Premium Guitar Magazine
November 2007

Read this article on the PremiumGuitar.com website.

Jeff Babicz, President of Babicz Guitars and builder of this instrument, makes guitars that are meant to be played, and the Custom Koa Signature D’esque is packed with features that strongly define that philosophy.

I've never been a big fan of "museum piece" guitars. You know the type: beautiful, expensive guitars made with incredibly rare woods, sporting exotic inlays that are so precious their owners are afraid to take them out and really play them. When I first opened the custom embroidered case of the Babicz Custom Koa D'esque and saw nothing but perfectly finished koa, ebony and mahogany, I assumed that I was looking at just such a museum piece. Upon closer inspection, however, I was happy to see that my initial impression couldn't have been more wrong.

Jeff Babicz, President of Babicz Guitars and builder of this instrument, makes guitars that are meant to be played, and the Custom Koa Signature D'esque is packed with features that strongly define that philosophy. From the Fishman Ellipse Aura pickup system to the secondary soundhole in the upper bout to the patented neck adjustment system, this guitar screams play me. One of the most impressive things about the guitar is that while it's made entirely of high-end materials and could be considered a bit pricey for some - $8,000 as tested - most of the design innovations and features employed here are available in Babicz' production guitars at prices accessible to almost any player.

While it would be impossible to overstate the beauty of this guitar or its impeccable craftsmanship and attention to detail, the thing that really knocked me out about the Babicz has more to do with the way it's designed than what it's made of. Almost every feature on Babicz' acoustic guitars has been rethought and designed to address the inherent problems with traditional acoustic guitar lutherie. The splayed string anchoring system, the lateral compression soundboard, the split bridge/string retaining system, the soundboard bracing pattern and the fully adjustable neck height system are all Babicz innovations that help the guitars sound great and play beautifully.

Neck & Body
It took me a little while to get used to the concept of being able to adjust the neck height on an acoustic guitar. Generally speaking, making adjustments to an acoustic outside of tweaking the truss rod are usually best left to professionals. However, the Babicz Continually Adjustable Neck makes neck height adjustments a snap for anyone. Simply put the hex key (conveniently attached to the back of the headstock) into the hole at the base of the neck heel and turn it until the neck reaches the desired height - that's it. I was easily able to set the D'esque up with a super low string action that facilitated fast lead runs and quick chord changes. Alternately, with just a few more turns in the opposite direction, I was able to drop the neck back down to obtain a higher string height that was ideal for playing slide. Amazing! This neck system is incredibly stable and the adjustments had no effect on either the tuning or the scale length.

Another benefit of this system is that since the neck is not attached to the soundboard, it is able to resonate more freely than on conventionally constructed acoustics. This design also allowed Babicz to make the neck contour thinner with a zero taper. Because there was no need to employ a radius taper to add strength at the neck joint, the Babicz neck has an even radius throughout, translating into one of the smoothest and easiest-to-play acoustics I've ever come across - feeling almost like an electric. Access to the top frets is uncompromised; in fact, it's as easy to play above the 12th fret as it is to play on the first fret.

I definitely enjoyed the size and shape of the D'esque, offering a big enough shape to provide a full, round-bottomed sound while still being very comfortable to play. The top, back and sides of the D'esque are all made of Hawaiian koa; even the front and back of the headstock features koa veneers. The grain pattern is absolutely beautiful and the finish is top-notch throughout. The neck is made from a solid piece of Honduran mahogany with a gorgeous ebony fingerboard. The tuning machine knobs, bridge/string guide and binding are all ebony, providing a very classy touch, worthy of the koa it adorns. However, for all of its beauty the D'esque is not overly ornate, instead using Paua abalone in dot shapes on the neck, brass dots for the side markers and mother of pearl for the Babicz logo - that's it!

Soundboard & Bridge
One of the most identifiable features of a Babicz is the location of the string anchors, which are splayed across the back of the soundboard near the perimeter of the guitar, contributing to the instrument's distinctive look. Their placement is once more a case of form following function in that they hold the strings to the soundboard and not the bridge, allowing the soundboard to resonate more freely and produce more volume with greater projection, resulting in a more focused sound.

Since the string tension normally focused on the center of the soundboard is distributed more evenly along the edge of the guitar, traditional X-bracing, which can limit the soundboard's vibration, is no longer necessary. The D'esque employs hand-tuned, antique Adirondack spruce braces in an "A" type pattern.

Another innovative component of the Babicz is the Split Bridge setup, which combines a beautiful ebony bridge and companion string retainer. With this design, the bridge and the string retainer work in conjunction to create a more direct, downward string force on the bridge. By design, normal acoustic bridges cause more rotational force on the bridge and can limit soundboard movement. With the Babicz system, these limitations are sidestepped.

The bridge is anchored to the soundboard via three small hex screws that are attached in a way that affords enough movement of the bridge angle to fine-tune intonation. Again, the player is able to tweak the feel and playability of this instrument without getting major work done by a professional. It is amazing how easy it is to dial in your dream acoustic guitar setup on this guitar.

Pickup System
The D'esque features a Fishman Ellipse Aura, which is a "blend" type system that allows the user to combine a straight piezo signal with a signal that has been processed with digital microphone imaging technology. These images are based on famous, world-class microphones and produce remarkably realistic guitar tones. The Ellipse Aura allows you to access up to four onboard mic models, but you can go to the Aura Gallery at fishman.com and download other mic models to your guitar, via the mini-USB connector on the pickup system. I would have liked to be able to have more than four mic models available on the guitar at one time, but by blending in the straight piezo signal, guitarists will still be able to dial in a wide variety of tones. The Ellipse Aura also features a built-in feedback eliminator, phase switch and low frequency boost switch, allowing players to even further tailor their tone.

The shape of the control surface itself is a semi-circle that was designed to be installed in the soundhole of a conventional acoustic by attaching directly to the soundboard. At this point of the review, you've probably realized that Jeff Babicz is no fan of attaching things to the soundboard. Instead, he chose to mount the system just inside the secondary sound hole. This took a little getting used to and was perhaps not the most elegant solution, but once I played it for a while, it felt perfectly natural and making adjustments on the fly was not a problem at all.

The best thing about this pickup system is that it delivers microphone-quality tones without having an open condenser microphone in the guitar. Because of this, the level of gain achievable before feedback is very, very high, making the guitar perfect for live settings, regardless of stage volume. The only thing I had difficulty with was the lack of any EQ control outside of the low frequency boost switch.

The Final Mojo
The D'esque is an amazing instrument, offering an unparalleled level of flexibility, playability and beauty that can work for any style of player. The sound of this guitar is great both acoustically and amplified, with a well defined low-end and a brilliant, bell-like tone in the mids and highs. The D'esque is a perfect guitar for recording or playing live and would make an amazing addition to anyone's collection. It might be out of the price range for some, but its performance and looks ably justify its cost. Bottom line: It sounds and feels great in addition to being beautiful. I'll take two.

Jeff Babicz Signature Series Website

MusicPlayers.com
May 2007

Read this article on the MusicPlayers.com website.

What do the following bands and musicians have in common: Porcupine Tree, Black Eyed Peas, Pat Travers, Todd Rundgren, and Adrian Belew? Well, besides being talented artists, they have all been seen playing a funky looking acoustic guitar that seems to have borrowed some visual cues from familiar musical door chimes. Fortunately, no tethered ball or mallet is necessary to evoke beautiful sounds from within a Babicz guitar. The unique design does, however, play an important role in defining the tonal sound and long-term physical condition of the guitar.

The Babicz Identity DRW-06 acoustic guitar has all the right stuff thanks to a combination of great sound, superb playability, and some very innovative structural designs. Most noticeable is the fanning of the strings across the sounding board, which adds quite a distinct look to the guitar. Once we took an in-depth look at the engineering principles behind this design – it’s not just for cosmetics, and understood the physical and tonal effect of this design on the guitar, we found the design to be truly genius.

Equally impressive, Babicz developed new technology that enables the player to make neck/string height (action) adjustments on the fly without any complexity or intonation changes/adjustments. This guitar is well worth your consideration, and is the first acoustic guitar to receive our prestigious WIHO Award.

Features

The Babicz Identity DRW-06 is constructed of a high gloss-finished, solid rosewood back and sides, with a satin finished, solid spruce top outlined by black/white/black binding. The two-piece bound mahogany neck (also in satin finish) provides continuous adjustability through its two-way truss rod and Babicz’s patented neck height adjustment feature for desired string action preferences – an extremely cool feature we’ll talk more about in the Usability section of the review.

Starting at the top of the guitar, the face of the headstock is constructed of a rosewood overlay fitted with black Grover tuners. The neck is a comfortable C shape, 1-11/16” at the nut spanning twenty frets, with a 25.5” scale length.

This is where it gets really interesting. The Babicz Identity Series guitar is fitted with an adjustable rosewood torque-reducing split bridge system. What? Unlike conventional bridge systems that are glued to the top of the guitar, the Babicz bridge is anchored to the guitar via a fastening system that allows the bridge to be loosened and repositioned for intonation adjustments.

With most bridge systems on acoustic guitars, the strings anchor into the bridge, focusing all the tension at the center of the soundboard, and here is where the Babicz split bridge design comes into play. Once the strings pass over the bridge, they are channeled through a string retainer (second part of the split-bridge) that pitches the strings downward from the back of the bridge, providing pressure from the strings down and over the bridge to the body of the guitar.

Note that at this point, there’s still no anchor to the most flexible part of the soundboard (top) of the guitar, thereby eliminating any pull or tension that would result in decreased vibration of the guitar top. From this point, the strings are fanned out to the edge of the guitar top, where they are anchored via posts through the soundboard connected to anchor plates on the inside of the guitar.

With this design, Babicz is able to achieve a more lateral tension pattern spread over a wider area of the guitar, resulting in full-bodied sound quality. Another attributing factor to this guitar’s great sound is that with the string tension being disbursed across the soundboard instead of anchored in the bridge, less structural bracing is needed inside the instrument, allowing the soundboard to vibrate more freely.

Cosmetically, this guitar displays excellent craftsmanship. The glossy back and sides reflect a very deep, rich rosewood tone and compliment the satin-finished mahogany neck and spruce top. We did, however, detect some very light and barely noticeable cosmetic flaws on the neck. At a few frets, the finish was chipped – possibly during the fretwire installation.

The Babicz guitar came equipped with a nice hard shell case providing sufficient protection for the guitar.

Usability

The Babicz Identity was very enjoyable to play. The neck is true from top to bottom, providing clear fretted notes and perfect intonation throughout. On this particular model, notes in the upper register were difficult to reach due to the dreadnought body style. If your playing requires upper register accessibility, you will want to opt for one of the cutaway models offered.

The smooth, unfinished neck was also a factor in ease of playability. From a mechanical standpoint, we really enjoyed the neck adjustment feature developed by Babicz Guitars. Using the supplied allen-wrench, clipped to and easily accessible at the back of the headstock, we were able to easily make adjustments to the string height depending on our playing techniques and string action preferences. The Babicz neck adjustment feature enabled us to raise the entire neck up or down in relation to the body of the guitar in order to achieve our preferred string height.

As a result of this feature, the neck is not anchored or glued to the soundboard of the guitar, which at first glance seems to buck conventional wisdom regarding acoustic guitar design. But as our testing revealed, that may just be one of those old ways of thinking that is due for revision. With Babicz, their design philosophy seems clear: do as little as possible to minimize the soundboard’s ability to resonate, an approach that works great in the guitar presented to us for testing.

Because the neck movement is up and down, there is no need to worry about affecting the intonation of the guitar. Conventional neck adjustments cause change to the actual scale length of the string, which usually require intonation adjustments at the bridge. Never fear, though. The intonation on the Babicz guitar is adjustable as well. By loosening the anchor fasteners, the bridge can easily be moved forward or backward via the slotted soundboard to dial in accurate intonation.

We had to check this cool feature out for ourselves and found that by loosening the bridge fasteners, repositioning of the bridge was a breeze. The movement was very smooth and easy to adjust, much like that of the floating bridge system on a jazz guitar, but better because you can clamp it down and not worry about it being bumped out of position.

Between the player-adjustable neck action and intonation features, we have never before experienced this kind of flexible setup in an acoustic guitar.

Sound

We found the Identity DRW-06 to be very bright and full bodied in sound. No matter which position we played, the guitar provided consistent tonal quality including a good balance of low, mid, and high characteristics throughout the entire tonal spectrum. As a result of the “ICZ” Lateral Compression Soundboard, this acoustic guitar generates good volume levels combined with excellent tone.

Documentation and Product Support

Though Babicz forgot to include the product documentation with our review guitar, it typically ships with instructions for adjusting the string action and intonation. Fortunately, we found the Babicz Guitars website to be very informative. It provided ample information and support for us to perform all the tasks described in the Usability section.

Price

The Babicz Identity ID-DRW-06 (MSRP $1,095) can be purchased for just under $900, an excellent value. For an additional $399.00, you can order the same guitar with an L.R Baggs iMix onboard pick-up system.

Overall Rating - Product Summary

Category	Value	Rating
Features	20%
Usability	25%
Sound	25%
Documentation & Support	10%
Price	20%
OVERALL RATING = 3.6, which earns it a WIHO Award. 3.6 stars or better: Outstanding, WIHO Award 3 stars or better: Worth considering 2 stars or better: Suited to specific needs 1 star or less: Not recommended

Derek Davodowich is a professional musician, Berklee graduate, and guitar instructor located in New Jersey. Contact him at derekdavo@optonline.net

Vintage Guitar Magazine
April 2007

When a vintage-minded guitarist recollects cracking open the case of a big ol' hollowbody and catching a glimpse of flame, minds wander to dreams of Gibson ES-5 or Kay Jimmy Reed Thin-Twin axes. As one unboxes the Babicz Octane, many of the same emotions are stirred, given the classic look of the hollowbody beauty's flame-maple top and solid-mahogany back and sides.

The Octane's patented bridge, string retainer, and fanned-out string anchor design makes it (and the other guitars in the Babicz Identity line) distinctive in look and tone. With a soundhole and construction that leaves much of the top free to vibrate, this guitar is an organic being. Add the optional LR Baggs piezo with the proprietary blender, and you have an instrument of rare versatility.

After a little time playing at home, we recently took an Octane to a solo instrumental gig. Strung with nickel-wound D'Addario .OlOs (the aluminum saddle is compensated for an unwound third) and plugged into a warm-sounding Ultrasound AG-50D acoustic amp, we were immediately taken with the gradations of jazz-appropriate tones available by blending the pickups, adjusting the tone control, and bleeding varying degrees of the Baggs saddle pickup into the mix. A suggestion of the transparent Barto1ini/L- Tuck Andress sound or the mic'd amp/ES-175 Joe Pass Virtuoso voice only heightened our disappointment in failing to play with such finesse. Rolling off the tone control never lessened the articulate sound, and the piezo blender served as an alternative tone control, adding sparkle to the Duncans.

After re-stringing with a set of .011-.052s, we played the Octane amplified through the house PA system for a vocal/guitar solo gig. The most convincing acoustic tone was achieved with a bit of magnetic pickup and the tone control slightly rolled off to attenuate the piezo's high-end response. The variety of sounds possible with the intuitive wiring and easy~operation control layout brought a new edge to blues solo passages and a warm approach on ballads. Plenty of bass response kept the low-end rolling throughout the evening. The Pearly Gates supplied the fat blues tones, and the Screamin' Demon produced a convincing country cut and rockabilly flair.

Did we mention how lovely the flametop is? A continual distraction... and the mahogany back is striking, too.

We dropped the plug into a late-50s Ampeg Jet with a reissue Jensen C12N and cranked it up. The compressed sustain inherent in the Babicz design produced big single-note resonance that at got even bigger when we strummed chords, and both parlayed well-sounding clarity. You know that sound when B.B. King hits the tonic in octaves up the neck and holds it, with soul-drenched fat sustain? Uh huh. Got it right here.

Performing guitarists want to look slick. Strap on the Octane, with its striking hardware, glossy finish, and prime lumber, and you'll look like a contender even on a bad hair day.

The piezo tended to feed back in full rock and roll blast; using a signal splitter to rout clean acoustic settings to an appropriate amp or PA might be the way to get the best out of all the possibilities of the optional advanced electronics. The wiring is easily accessible through a rear-mounted panel cut from the same piece of wood as the back. A look at the tidy electronics and clean internal construction reinforce the sense of a tenacious attention to detail.

An attractive snake-head head-stock with streamlined silkscreened logo is faced with a veneer and backed with a volute for stability and strength. The rosewood fingerboard, with it's 25 3/4" scale and 1 11/16" nut width is neatly fretted with 20 polished medium-jumbo frets. Some guitarists might wish the satin finished, D-shaped neck were attached at the 16th (as opposed to 14th) fret, for greater high-end access.

The factory setup was low and easy, but who cares when the action is readily adjustable with a quick twist of the head-stock-mounted hex wrench; remove the wrench from its holder, slip it into the hole on the back, and adjust the neck for subtle low-action chord melody or full-roarslide. There's no perceptible change in tuning during this procedure.

A moveable rosewood bridge held in place hy countersunk hex-head fasteners allows for easy intonation correction, accomplished in less than five minutes after re-stringing. The string anchor system lends the strings extra flexibility and sets the top in motion to produce the distinctive Octane sound. Performing guitarists want to look slick; strap on the Octane, with its striking hardware, glossy finish, and prime lumber, and you'll look like a contender even on a bad hair day.

That lumber, combined with high standards of craftsmanship and first class parts and electronics, combine with the Babicz-trademarked "continually adjustable neck" and Lateral compression soundboard to produce a rock monster of great individuality and versatility. But, hey, you can also use it to channel a little Johnny Smith or Jimmy Reed. And when you need to take a break, just step back and look at that sweet flame top.