NGD!

Jbird

Jbird

Kick Henry Jackassowski
I went to Elderly's today to check out their Rainsong Shorty they had in, as well as the new Rainsong Parlor model guitar they had.

I ended up bringing home a Composite Acoustics Cargo HG :embarrassed:

My Emerald is sold, as well as the very first guitar I ever bought, that black Gibson B-25 I bought back in 1981.

This is now my only acoustic guitar. It plays and sounds better than the Emerald I had, and is about the same size. Looking it up online, it's supposed to have a 22.75" scale neck, but my fingers feel less cramped than the Emerald X7 I had which was 24" scale :shrug:

All I know is I tried all the Rainsongs Elderly's had, as well as a couple of regular-sized CA guitars they had out, and this Cargo had the lowest action of any of them. Sure, it doesn't sound quite as big and boomy as the full-sized ones, but it does sound bigger than both the Emerald & the Gibson I owned.



(yeah, I need to wash my garage door :tongue: )

It has electronics in it, but only a plug-in thru the rear strap knob. There isn't a little panel with EQ or tuner. And the battery is in a little velcro pack inside the sound hole. Good thing I have small hands or the battery would be a pain to try and change. I don't think someone with big meaty hands could get in there, quite frankly.

I may have to think about investing in an EQ pedal if I ever want to plug it in to the PA at church.


edit: I just posted some factory videos of the CA factory yesterday, and I wasn't even dreaming of getting a CA guitar when I did so.
 
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Very neat. I have never had a chance to play one of these, so I look forward to hearing how you like it. HNGD!
 
Gary Blanchard said:
Very neat. I have never had a chance to play one of these, so I look forward to hearing how you like it. HNGD!
Click to expand...

It sounds very nice acoustically. Not quite as 'big' sounding as a dreadnought, obviously, but it is pretty loud. I'd venture it is louder than what my B-25 was (a parlor guitar) and my Emerald (a similar backpack carbon fiber guitar).

My Gibson had pretty low action for an acoustic. This matches or beats it, really. My Emerald had a bit higher action....not bad, but not as good as this. This guitar just spoke to me the minute I picked it up. I went looking for the Rainsong Shorty after I played this. One of the workers had to get it out of the back room. I played it, as well as the Rainsong parlor guitar and then came back to the CA Cargo. The Cargo just beat the Rainsongs playability-wise. It was 'the one' :)
 
Hey, that looks great! I dig that! I'm not an acoustic guy, but I could see myself owning something like that.
 
Very nice! HNGD! I live about 50-60 miles from Elderly and make 2-3 trips a year over to see what they have for used stuff. Now that they have lost Gibson they really have lost a lot.
 
Here's a video review of them. I'm not sure how the tone is in the video, as I'm just listening to it on my laptop speakers.

Playing starts at roughly 2:40



One of these days I'll have to figure out how to do a youtube video. I'm technology-challenged though, so someone would have to walk me through the process :embarrassed:
 
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I finally got to play it at church tonight. The pastor said it did sound better than the Emerald. I can hit a note on this guitar and have it sustain forever....maybe that's one of the differences of why I just took to this guitar when I first tried it.

Not that the Emerald was a bad guitar by any means, this one just plays and sounds better. The Emerald did have better electronics, it sounded very nice plugged in, as well as having onboard EQ and tuner. This CA sounds a bit 'not-acoustic' when plugged in, though fiddling with an amps EQ certainly helps it along. Since We don't play plugged into anything at church unless it's a special show like a Christmas program, it doesn't matter much. I should buy an EQ pedal to go thru just in case, if that would work for plugging direct into the PA or small acoustic amplifier.
 
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