Donner Carbon X Acoustic Guitar Beginner Kit RISING-G1

This little guitar is a gem! A must have for any guitarist who wants more than one guitar (all of them). It has such a rich mid range sound for such a small guitar. It plays easy, good to the finger tips, the fretboard is smooth with no sharp fret edges. Loved it out of the box. One con is the treble strings are a little thin as they don’t ring out like more expensive guitars will. But I can take it anywhere and trust that it won’t get damaged. Sweet find. Glad i have one.

Love the look and the mix of the carbon fiber and rich colored wood. Sound amazing

This is a sharp looking guitar and you immediately notice that some effort went into crafting the design and attention to detail. Everything visually-minded about this Rising-G1 looks top notch (I got the Brown Gloss model). This is a small guitar, only 38″ like the Parlor models and light as a feather, though the cutout feature allows good access all across the fretboard with smooth rounded frets both up and down and a sharp looking fretboard cutout at the body. The headstock is visually stunning with polished bronze looking designer tuners and embossed logo. Most notable is the “parametric” sound hole with its offset location. It took about 3-4 hours of playtime to break-in the strings (11-50’s) which brought the tune down to a warm sounding, comfortable tone. The padded gig bag is well made and a very nice addition to this package. The only drawback is the volume level. It’s very low, so you won’t be disturbing any neighbors while playing this guitar. It desperately needs a pickup for boost, but for $200.00 it’s a deal and a nice addition to my collection. Oh, and most important, it’s fun to play with a great feel to it!

I have only played this for two hours….because I got it two hours ago and can’t put it down.

I would call myself an advanced acoustic player and I have a Martin 000 17 same size and colour as this guitar.

This guitar beats my Martin in some ways. Sonically it’s just as ‘advanced’ sounding it just aims itself sonically in a different direction. My Martin is low tension but a lot of renonance and sustain with the standard Martin sound profile..

This guitar actually sounds Taylor ish ..and not baby Taylor either …this thing sounds better than a few rainsongs I’ve played. I dont get it. …how is Donner doing this?

Anyway PRO: great tuners, the top will never crack or belly, it’s very thin and flexible too so it’ll possibly mature and change somewhat with time….everything does technically. Even if it’s only 1% this guitar sounds almost torrified whichales sense bc there isn’t really any more moisture in
carbon than there is in aged, dried wood. Tuners are amazing, gigbag AMAZING, strings seem quality, probably their own strings which are okay but daddarios or Martin strings are better….also the size. THIS IS A PARLOUR sized guitar folks. I would maybe call it a 00…maybe 000 but under your arm 000 sounds like a stretch and it’s short scale. Guarantee HEAVIES will make this thing SCREAM and again ….no fear of the top bellying ever…that’s actually why I pulled the trigger on this sick of my expensive solid wood guitars eventually ‘dying’ playability wise.

Cons. Basically none this guitar is really good ..There is no pickup and you’ll probably struggle one yourself because of the soubdhole placement. Personally I can’t get my arm in there but with some thanksgiving help…maybe tomorrow

DONNER: recommendation to you. Include a $39.99’Donner 3transducer disc’ pickup in the accessories box….that way we won’t have anything to complain about.

This isn’t a beginner guitar but it’s the first cheap guitar I’d strongly recommend to a beginner that want to specifically play acoustic. This is a LIGHTWEIGHT small but LOUD beast of an acoustic.

No it’s not a Martin but mic one of these carbon wood babies up and add reverb and see what i mean..

Additional info two months later.

The neck dive is serious. I made a few videos on my YouTube account about how much I like this guitar and dona side by side with solid wood guitars and the conclusion.

The neck dive is CRAZY, but I added a pic of something you can do to alleviate that somewhat

Change the tuners to old school open gear. They generally weigh less than modern tuners and on a guitar like this, it’s necessary. I don’t notice neck dive because of how I hold small guitars. I am either in classical position or a weird ‘tucked in my armpit on the couch’ position. In classical position it dives like crazy. I’m comfy couch position I barely notice the dive.

After changing the tuners I may revise again to say ‘it worked or it didn’t’ one thing I’ll add though

One major aspect of a GREAT canon of an acoustic guitar is overall weight. It basically just means the guitar is resonant and sustains bc the mass isn’t sucking up the energy of the strings … This guitar weighs less than anything, except my Nazareth Martin. That fact alone should tell you a lot. You need to spend at least $600 to get an acoustic guitar this quality…just saying. As someone time with like 7 other acoustic guitars

2nd edit: tuners are open gear now, neck dive is still there, but frankly….

This comes with a strap and a shoelace. You can just hang the headstock to one end and you’re fine.

If you play acoustic guitar and make a big deal about neck dive on a guitar with this kind of insane value
– you should try a beaver creek, because those for a long time costed the same as this adj for inflation and there is no comparison. You aren’t ever going to find an acoustic under $500 that checks every box. You might find ‘all solid’ but the solid wood is all low quality sapele.

Or you find a $600 ‘laminate that actually ‘sounds incredible’ like Martin x series, but the whole guitar feels cheaper than this one (I have an x series, live it but this is superior in every way)

This thing clears almost every acoustic out there under $500 and right now it’s like half that price. Crazy good guitar and if you have skinny enough arms (I don’t) buy a pickup with this and a cube baby AC pedal and throw some reverb and compression on this tone, it’s soooo good!

Build quality is flawless, great tone, easy to play, amazing guitar for the money.