Hello and welcome to my Takamine GN77KCE review.
This review will look at Takamine’s GN77KCE in terms of:
- The Tone;
- The Playability;
- The Materials the GN77KCE is made from;
- Who the GN77KCE is best suited to;
- The GN77KCE’s value-for-money
The Tone
This guitar has a nice balance between being bassy enough but with some clarity and thickness to the highs and enough mid-range presence.
Warm or Bright?
I would say that it’s on the brighter side but not overly bright. I’d say about a 6/10, if 1 was the warmest and 10 was the brightest.
If it was solid Koa, I would say that this would get warmer with age but I’m not sure if the same is true with a laminate construction.
Bassy or Trebly?
The GN77KCE has some decent bass coming through but it’s not overly dominant – there’s still a mid-range in there and the highs come through too. It was a nice balance. Not the kind of tone that blows you away but nice and balanced.
Strumming or Finger-Picking?
This is a good all-rounder. The tone suits either and the body shape suits either as well. And it sounded good with flat-picking too.
It’s got a narrow nut-width which is perhaps more suited to strumming and flat-picking than finger-style but that’s more of a playability thing.
The Shape
The GN77KCE has Takamine’s NEX body. This is like a scaled down jumbo – close in size to a grand auditorium.
The NEX bodies that I’ve played have produced a really nice balanced tone. It’s a shape that I like.
The Materials
Top: Hawaiian Koa Laminate
Back & Sides: Hawaiian Koa Laminate
Bracing: Quartersawn X Bracing
Bridge: Rosewood
Saddle: Synthetic Bone
Nut: Synthetic Bone
Electronics
The GN77KCE comes with Takamine’s own TP-4TD preamp and has a built-in tuner and 3 band EQ settings.
Playability
I liked the feel of this guitar. Somehow it didn’t feel quite as nice to me as the Takamine P1NC that I also played in the same session but I’m not exactly sure why. But still, it was overall a very easy and smooth feeling guitar.
Action
The action is a little bit on the high side – but not hugely and compared to most off the shelf it was set up pretty well. It’s a good idea to do your own set up anyway to customize it to how you like it to feel.
Nut Width & Neck Profile
The neck has Takamine’s asymmetrical feel to it – which I really like. This basically means that the neck is a bit thinner on the bass side. This is supposed to be a more natural fit for a hand. Whatever it is, it felt nice to play to me.
The nut width is 1.673″ (42.5mm) which is just a little narrower than the average width. This is great for chord constructions, especially for those with smaller hands but it was still nice enough to play finger-style on.
Fretboard (fingerboard)
The fretboard is made from Rosewood and that’s no surprise – as it seems that 90% of guitars out there have rosewood fretboards! But that’s just fine as Rosewood typically makes for a good fretboard.
Of course not all pieces of wood are the same – but this felt fine. It was nice and smooth feeling.
Scale Length
The GN77KCE has a scale length of 25.4” (645mm). This is a pretty standard size for a “full” scale length.
Who this Guitar is Most Suited to
This guitar is great for anyone who wants a guitar that is better quality than a budget guitar but still at a reasonable price and for anyone who wants a guitar with a good balanced tone and a nice feel.
Value-for-Money
In the same session, I played the Takamine P1NC from their pro series 1. I loved that guitar.
The GN77KCE wasn’t in the same league as the P1NC, in my opinion – I liked the GN77KCE but I didn’t love it, like I did with the P1NC.
But I wasn’t expecting to like it as much either. In some cases I actually prefer a guitar that’s cheaper – sometimes they can just sound nicer but in this case the difference in price faithfully represents the difference in quality (for my tastes anyway).
But the GN77KCE is a good $700 less in terms of it’s MSRP and $500 less in terms of it’s street price. So you do pay significantly less for it – and it certainly is a decent sounding guitar and still nice to play – so for the money I would say it’s still a good buy.
But just the way that the P1NC was to play, I would pay the extra, personally. Not that this is a like-for-like comparison, of course, as both guitars feature different tone-woods.
More Info and Where to Buy
If you’re interested in the GN77KCE, are ready to buy or want to check out prices and availability, check out the links below.
>> Takamine GN77KCE at Amazon.com
If you want to check out some more under $1000 options check out the link below.
>> My Top 5 Acoustic Guitars Under 1,000
Dee says
The top is not laminate. Its solid. Check out the Takamine website