action, looks and tonality -- it plays true all the way up and down the neck. Plus, I got them to throw in a $50.00 guitar cord ... so I really got this guitar for $400.00 ... not bad at all! I also bought a nice hardshell case for it for $80.00 ... so I dropped $480.00 for a guitar I would've willingly paid $1,000.00 for.

Takamine Guitar Case

It houses a TK-40 Preamp that has a 3-Band EQ, an EQ Bypass Switch, a Tunable/Switchable Notch Filter and a Switchable MidRange Contour Control Knob ... each string has it's own dedicated pickup.

I also bought a rackmount-case for two of my favorite pieces of gear: My dual vintage Neve preamps, taken from old recording studio boards from the 1960s -- the same preamps used by guys like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra ... and something I purchased with the guitar: the new BBE 482i Sonic Maximizer.

Rack Mount w/BBE & Neve

You know how great a guitar/vocal sounds when there's no amplification ... and you know how rotten and muddy it all gets, in comparison, when it's amplified, right? Well, that's because in a live, unamplified situation, the sound frequencies are all hitting you at the same time ... nature is sweet. But when you amplify everything through speakers, the low frequencies reach you first and the high frequencies get to you later, confusing the whole experience. The BBE unit fixes that by redistributing all the frequencies and delivering them through the speakers so that they all get to you at the same time. Usually, when using the BBE, I don't even have to be concerned with EQ -- that's how great the sound is!