Furch MC Orange OMC

first play
FURCH MC BLUE GC-CM & MC ORANGE OMC-SR
20
Guitarist october 2019
5. The MC Orange OMC-SR
has Indian rosewood
back and sides with
flamed maple binding
6. A set of Schaller M6
tuners with a 1:18 ratio
ensure that tuning is
always spot on
straight grain, top and back, offset with
flamed maple binding. Visually, it’s a
stunner. The OMC-SR shares the theme
of neck and fingerboard materials with
its companion, but the tuners here are
Schaller M6 with a ratio of 1:18 to ensure
a greater level of tuning accuracy. Apart
from that, the rosette is a ring of padauk
and the fretboard inlays are a bit more on
the flamboyant side. The only thing that
remains is to hear what both these guitars
sound like.
Feel & Sounds
Returning to the Blue GC-CM, then,
the 45mm nut width feels fingerstyle-
friendly, but if that’s a touch too fat for
you, remember that if you follow Furch’s
Rainbow route, you can specify the more
standard 43mm – or if it’s too thin, you can
ask for a whopping 48mm.
The neck has what Furch refer to as a
shallow V to it and that’s exactly what it
feels like to us. Sound-wise, everything is
nicely in balance with a good amount of
bass and resonant trebles. Experimenting
with both fingerpicking and chordal
strumming approaches, we’re happy. The
guitar feels good in the hand and sounds
good in the room.
Switching to the Orange OMC, as with
the finish, it feels like you’ve stepped up a
gear. The trebles have that glassy sheen to
them and the sustain on the notes sounds
like it’s being processed through a classy
reverb unit. Despite the thinner body depth,
which maxes out at 102mm (four inches) as
opposed to the Blue’s 114mm (4.48 inches),
the basses are superbly controlled with
enough snap and punch to satisfy strummers
and pickers alike.
Electronically, the two guitars have
different LR Baggs systems aboard. The
GC-CM has the Element, whereas the OMC
has the more upmarket Anthem. Both have
side-mounted preamp/tuner combos. Once
again, you can opt for soundhole controls
if you’re making a Rainbow order, but the
side-mounted variation offers more EQ
options. We found the Element a perfect
match for the GC with bags of control over
the basses and trebles and we chose a sound
we liked with the absolute minimum of fuss.
The OMC’s Anthem, benefitting from
the integral microphone and the facility
to balance piezo with mic via the preamp,
has an even more sumptuous array of
plugged-in sounds. We could probably
have fiddled for days and not actually come
across a sound we didn’t like.
On the Blue GC-CM,
everything is nicely in
balance with a good
amount of bass and
resonant trebles
5
6
GIT451.rev_furch.indd 20 05/09/2019 15:53