Welcome to another in the (rather) long running series of posts on this guitar. Just to recap, the CP7MO-TT is an Orchestra Model (OM) sized guitar with a torrefied spruce top (referred to as a ‘thermal top’ by Takamine, hence the TT in the model name) and Ovangkol back and sides. P7 in the model name indicates that it comes from the pro series 7 and the C that it has some custom features that make it a bit different from the other guitars in that model series. The guitar has a 45mm/1-3/4″ nut, which is rare but not unheard of among Takamine guitars – one thinks of the old Bluegrass and Supernatural series. To my ear, Ovangkol (Guibourtia ehie) is “rosewood plus” – depending on the application, it has more midrange or, in the case of this specific guitar, more top end. It’s a good alternative to rosewood in my opinion.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that over the years I have struggled with this guitar. First of all with getting it easy to play: it has an unusually chunky neck compared to my other Taks and seems to prefer custom light (11-52) strings to the factory-fitted 12-53s. The line-driver preamp is completely concealed within the guitar and when in situ has no player adjustable tone or volume controls. These controls do exist, but in order to access them the preamp needs to be removed from the guitar, which involves unscrewing the output socket and undoing a wire clip inside the guitar:
The photo on the left was taken through the soundhole, looking towards the tail block of the guitar. Visible are the single black cable coming from the pickup, terminated into a 3.5mm jack that plugs into the end of the line driver preamp; as well as the black and red wires coming from the internally mounted 9V battery. As you can see, the good folk at Takamine have considered the possibility of the owner removing the preamp, and left plenty of slack in the internal wiring, but have placed a clip around the wires coming from the battery, presumably to keep them from moving around and making noise. This clip needed to be undone to get the preamp out – it’s flat pressed metal, and requires some sort of tool to undo, all while working blind through the soundhole. Once that is over you can get the preamp out:
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