Guitar Interactive Magazine | 1 decade ago

Read the complete review here http://bit.ly/Faith_Venus

Faith's acoustic and electro-acoustics have consistently impressed us. Faith is in the vanguard of the new wave of acoustic guitar makers, challenging the long-established brands by offering superb instruments at great prices. But as the top end of the Faith range starts to approach the lower end of the 'big name' brands, can it still keep its edge? Rick Graham sampled a hex pickup equipped Faith Venus and came away looking very thoughtful.

I can't help but be impressed when I see a good looking guitar and Faith's Venus certainly falls into that category. With its attractive high gloss lacquer finish and beautiful flamed maple binding, it's most definitely a head-turner. The wood of choice for the top, and in fact the top all of Faith's guitars, is solid Engelmann spruce, picked mainly for the crisp, clear tone that it is capable of producing, especially when paired with the right tonewoods for the back and sides. In this case, that wood is rosewood, which tends to give more natural power to both the low and high end.

That Faith should be going into such detail should come as no surprise. The brand is owned by one of the UK's longest established and most respected distributors and the company has retained Patrick James Eggle, one of the world's top guitar makers, to design and specify the range. Like the best of what our editor calls the 'new wave' of acoustic guitar brands, Faith isn't a cynical exercise whereby a distributor or big guitar brand owner goes to a Chinese factory, buys whatever is on offer and has its logo put on the headstock, Faith designs the guitars itself and then looks for the best factories in which to have them made. When it is got right, the result can be a very impressive instrument at a bargain price.

Back to this Venus. The mahogany neck is attached to the body by way of Patrick Eggle's own bolt-on design and the fingerboard is a piece of Macassan figured ebony. I particularly like the addition of the mother of pearl 'F' at the 12th fret as I feel it is in keeping with the level of class that the guitar exudes. The tuners are Grover Rotomatic Gold.

Importantly, you have an instrument made entirely of solid woods here. While it's true that having a high quality solid top is the most important element in determining an acoustic's performance, solid backs and sides are well worth having too, if you can afford the extra cost, and the choice of woods used here was exemplary. This really is a fine looking guitar and very well made!

A further addition to this guitar's already impressive specification comes in the form of the on-board Shadow Hex Stereo System pickup saddle and pre-amp. The high quality pre-amp features a variety of useful functions including three band EQ, rotary pan control, tuning system, phase button (for anti-feedback duties), low battery indicator and, perhaps a little puzzling, a hexaphonic system.

On the face of it, all a hex system does is deliver an individual signal per string. Fine - that means you can trim the individual signals to suit your needs - but there is a lot more to it than that, should you chose to delve deeper.

The way the Shadow system on this guitar works, with the 'Pan' control fully over to the left, the output of the guitar is normal: mono output is transmitted through a
conventional mono guitar cable to your amp or DI box. However, with the 'Pan' Control fully turned to the right, the output of the guitar is operating in its Stereo hex capacity. Now (and I'm quoting Shadow's own explanation here) "...the strings are separated across the stereo spectrum: the Low E is panned far left and the High E is panned far right with all other strings in relative positions across the spectrum. The stereo output goes through a stereo 'Y'cable which can be connected to two separate amplifiers, a stereo PA amplifier or 2 channels of a mixing desk etc."

Shadow adds: "This is ideal for widening the sound-field of your solo acoustic
performances, and a revelation for those who like to experiment with sound-layering, looping and multi-tracking."

Check out the full review of the Faith Venus FVHG-HEX Concert Cutaway Electro-Acoustic guitar in Issue 9 of Guitar Interatcive Magazine here http://bit.ly/Faith_Venus