I was in a meditative state and I was just going along with the musical flow. My performance was mostly improvised as I played. That is how my Ovation sounds up close w out being miked into a whole studio chain or plugged in. (old Zoom self contained video and audio recorder )įor any one interested, The audio in my video is strictly the camera mic sound. My video Gentle Gypsy Lullaby is just me playing my Ovation in my kitchen area while recording my performance using a Zoom Q3 Thank you for the kind words you said about my Guitar Playing. After a year or two of production Ovation turned this into the first Applause budget-line model. The frets were one piece with that T-bar so could never be replaced, the fret board being some epoxy-like material laid down between the frets. The model was the original Matrix with a T shaped metal bar for the neck structure. Surprisingly, all six tuners still turned fairly smoothly. I finally sent it to the Great Balladeer In the Sky just last year. It then spent the next 21 years as a flower planter. At one point I knocked out the the top and the guitar spent a couple weeks as a goldfish pond until the summer sun hit it which killed the fish. Even when the Ovation became basically unplayable I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
#OVATION APPLAUSE AA 31 FULL#
When I got a better, full wood guitar (Yamaha FG-something) senior year of college the Ovation got loaned to at least three people who wanted to learn guitar. Here's a picture of me playing it circa 1980/81.
![ovation applause aa 31 ovation applause aa 31](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1858/1729/products/zw6zcxibcofdyilz0e3c_045e75ce-e86c-49d2-836b-eefbb21a2340_2000x.jpg)
That picture is my guitar in my front yard. The bit about the frets wearing quickly on the aluminum necks is spot-on.Click to expand.Hey Where did you get that picture? Somebody owes me royalties.
![ovation applause aa 31 ovation applause aa 31](https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/0qgAAOSweqVhvsPf/s-l225.jpg)
My best guess is that the aluminum necks were made only in Connecticut - if they made them in Korea, they didn't do it for long - by the mid-1980s (and maybe as early as '82/'83/'84) Applause guitars were using more traditional wood necks. Again, I had one of the aluminum-necked Applause models (AA-14) when they first came out in the late '70s (got it for Christmas in either '77 or '78), then a Celebrity, then went to Ovations for acoustics in the 80s, so I'm pretty familiar with the brand and models from the era. All AA-31s have laminated tops.Īll of this lines up with my recollections. They have 'real wood' necks and fingerboards as opposed to aluminum.
![ovation applause aa 31 ovation applause aa 31](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xrKKYTKRRyo/TVlgoX2BoYI/AAAAAAAAAII/vWnWO4FCk24/s1600/Shahid.jpg)
There were no US made AA-31s to my knowledge. The AA-31s were made in Korea beginning about 1983. if you wanted to raise the action, Ovation and their dealers would give them to you at no charge. By removing a shim, you lowered the action at the 12th fret by 1/64.
![ovation applause aa 31 ovation applause aa 31](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/5d/5f/61/5d5f610c2939b0c2d89fd1874f8a3a97.jpg)
I can't recollect when Applause added "by Ovation" to their logo.Ĭhances are that if next time you change strings you remove the saddle, there will be at least one shim underneath.
#OVATION APPLAUSE AA 31 SERIES#
About that same time, they introduced the Celebrity series priced to be between the Applause and Ovation brands. The next step was to cover the aluminum frets with nickel plating, which helped a little, but they still seemed to wear quickly.Īround 1982 or 1983, they moved production of the Applause guitars to Korea, and at some point after that, they did away with the aluminum necks. That never became a popular selling point. The original plan had been that the necks would be easily interchangeable, and that you could have the entire neck replaced for less than it would cost to replace frets on a wooden fretboard. the aluminum frets tended to wear quickly, and could not be replaced. They were introduced in 1976 or 1977, and were built in Connecticut. Then they molded the back of the neck out of a plastic material, and finished it to feel "just like mahogany!" They used the same back as the Ovations, but had a laminated top (Ovations were solid), and as someone mentioned, the necks were aluminum, and the fretboard, support rod, headstock, and frets were one piece. I don't think they ever reached that goal, but I believe that they were able to build them in less than 2 1/2 hours of man-hours. The concept was to make cheaper copies of their own guitars before someone else did, and the goal was to build them with only one man-hour of labor involved. The early Applause guitars did not say Ovation on them, because the plan was to sell them through a distributor rather than the Ovation sales force.