Simon & Patrick Songsmith CH Acoustic Guitar Review

Just a few hours outside of Montreal in the small village of LaPatrie Quebec, you will find the workshops of Simon & Patrick guitars. This is where the magic begins. All of their guitars have some features in common such as the Select Pressure Tested Solid Tops made from locally sourced woods, Integrated Set Neck system, double function truss rod, Indian rosewood fingerboards and bridges along with Tusq nuts and fully compensated saddles by Graphtech. So no matter which model of guitar you choose you are definitely off to a good start.

For those of you not familiar with the name, Simon & Patrick are part of the Godin family which includes ‘Seagull’, ‘Art & Lutherie’, ‘Norman’ and of course Godin guitars themselves. Guitars from all of these brands are designed and built in Canada. They do not make any guitars abroad.

The particular guitar we are looking at in this review is from the ‘Songsmith’ range which includes dreadnaught, folk and concert hall models, the latter explaining the ‘CH’ in the name of the guitar we have here.

The Specs:

Top: Solid Pressure Tested Sitka Spruce
Back & Sides: Layered Wild Cherry
Neck: Silver Leaf Maple
Fretboard: Rosewood
Frets: 21
Scale Length: 631mm
Bridge: Rosewood
Nut & Saddle: Tusq® by Graphtech
Nut Width: 43mm
Finish: Custom Polished Finish
Colour: Tennessee Red
Made In: Canada
UK Dealer: https://www.wunjoguitars.com

Build Quality:

I have owned several Seagull guitars before, all of which were very well made and I am glad to say the Simon & Patrick continues the Godin family theme in being very well put together. The body of the guitar is finished in a very nice red colour which the company call “Tennessee Red” and is of the semi-gloss variety. This lets the grain show through nicely and gives the guitar a quite refined look. There is a cream binding around the body. The neck of silver leaf maple is complemented by a rosewood fingerboard. Frets are well finished with no rough edges and neck fits in the hand nicely. Satin finish is my preference for a guitar neck so I am very glad to see that here.

Tuners are vintage open back and are aged brass in appearance, I am not sure if they are brass but they look great. More importantly they are very smooth in operation so the guitar is very easy to tune, not that it needs tuning very often. It was very stable during the whole time I had it. The headstock is finished with the Simon & Patrick logo in vintage white.

I had a very good look around the guitar both inside and out and could find no excess glue anywhere and everything looked to be finished to a high standard with care and attention to detail.

How Does It Sound?

The solid sitka spruce top married to the layered wild cherry back and sides gives this guitar a great amount of versatility in playing style. Projection was quite surprising given the smaller concert hall body size but is no doubt a product of that pressure tested spruce top so strummers will be fine here. Fingerstyle is where the guitar really shines though with well balanced bass and treble you can be very nuanced in your playing and each note still rings clear and true. If you are a Folk or Blues player this guitar would suit you very well but of course you can literally play anything on it too. For recording the video we used a matched pair of Sennheiser e614 condenser microphones.

Conclusion

This guitar really grew on me over the time I had it. I don’t normally go for the vintage look but I did find myself warming to it. Soundwise it was always inspiring to play and it also had that very unique feel to it that only the Godin family of guitars possess. There is some sort of guitar building magic going on in LaPatrie, Canada and the Simon & Patrick Songsmith CH certainly cast a spell over me. Definitely a ‘must try’ and one of my favourite guitars of 2018.

Check out the full range of Simon & Patrick guitars over at https://www.wunjoguitars.com

For more info on Simon & Patrick guitars visit: http://www.simonandpatrick.com/guitars.htm

Mics used in the video are a matched pair of Sennheiser e614’s

Also for more discussion about the Simon & Patrick Songsmith CH and many other guitars why not drop by our forum? We would love to see you there!