Ortega TZSM-3 Thomas Zwijsen

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!