I have always loved the sound of 12 string electrics, Beatles, Byrds, REM etc, and helped by Youtube and some of the reviews here on Thomann have finally taken the plunge.
I have the 59X12 vintage cream, which looks fantastic. Even if I never played it, it works as a piece of art hanging on the wall.
I noted that a previous reviewer had problems with the action. Mine was good to go straight out of the box. The action is low and very playable. When tuning it to pitch, the 2 G strings were sticking in the aluminium nut, but a little pencil lead sorted that out so the strings glide in the nut and stay in tune.
The build quality appears good.
The neck width seems fairly normal to me, and it doesn’t seem much of a greater effort to play this than a 6 string. There is a little more care required when fretting, because you are fretting pairs of strings, but its very playable.
A friend of mine has one of the “Beatles” Rickenbacker 12 strings and my memory of that is that you couldn’t get even through a song without it going out of tune. You were constantly tuning it. The Dano is good and stays in tune. When you pick it up after a few days, its still in tune. I suspect the material its made from helps in this respect. I think Masonite is a form of MDF which is strong and not particularly affected by changes in temperature and humidity. For this guitar, that’s a good thing as there is nothing more frustrating that having to constantly tune a guitar, especially one with 12 strings.
As a previous reviewer has said, the balance is good. Its very slightly neck heavy, but not enough to be a concern.
The Dano sounds great and the pickups give a fair range of different tones from bright and brittle from the bridge, to slightly darker from the neck. The most usable sound to me is the middle setting with the bridge pickup coil tapped. Although this is a solid body, its fairly loud unplugged which is great when you just want to pick it up and play.
A lot of reviewers say that its fun to play this, and that is absolutely true.
If you are looking for a 12 string, I don’t think you can go wrong with this. For the money, its great value.
