Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin - WITH VIDEO!

Specifications

• Canadian Wild Cherry archtop
• Canadian Wild cherry back & sides
• Silver Leaf maple neck
• Contoured high-gloss black headstock
• Custom Polished Finish reminiscent of the
• french polish of the 19th century
• Rosewood Fingerboard
• Adjustable Tusq Bridge by Graphtech
• Cream Binding
• 1x Godin Kingpin P90 single-coil pickup
• 1x Volume, 1x Tone
• 16" (406 mm) fingerboard radius
• 24.84" (630 mm) Scale
• 1.72" (43 mm) nut width
• Colors: Black, Cognac Burst & Natural

Features

From the Godin website:

Made from Canadian Wild Cherry, the body of the 5th Avenue features a molded arched top and back, as well as an adjustable bridge, classic f-holes, contoured high-gloss headstock, floating pickguard and cream binding. Also, the rustic beauty of its Custom Polished Finish creates a gorgeous satin sheen reminiscent of the French polish of the 19th century.

Review

If you have not yet had the chance to visit Quebec, Canada I recommend that you book a trip immediately. And on this trip you will have to do your stomach the huge favor of eating a Montreal style bagel, oh my, they are good – be sure to get the poppy seed variety. Or, if you are brave foodie with a cast iron stomach you can opt to sample a local favorite snack called “Poutine” that consists of French fries, cheese curds, and beef gravy… oh my. There is also the Montreal Jazz Festival, The Montreal Guitar Show, and last but certainly not least, the Godin Guitar Company. I had first seen the 5th Avenue via pictures from NAMM 2009 and was hooked right from the start, so when they offered to send one out for a review, I jumped at the chance.

The 5th Avenue Kingpin is a very reasonably priced Archtop guitar ($700 USD street price) complete with a P90 pick-up in the neck position, and a volume and tone control. The guitar top, back, and sides are made of Canadian Wild Cherry with a maple neck and rosewood fretboard. The bridge is adjustable Tusq and made by Graphtec and is very easy to set-up and intonate. It is available with three French polish finish colors: Black, Cognac Burst & Natural. It is also worth noting that the 5th Avenue is available without the P90 pickup installed for those acoustic archtop purists out there.

Upon inspection of the guitar I was quite satisfied with the overall fit and finish.  Also the build quality was far beyond the modest price point of the guitar. The fretwork was very good and the intonation was spot on. The guitar also held it’s tuning very well, you have to give Godin extra credit here when you realize that it made a rather long journey from Quebec to California via UPS ground and San Francisco’s moist climate can cause some guitars to move a little. But this was not the case with the 5th Avenue, even pulling some serious bends did not knock it out of turn – a solid guitar to be sure.

The sound of the Godin acoustic was rather impressive to say the least; I found it to have a strong and balanced tone, with a good amount of treble and a very good midrange. The neck finish felt very fast and allowed you to move up and down the neck with ease, it felt like a very light satin to my hands, I would eve go as far as saying that it felt unfinished. The frets on the 5th Avenue are vintage style, meaning small and narrow (think vintage Fender), I personally am a fan of bigger frets (the smallest size I like is 6105) but that being said, Mike Sopko (the fine player in the video) had no trouble at all pulling bends and working different types of solos.

Plugging the 5th Avenue in was a different story all together. The neck mounted Godin P90 pick up was warm and full with a slightly rolled off treble, perfect for Jazz. I found that it could even handle a little bit of dirt (via a Keeley modified tube screamer) with a smooth sounding break up that sounded just right for blues. Just for kicks I hooked the Godin up to my Mesa Boogie just to see what might happen. As expected there was a lot of feedback and the pickup was not voiced correctly for that amount of gain, but somehow it seemed like a setup Jack White could get some really amazing tones out of, and admittedly “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” sounded just right.

While we were shooting the video for this review, Mike Sopko made a very interesting observation that I wanted to share with you. See, Mike is a professional musician and an accomplished Jazz player, Mike owns a very sexy archtop guitar that he spent some serious money on and uses it to record. But when he gigs he is naturally concerned about protecting his investment and doesn’t like to take his prized archtop.  The Godin 5th Avenue provides him with a great way to get around that. The Godin sounds very good both acoustically and when plugged in its modest price (again, only $700) makes it perfect for gigging musicians. You will be less worried about having a guitar damaged or stolen if it is less than a $6000.

Oddly enough, the case for the guitar may be one of the most interesting cases I have yet to see. It is feather light and: Made of Expanded Polypropylene, which is the same shock absorbent, high-tech material used by the automotive industry in bumper cores, it can also be found in the manufacturing of bicycle helmets. The high impact resistant material trusted to save the human head is now available for your acoustic guitar with solid locking latches and it gives the 5th Avenue a snug fit. So it looks like styrofoam, but it is far from it! Here is a link that will tell you all about these cases: http://www.artandlutherieguitars.com/tric.htm

I was very tempted to purchase the review sample that Godin sent us, the only reason it didn’t stay with me was due to lack of funds (I hand just upgraded my audio kit for the site with a new mic preamp, mixer, and a couple of SM57’s). Had I kept this wonderful little guitar I think I might have swapped out the stock pickup for a Lollar P90, not saying that the stock pickup is bad in any way, I just would like to get a little more gain and a smidge more high frequency out of the guitar.

The Final Word

Lets talk about value for a moment. We are waist deep in a worldwide recession and people are less inclined to spend loads of money on things that might be characterized as a luxury items (I know that guitars are a necessity for living, not a luxury, but I digress). So it is great to see a company like Godin producing a very high quality guitar that is made in North America by skilled hands, looks great, sounds fantastic, and is at a price point that is very affordable.

The Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin is a whopper of a guitar.  I never took myself for an archtop kind of guy, but this certainly has changed my mind. I might just have to call them up and see if that review sample is still available… somehow I doubt it.