Ortega TZSM-3 Thomas Zwijsen

Alles wie beschrieben, optisch sehr ansprechend und außergewöhnlich durch das helle Ahorn. Die Verarbeitung ist nahezu makellos, die Saitenlage perfekt. Lediglich die Bundstäbchen sind minimal scharfkantig fühlbar, wenn man am Stegrand seitlich mit den Fingern entlangfährt. Das stört die Funktion aber in keiner Weise, daher dafür auch kein Abzug. Die Gitarre hat einen schönen hellen Klang mit präzisen und kräftigen Bässen und kristallklaren Höhen. Ab Werk aufgezogen sind laut nachträglicher Auskunft der Thomann-Gitarrenabteilung Savarez 520 CJ Saiten mit hoher Spannung. Die passen sehr gut zur Charakteristik dieser Gitarre. Ich wollte eine Gitarre zwischen Westerngitarre und klassischer Konzertgitarre und genau das ist sie: sehr leicht zu bespielen mit schmalem 48er Griffbrett, niedriger Saitenlage und eher harten Nylonsaiten gibt es ein präzises Klangbild mit kräftigen Bässen und ausgeprägten Klar definierten Höhen. Wer den warmen Klang von Mahagoni sucht, sollte sich für eine andere Gitarre entscheiden. Ich habe genau das bekommen, was ich erwartet hatte und bin rundum zufrieden.

I´m swedish but I think I´d better try and write in english so that people from other countries can understand so sorry in advance for any misspellings and such... And let me tell you that I´m a player of steel-string guitars so I´m not very used to nylonstrings.

Looks:

The guitar out of the box (comes in a nice gigbag) is a really fine piece of work, can´t find any flaws at all! It seems to be very well crafted, I really love the maple neck, back and sides. If the top were made also of spalted maple it would be really cool but I suppose it would not sound as good as it does with the spruce top, of course they´ve chosen spruce for the top for a reason I guess... I´m not really sure if the tuner knobs are wooden or plastic allthough they seem wooden to me, laquered black.

Setup/playability:

Out of the box I think it´s well adjusted. At first I felt like lowering the strings but now I think I will probably keep this height. A slight fretbuzz on the 4th (d-string) but nothing serious or something that I think will be a problem to solve. I will change strings to some hard tension ones later on. I think the nut is out of bone but the saddle is out of plastic? Well I could be wrong about that... Please keep in mind that the fretboard is radiused (12-radius) but the description here don´t tell that. For me it came as a nice suprise because I at first thought it to be flat.

Sound:

Well, I can only say that i plays loud if you want it to but I suppose it could have had a little more bottom for my taste and that´s why I have given 4 stars and not 5... Maybe it will reveal some over time of playing it...

Electronics:

This was also a big reason why I choose this guitar because I have in mind to maybe do some recordings. Fishman is great I think and this system are really nice because of the double mics.

Gigbag is nice and protective with room for capo and such things, maybe a beer or two... One thing though and I don´t mean to be greedy but for the price of this guitar they could also have included a guitar strap preferably also with the "Thomas Zwijsen" signature but it´s no biggie.

Next time I will order some strings, a wooden/maple capo and a guitarstand also from Ortega and of course a suitable guitar strap.

Best wishes!