New Guitars: Saga Cigano GJ-10 and GJ-15

djangology

I played one of the Cigano D holes. The sound of the guitar is great, but I think the neck angle is shallow, more so than the Gitane D500 , and so the strings are pretty close to the top of the guitar. Personally, I dont like it because, when using rest stroke technique the way that I do, I clip the top of the guitar all the time. I'm personally used to a higher string elevation. Of course, everyone knows that the Selmers also had the same neck angle. I think modern players are a bit different and these guitars dont show that they evolved at all.

Just my opinion, dont take me too serious.

Josh Hegg

It does make a small difference in the tone. More in the natural reverb of the guitar. plus it looks supper cool... I think... It's not my idea... Many of the original Busato tail pieces were brazed. I have done it to one of my own guitars and plan to do the rest at some point.

One note on the neck angle... It is not shallow at all. In fact it is very high. I wounder if the guitar you played that had the shallow one was a prototype or something. The bridge on a D-500 is about 15.5 - 16.5 mm tall. The bridge on the GJ-10 is 21 - 22 mm tall. So the neck angle is much greater then a D-500.

Cheers,
Josh

sockeye

One note on the neck angle... It is not shallow at all. In fact it is very high. I wounder if the guitar you played that had the shallow one was a prototype or something. The bridge on a D-500 is about 15.5 - 16.5 mm tall. The bridge on the GJ-10 is 21 - 22 mm tall. So the neck angle is much greater then a D-500.

Josh, I just got a GJ-15 from Michael (shipped directly from Saga) and the bridge is the same as the standard Gitane design (staircase pattern compensation, no special B string compensation) and the same height. It does seem to be made of dyed rosewood rather than ebony, so it is lighter. Anyway, the action is higher with the same height bridge than any Gitane I have seen. The neck angle on this one is definitely shallower than a Gitane 250, 255, 300, or 500. In fact, when I put on a Dupont #2 bridge that is perfect (around 3.5mm 12th fret action) on several Gitanes I have put it on, the action was ridiculously high on the Cigano, unplayably so. You also said in an earlier post that the neck thickness (front to back) on the GJ-15 is thinner than a DG-250. This almost put me off buying one, but so many other people told me this was not the case that I went ahead and ordered anyway. In fact, the neck is not as thin as a DG-250 but is very close in profile to a D-500.

Have you seen/played a Cigano D-hole?

gitpicker

The D-hole GJ-15 is like a D-500 in terms of the neck angle and old bridge design.

The oval hole GJ-10 has more top arch and a taller bridge to accomodate more neck angle. It's more akin to the DG-330 in this regard.

spud

Thanks for all the helpful info about this guitar. I am a newbie to manouche and all this info helped me in my decision to buy my fist guitar. i feel like the action is very high on my gj-10. the bass e is at around 6mm on the 12th fret and about 5mm for the high e. i'm pretty sure thats how the store received the guiar from saga. does this seem normal?
what do you advise? get the bridge lowered or buy another bridge?

also there seem to be a bit of overtone reverb ... what could this be related to? i hope i didn't buy a dud. i played another gj-10 in another store and i don't remember it being like that, though i imagine each one could be quite different.

thanks for advice.

sockeye

All the Saga guitars I've played have this weird reverb quality. I think it comes from the rather thin tailpiece. Putting leather under the tailpiece would help, as would switching to a tailpiece made from heavier stock (DR, etc.).

Is your bridge shaped more or less like this one?



John

spud

no, its only staggered on the b string.

sockeye

OK, so apparently the GJ-10 and GJ-15 have different bridges.

BluesBop Harry

Hi Spud,
That sounds like your action is way too high.
Are you measuring from the top of the fret to the bottom of the string?

spud

ah no i leasured from the fret board- so taking off the height of the frets i guess that makes a little less than 5mm for the e string bass and a little less than 4mm for the high e.

that seems a little more reasonable but still rather high.