Guitar review - Gitane DG-320

Djangoism currently run on Gitane guitars - they are excellent value for money, have great playability, a decent sound and seem to be just the job for those of us who haven’t made the jump to a handbuilt instrument. Shez has been using the D-500 to great effect on lead duties and I have been playing rhythm on a DG-300 John Jorgenson oval hole. We realise that it is more usual to use a D hole for rhythm and an oval hole for lead but Bireli Lagrene plays a D hole and Hono Winterstein backs him up with an oval hole on the Gypsy Project Live in Paris DVD so who are we to argue? I found that the wider neck of the D-500 made it difficult for me to play rhythm for prolonged periods but I liked the sound of it so when I decided that I needed a spare guitar (for string breakages during high profile gigs and to lend depping guitarists) I ordered a DG-320. The design of the DG-320 is a hybrid between the D hole and oval hole models - it has a large D hole but it has the longer scale, shorter width neck (which joins the body at the 14th rather than 12th fret) of an oval hole so it should fulfil my desire for the sound of a D hole with the playability I already enjoy on the DG-300.

I have had the DG-320 for a few months and tried it on a gig where I discovered a small fault with my particular instrument whereby the top string sometimes got stuck under the slightly unseated top fret making a high pitched sound until the end of each song. The action was also rather low with a lot of fret buzz. Now I have had those problems rectified I can make a better assessment of the instrument. The first thing I found is that this is a completely different guitar to the DG-300 - the neck is shallower and the body is wider at the lower bout which completely alters its feel. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it is certainly not just a DG-300 with a different shape of soundhole (it couldn’t be because the internal bracing has to be modified to accomodate the larger soundhole, but the neck could have had the same profile). I find the extra width of the lower bout an advantage because it puts the guitar in just the right playing position for me when sitting on most chairs without having to raise my right foot. I prefer the deeper profile of the neck on the DG-300.

The sound, as expected, has more bass and middle than the DG-300 and it also sounds more open and less focussed to my ears. It makes for a much richer sound when practising alone but I don’t think it would cut through other instruments as effectively as the DG-300 does for lead duties. As a rhythm instrument it is louder than the DG-300 and the ’slap’ of damped beats seems more percussive which gives more drive to the sound so it may be a better instrument for this role. The shallower neck, and the slightly lower action that my individual instrument has, make prolonged rhythm playing a bit easier than the DG-300 that I have (currently both are strung with 11-46 gauge strings) which is important for a long gig with a lot of fast tunes (Djangoism don’t hold back on fast tempos). I need to use the DG-320 on some more gigs to make up my mind but I expect to be using it for any situation when I am only playing rhythm (which is all my paid gigs) whilst using the DG-300 for jam sessions and practicising lead lines. If I was looking at these guitars I would try both but the DG-300 is probably the more versatile one guitar solution.