At a Glance

The Specs:
14-fret cutaway dreadnought body size. Solid red cedar top. Indonesian rosewood back, sides, fingerboard, headstock overlay, and bridge. Mahogany neck. X-bracing. Black graphite nut and saddle. 25³/₄-inch scale. 1¹¹/₁₆-inch nut width. 2³/₁₆-inch string spacing at the saddle. French satin lacquer finish. Proprietary tuners with “tulip” buttons. Shadow Nanoflex pickup and StudioLâg Plus preamp (powered by two CR2032 batteries). Elixir light-gauge strings. Left-handed models available. Made in China.

This Is Cool:
Onboard StudioLâg Plus preamp provides numerous tweakable tones.

Watch For:
Strap button placement on neck can be restrictive.

Price:
$925 list/$699 street.

Maker:
LÂG Guitar Co.: (631) 390-6500; usa.lagguitars.com.

LÂG Tramontane T300DCE Guitar Review

Michel Lâg-Chavarria has been building guitars in his workshop in southern France for more than 25 years, but a new distribution deal with Korg has finally allowed US guitarists to get their hands on these unique and affordable French-designed guitars. LÂG’s Tramontane line of guitars includes dreadnoughts, auditoriums, nylon-strings, and 12-strings, with cutaway, acoustic-electric, and left-handed options, in a variety of woods. But there are a few distinctive features common to all models: a flared headstock with bi-level overlay, pinless bridge, curved body bindings, compensated black graphite saddle, and Occitan cross rosette. We received a guitar from the Tramontane Stage Range for review, a T300DCE cutaway dreadnought with a solid cedar top, Indonesian rosewood back and sides, and LÂG’s StudioLâg Plus electronics, which includes five preset EQ curves.

Nontraditional Dreadnought Woods

While new guitars arrive on the market all the time, it’s rare to see such a unique design, both visually and aurally, in a factory guitar as the LÂG Tramontane. While the T300DCE is based around a dreadnought body shape with X-bracing, this is not a traditional Martin-style dreadnought by any means. The combination of the (attractive, very narrow-grained) red cedar top and (deep chocolate, with hints of maroon) Indonesian rosewood back and sides would seem to be an odd tonewood choice if LÂG were aiming for a traditional dreadnought sound—but it's not. If there’s any doubt, the combination of the pinless bridge and cutaway should convince you. The construction and craftsmanship on the LÂG are excellent, although the saddle slot was a little wide, but this didn’t seem to affect the performance of the undersaddle Nanoflex pickup.

Sleek and Skinny Neck

The Tramontane dreadnought is set up for skinny-neck lovers—the 1¹¹/₁₆-inch nut width seems even narrower, because the nut is cut so that the E strings are set a full ¹/₈ inch in from the side of the neck. The narrow C-shape neck is thin enough to feel comfortable for electric players, but not so thin as to feel alien to those used to thicker necks. The action is low and the neck is fast, thanks in part to the satin finish, and relatively buzz-free, although a few aggressive lead lines produced an occasional buzz on the E string at the 12th fret.

One slight design flaw is the combination of a wide, flat heel with strap-button placement at the extreme outside of the heel. A cutaway guitar, of course, is intended to ease access to notes beyond the 14th fret, but sliding a C shape up from first position, my hand was stopped with my ring finger at the 11th fret. When I tried the same thing on a noncutaway dreadnought with a traditional heel and strap button arrangement, my ring finger stopped at the 13th fret. This won’t be a problem for those happy to negotiate the lower half of the fretboard, but if you intend to take advantage of the Tramontane’s cutaway, you’ll want to find a different place to mount the strap button.

Fat Midrange-Based Tones

The cedar and rosewood combine to produce a sound that’s more balanced than a traditional dreadnought, with none of the low-end boominess associated with big-bodied guitars. The sound is centered more in the lower midrange, producing lush, clearly defined bass notes, lyrical mids, and bright highs. The notes have a separation that makes it more of a lead guitarist’s instrument than a rhythm machine. Even when strumming full chords, the notes blossom individually rather than cohering into a smear of sound. This, combined with the Tramontane’s French bloodline, inspired me to launch into some Django-ish jazz melodies, which were reproduced by the Tramontane with a liveliness that belied its young age, projecting clearly from bottom to top. The treble strings are a little too bright to keep me lingering forever in lead land, but that brightness helps chords—both open-string and closed-position—ring out with power and clarity. The clean, lush midrange pushed me toward bluesier leads and chord riffs in the middle of the neck, providing fat tones on an A blues and some Celtic noodling in dropped D. The Tramontane also handled the switch from standard tuning to my favorite oddball tuning, D A C# F# B E, and back with no problems, helped somewhat by the convenient onboard tuner and graphite nut.

Innovative Electronics

The T300DCE’s electronic system starts with a Shadow Nanoflex undersaddle pickup, shaped by the proprietary StudioLâg Plus onboard preamp, which features five preset EQ curves accessed via a rotary selector: Natural Folk, Mellow Mids, Studio Mid-Cut, Fingerstyle, and Mellow Jazz. While the sounds I got playing through an AER Compact 60 amp didn’t immediately bring those styles or functions to mind, they do give you a wide variety of tones, especially with the coloring provided by the treble and bass controls and the option of using the Nanoflex with no processing via a bypass switch. While it doesn’t match the flexibility of a parametric EQ, the StudioLâg Plus provides numerous tweakable tones that should help you match the Tramontane to the next device in your amplification chain—amp, small PA, etc.

Unique Sound and Style

With its warm midrange-based sounds, clear note separation, and variety of amplified tones, the LÂG Tramontane T300DCE could appeal to a variety of guitarists. Acoustic lead guitarists with no desire to ape the traditional sounds of either a dreadnought or Selmer-style Gypsy-jazz guitar could find a singular voice with the Tramontane. And anyone looking for a versatile, affordable ax with a nontraditional vibe and sense of style should check out this welcome new addition to the US acoustic guitar market.