Ever since I got my Godin LG some 15 odd years ago I have been following up on Godin now and then and since I saw their Core model I have been lusting to try one out. Unfortunately there's not many music shops here in Denmark that stocks Godins, but a few weeks ago I stumbled upon a Godin Core p90 (they make a humbucker version as well) and I had to give it a go.
Even though I have played guitar for 20 years my knowledge is quite limited, but I'll try to tell as much as I can about the Core p90. To me the build quality seemed to be very good and the finish of the guitar was nicely done. The hardware seemed very good as well. I won't call the Core model a totally stunner, but it looks cool to me and the model a played didn't seem flawed in any way. Even though the guitar has a chambered mahagony body it still medium heavy. It's no near as heavy as a LP, but it's not light weight. I found the guitar easy and comfortably to play and the only thing I found to my dislike was a little too high action. I don't know if the guitar was taken straight out of the box and put on the shelf, but if it was it's pretty good and defenitely playable as well as gigable without first doing a major setup.
Tonewise is where the guitar to me could use a little extra. It's fitted with SD p90s (I don't know which model) and they do have that p90 grit and grunt. I found the neck pickup to be quite nice with the cleans a little better than the driven tones. The in between position was good as well, but I found the bridge too thin sounding and somewhat overpowered by the neck and this is to me the guitars weakest link. The pickups didn't clean up that good either as the sound got muffled and muddy when the volume knobs reached around 7-8.
All in all I found the Core p90 to be a really well and solid built guitar with good hardware, but lacking in the tonal department due to the pickups. I'm sure the Core series are great workhorse guitars that'll do a lot of styles, but if you're tempted to get one you might wanna considder a pickup swap.
I hope somebody finds this little review useful :D
