The Delta Snake Review: Musical Gear Review and Music Article Archive: Review: 2013 Gibson Hound Dog Dobro

Review: 2013 Gibson Hound Dog Dobro

The Gibson Hound Dog is intended to be a starter dobro for the beginner, although at around 1300.00 street price it may not seem like it. To understand the price, you have to understand the history of the Hound Dog.

Back in the 1920s, a distant ancestor of this guitar was manufactured by the Original Musical Instrument Company, founded by the Dopyera family, inventors of the Dobro in 1928. Back then, it was, and still is, a fierce competitor to the National Resophonic company, which made the now legendary metal-bodied guitars.

Back then, the “Dobro” wasn't a generic term. You had a Dobro, or a Resophonic (National), and it virtually always meant a product from the respective companies. The Dobro was intended to be a high-quality, but lower-cost alternative to the National.

Essentially, a Dobro is like a National, with its sound produced by an aluminum cone that vibrates and amplifies sound, but with a wood body. The combination of resophonic type volume, warmer sound due to the wood body, and its lower cost made the Dobro a staple in the Bluegrass and Country genres.

That same warmer, almost slinky sound, made it less of a force in Blues and Hawaiian slide music. However, players from all genres used Dobros if that's what they could afford or preferred. Like all slide-oriented guitars, it came in a square or round-neck configuration. The square necks were exactly that. Guitars with square-shaped, heavy necks that were intended to be played on your lap, or face up.

Roundnecks were played pretty much like regular guitars. Gibson bought out the company in 1993 and moved production to Nashville in 1998 and added the Dobro, to the mandolin and banjo lines into what they called their new Original Acoustic Instruments division.

The Hound Dog is a direct descendant of the old Dobros but sports some modern touches. The round neck has Fishman electronics and a radiused fretboard. The neck is relatively short, like most old Dobros (and Gibsons for that matter), but the new rounded fretboard does force the player to make a choice. Keep the action low, but have a harder time executing full chords with the slide, or raise string height and have your bass and treble strings further away (and harder to fret).

Old slide guitars generally had flat fretboards for that reason. Adding a radius just adds cost, really. The best compromise is to adjust the nut so that the strings are lower in the first position, and let the action run high from there to the bridge for slide work. In my case, I tend to adjust it down for finger-style playing and use a lighter glass slide (giving up some tone in the process). Keep in mind we're talking about the round neck here.

Some players will find the Fishman's lack of tone and volume controls annoying. One can adjust it at the amp (and most guitars sound better that way) but it can be a dealbreaker for many. The Hound Dog is an acoustic though, and its pickup system isn't out of line with the way most pickups for that kind of guitar function.

It's an attractive guitar, with clean lines. It has a figured, and laminated maple top, which helps reduce feedback. Also, for those not familiar with Dobros and Nationals, body resonance is virtually irrelevant. The sound is made at the cone and spider bridge, the body material mainly needs to be rigid and provide a good sound chamber.

That's why you can replace the stock cones in a cheaper dobro-type guitar with a high-quality one, and transform it into a passable pro-quality guitar. You can pay for higher quality wood, but after a point, it's mainly for looks. There'll be those who'll disagree, but my point is essentially the truth.

Getting back to it's price. Its Epiphone equivalent is the Biscuit, named after its biscuit-style bridge (a simple slab of wood). If you compare the two, there's a noticeable difference in wood quality in terms of appearance, but the mahogany Biscuit is a bit warmer, especially if you change out the cone.

Where the Hound Dog is better is in the volume department. Its tone is brighter and projects well. It clearly has a better-quality aluminum cone that's thinner and better machined. This translates to a better slide sound in the genres it's made for, Bluegrass and Country. The Biscuit has a sound better suited for folk blues, Hawaiian, and fingerpicking.

The other noticeable difference is that the Biscuit is around 350.00. Add a 75.00 cone upgrade, and you have 90% of the Hound Dog in terms of sound. Obviously the latter is wired for sound, has better hardware, etc., but as a starter, it's for those who want the name. This is an ideal guitar to find used.

It's 1300.00 or so price tag is quite competitive with the average National Resophonic guitar, which averages 2500.00, and it's a price battle that's been going on since the '20s.

However, both styles of resonators have been targeted by a lot of companies determined to sell lower-cost versions. The early ones were mediocre, but lately, companies like Saga (who bought the classic Regal name) are dominating the starter category with models in the 400.00 range.

Many of them, particularly the Regal, become excellent guitars when the cone is upgraded. It becomes harder to tell the difference between brands also, because of all the types of acoustic instruments, resonator-type guitars are the most dependent on who's playing it (well, maybe except for the banjo). You can take a 2500.00 National, and easily make it sound like a 350.00 Johnson without breaking a sweat. That's the key element for a guitar that was designed first to be loud above all else.

The original intent of both guitars was to provide affordable (though pricier than regular acoustics), tough, and very loud instruments that could stand up to extensive playing in rough establishments. Their competition up to the sale of Dobro to Gibson was fierce and at times marked by lawsuits.

The Gibson Hound Dog in a sense has ended that fight. National is now a boutique manufacturer that can't duke it out with a company like Gibson. Gibson in turn, has created a Dobro without the pressure of competition. It's been modernized and given a Gibson pricetag for a guitar that's been crafted with its philosophy of using good woods and expert workmanship. None of these will influence the sound much unless the cone is good, and the Hound Dog has a decent but not an excellent one.

The cone is the secret of any good Dobro, and now everyone who makes one knows that, and manufactures cheaper resonator-type guitars knowing that many buyers will simply change out the cone or not even know the sound difference.

The Hound Dog is a pretty good dobro. If you get one, you'll like it. However, due to its price, you'll like it even better if someone gives you one for Christmas. If you're using your own money, make sure to play it alongside an Epiphone Biscuit first.

The competition between the Dobro and National was both epic and beneficial. This is one case where I'm sorry that one side finally won.

-Al Handa

2013

Note: This review first appeared on the ePinions.com site in 2013. This and other reviews were short takes that accompanied the link to a business that sold the guitar. As a rule, the guitar had to be at least examined and played by the reviewer (and ideally owned). In my case, a severe case of GAS made it possible to have at least owned the reviewed instrument for a short while. I'm reprinting these as having another source on a guitar never hurts, even if the reviews aren't definitive. Other than minor corrections, these short takes are unchanged from the original text. I figure that it might be helpful to keep the older perspective.

Also by Al Handa:

Podcast Episode 3 now live on Spotify and Apple.