Review : Chimaera by Emerald Guitars
This is what my Chimaera looks like. Dark Red on carbon weave, dual Ghost Piezo pickups and gold hardware
Hello all. In this article I offer my review of my recently purchased Emerald Guitars Chimaera.
The Chimaera is a double necked acoustic guitar with a 12 string neck up top and a 6 string neck below. I have been a fan of double neck instruments since my teens and over the years have acquired an Ibanez Artist Doubleneck as used by John McLaughlin, an ES-1275 as used by Jimmy Page and a surprisingly awesome Gretsch Electromatic with a baritone neck and a regular six string neck. I had purchased an Ovation double neck acoustic but it was so horrible that I had pretty much given up on the idea of an acoustic double neck.
You see, I love the ability to mix tones from a 12 string and a 6 string in the same song without having to use backing tracks or overdubs. There is a sound from a 12 string that is richer and wider than from a 6 string, but one might find single note runs easier on the 6 string neck.
Construction
Like all Emerald Guitars, the Chimaera is made from carbon fibre, and as I tell my photography students, all carbon fibre is not created equal. The type of weave in the carbon fibre sheets, their thickness and the epoxies used to bring them together in the mold makes a massive difference in the quality of the final offering as well as the reliability, the durability and the overall resonance. I have tried a number of carbon fibre guitars and had nearly given up until I got my first Emerald which is a Synergy X20 model Harp Guitar. The auditory and playing experience was so incredibly better than anything else in the carbon space, that it changed my mind about what a superb carbon fibre guitar could and should be.
The body is formed in a mold and has a sound hole in the upper front bout. I have modified a D’Addario Micro tuner and mounted one in the sound hole. The top is solid carbon fibre as are both necks and fingerboards. The bridges are both pinless carbon fibre. With the exception of the tuners which are Gotoh 510 18:1 units, the pickups, the Graph Tech nuts and saddles, the pots and knobs and the output jacks, everything else is carbon fibre The entire instrument weighs only 5.7 pounds.
Each neck as twenty stainless steel frets and while the carbon fibre is incredibly stable, each neck does have a truss rod for fine adjustments.
The carbon fibre bridges are pinless. While this may sound foreign, early acoustic guitars used holes and slots to hold the strings, and when there were pins, they just prevented the string from slipping during installation. Chris at Driftwood Guitars has a video explaining the benefits of a slotted bridge here.
Size and Configuration
The guitar is 42 5/16 inches long and 17 inches wide at the widest part. The necks are offset slightly to each other to allow moving between necks to be easy. There is enough space to put a capo on each neck without them getting in the way. The maximum body depth is only 4 inches and it produces sound like a cannon even out of this reduced depth. The scale length on both necks is 25 ½ inches and the width at the nut for the 6 string neck is 1 ¾ inches and 1 15/16 inches on the 12 string neck. I’m going to call the neck carve a gentle C shape, that is not too deep and while the fretboard edges are not rolled, they are also not sharp.
Electronics
Regular readers know that I usually hate piezo pickups. While I still do not like them, the Graph Tech Ghost Piezos are the best piezos that I have ever heard and when amplified, my chain is my usual model of a solid EQ pedal (the EQ2 from Source Audio is my preference) and a really smooth compressor (the Empress Compressor Mk II is what I choose for all acoustic instruments) and into an AER amp. The sound is really excellent. As AER amps can be hard to find, for those looking for a great sounding acoustic amplifier look to the Laney A-Solo or A-Duo. There are of course lots of alternatives but I have not found any others that I would spend good money on.
There is a dedicated volume knob on the lower front for each neck and a microswitch to choose individual necks or to have both on at the same time. I tend to leave both necks on, because when playing on one neck, the strings on the other neck ring in sympathy. As with any piezos, a battery is required, and the battery door is positioned on the side near the output jack for easy access. The output jack is also on the side and to my preference not part of the strap lug. There are no tone controls in the guitar but that is not an issue. If I am using an amp, there is a tone stack and as my friend Keith Williams says, you can turn those knobs if you want. I usually leave the tone stack flat on the amp and use the Source Audio EQ2 to map the equalization to the room where I am playing. It has presets so I can set different curves very quickly and it is very easy to read at a distance. I use it for all acoustic amplified situations.
Weight Distribution
The guitar is very light so not fatiguing to play standing up. It does tend to be a bit neck heavy as one would expect, so choose a good strap that has some level of grip on the inside. Once you have the guitar settled, it does not move around a lot and the narrow depth of the body makes it easy to handle for even smaller folks.
Strings
The guitar is shipped with D’Addario Nickel Steel strings. EXP 11s on the 6 string neck and EJ36 10s on the 12 string neck. They are 80/20 Bronze so tend to last a bit longer than Phosphor Bronze but when the time comes, I will use D’Addario XS 10s on both necks as I prefer the coated strings. They are a bit less bright than the stock strings which will help with overtones when plugged in on the 12 string neck.
Playability
Because the guitar is so light and so comfortable, I have no problems with the playability. While I lack the long graceful fingers of a Buddy Guy, the neck curve and the width makes this guitar very easy to play. Playing seated on a stool or playing standing up does not become wearying., and I don’t get any pain in my hands from playing for a while. As noted above, I will go one gauge lighter on the six string neck when it comes time to change the strings, but I run coated 10s or coated 11s on all my acoustic six strings and as BB King once said, there’s no reason to work too hard. I did a separate test with a frequency response analyzer and could find no significant difference using lighter gauge strings over heavy gauge strings. You should do what you want of course, but I’m going lighter where I can.
The Graph Tech nut and saddles never bind as you would expect and the Ghost Piezo saddles are individually adjustable for height and intonation. Compared to a traditional acoustic guitar with a plain old saddle, this functionality is absolutely magical. Moreover, because carbon fibre does not move due to temperature or humidity, once you have the instrument set up, you are good for a long while. I will credit Emerald Guitars particularly on this point. There was no tweaking to anything required when I received the guitar. The setup was perfect right out of the included gig bag.
Sample Sounds
This is a short pair of takes, the same sequence played first on the six string neck and then on the twelve string necks. Both necks were on at all times. I ran a cable direct from the Chimaera to input 1 on a Clarett+ 8Pre interface which fed Logic Pro. I duplicated each original track and then panned the first 25 left and the second 25 right in order to give you some spacing. The 6 string track and the 12 string track were recorded separately because the 12 string neck with the volume at 10 is a tiny bit louder than the 6 string neck with the volume at 10.
Once into Logic the track pairs were sent to a single bus for each neck. The two busses were loaded with a UA Avalon VT-737sp preamp that I like with acoustic guitars. Compression on each track pair was set to 3.5:1 so very gentle to even out the pick attack. The completed tracks were then bounced to MP3 together. While I do not think it is a great representation, I was limited for time and the piezos don’t sound at all nasal which was, as it always is, my primary goal when using them.
When playing through either the AER Compact 60 or AER Slope 60, I tend to use a bit of the built in reverb but I did not add any reverb to these recordings.
Conclusions
I recognize that double neck guitars are a niche play but if you get it, you get it, and usually you get it hard. I find that in my traditional acoustics that I play the six strings about 60% of the time and the twelve strings about 40% of the time, so the Chimaera just makes sense for me. Carbon fibre sounds a tiny bit different from wood, but not so much as to be annoying and certainly not nearly as much as some reviewers would have you believe. To be blunt, if you did not know, I would wager that the majority would not know, and your audience will not care. Carbon fibre does not care about heat or humidity. It has amazing dimensional stability and in the most important criteria, Emerald Guitars sound and play spectacularly. You can learn more about the Chimaera by clicking this link. Emerald Guitars sell direct and ship all over the world. If you are in the Greater Toronto area and would like to see a Chimaera live, you can make an appointment request through the Emerald Guitars Ambassador page. To be clear, I don’t get compensated for that, I do it because the only way to see an Emerald live that does not involve a trip to Ireland is to arrange to meet an Ambassador and it is my position that these guitars are totally awesome. Thanks for reading, until next time, peace.
