Custom Ovation Celebrity CS2000 Millennium - The Stratovation
No, your eyes aren't fooling you. This is an Ovation that has been modified to be more Strat-like. It's the guitar no one asked for....The Stratovation!
The guitar started life as a 2000 Ovation Celebrity CS2000 Millennium Edition model with a unique sunburst finish and a birdseye Maple top. This guitar, unfortunately, suffered from the same issue that plagues so many Ovations from this time period....the dreaded belly bulge that causes the bridges to peel off. The brand took a shortcut and actually glued the bridges directly to the clear coat, so when the bridge eventually fails, it takes as much of the clear coat off with it, leaving an ugly mess. Our repair facility fixes this issue regularly on customer-owned Ovations. We typically remove the bridge as cleanly as we can, remove the finish where the bridge goes, and glue it back on with a wood-to-wood connection so that it will last a long time. When this one came to us, it had already had an ugly bridge reglue. It sat around our warehouse in the "we'll get to it someday" pile. Fast forward to the end of the year when we were cleaning our warehouse and decided to keep with our yearly tradition of building whatever Frankenstein guitar we can with whatever parts we have laying around. The plan was made to turn this doomed Ovation into a Stratocaster!
The top was routed to accept a trio of import Strat pickups, a 5-way blade switch, a trio of knobs, and a Strat tremolo bridge. The 5-way pickup selector works like a standard Strat switch, but has a Master Volume and a Master Tone control. The third knob is a blend control to mix in a pair of piezo pickups we mounted underneath the soundboard. All of this is wired to the stock output jack location of the Ovation. The piezo sounds aren't the best in the world, but are still usable and when blended with the Strat sounds, some cool tones and textures can be created. The scale length is 25.5", which is the standard scale for both the Ovation and Fender portions of the build, so it does intonate properly all over the fingerboard. The gold tremolo does work!!! We braced the inside to accept a Fender tremolo claw and springs. The trem does float, and works pretty well. I would be careful doing wild whammy dives with it because it's an Ovation and not a Floyd Rose, but the trem is for sure usable and returns to pitch properly. The stock Ovation preamp is still installed and works, but is not connected. The original under-saddle pickup is included, in case you ever want to turn this bad boy back into an Ovation someday. The neck is straight, the action is low, and this one is a blast to play and is an instant head-turner. Honestly, it looks pretty good. It came out better looking than we expected!
An Ovation bowl-back hardshell case is included.