CMC Music | Expect to Pay: $1595
A lot can be said about a guitar with a single strum. With the Faith Venus Electro still ringing in my ears, it’s easy to see why they’ve won the UK’s Best Acoustic Guitar awards from 2012 to 2016. There’s beauty in simplicity—the Venus Electro particularly excels in this—and sincerity in consistency.
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The quality of construction sings excellence at the highest level, and when combined with the range of gorgeous tones available from the Venus Electro, you know you’ve got a winner. All this and much more awaits when the chrome locks on the brown leather case are snapped open, revealing the absolutely stunning guitar within.
The Faith Venus Electro Natural series is part of a diverse range of customisation options that Faith Guitars offers. Being the first ever style available from Faith Guitars, the Natural series utilises a beautiful marriage of spruce and mahogany to produce sweet, honeyed tones with an emphasis on the midrange. A glossy sheet of high quality Engelmann spruce tops the Venus Electro, providing a dreamy contrast to the satin-finished Indonesian mahogany forming its back, sides, and neck.
Additionally, the guitar is boldly accented by solid rosewood binding and Macassan ebony for the fingerboard, bridge, headplate and heelcap. A mother of pearl ‘F’ at the 12th fret and a 5mm abalone rosette are the only discernible flourishes present, which direct the eyes towards the guitar’s subtle but exquisite wood grain patterns on both its body and fretboard. Quarter-sawn spruce neatly solidifies the infrastructure of the guitar in an X-brace design, and leaves plenty of room for the Fishman INK3 preamp with its under saddle pickup.
The Venus Electro resonates wonderfully with good sustain, and delivers a tight low end bundled with crystal clear mids and highs. It responds well to both sweeping campfire strums and light fingerpicking, and is extremely playable out of the box. The neck plays smooth and is hardly noticeable in the hand. The gold Grover Rotomatic machine heads adorned with dark wooden pegs hold tuning stability superbly and more than look their part in the entire package. The Venus Electro’s body shape looks to classic orchestral model guitar shapes for inspiration, and is remarkably comfortable when played sitting down or standing with a strap attached.
The Fishman INK3 preamp and pickup bundled together with the Venus Electro is incredibly simple and intuitive. Controls include a three-band EQ, volume and backlit tuner, all of which serve to cover every players’ needs when in use. When plugged in, the Venus Electro’s voice is articulate and accurate, and adjusting the onboard controls on the fly is a walk in the park.
The Faith Guitars Venus Electro Natural is a quality instrument that relies on honest craftsmanship and high quality tonewoods to get its point across. There aren’t any fancy bells and whistles or flashy decals emblazoned onto its body or fretboard; it’s a guitar that takes pride in its countenance with no pretentiousness whatsoever, bringing the hands that play it to the front and centre.
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