Cole Clark SFL1EC-BLBL Studio Fat Lady Acoustic Guitar Blackwood / Blackwood

The Cole Clark FL1EC in Australian Blackwood is an all-solid timber cutaway acoustic-electric guitar from Cole Clark's Series 1 Fat Lady range. Every structural component — top, back and sides — is solid Australian Blackwood, a native Australian tonewood with a distinctive tonal and visual character that separates this instrument from acoustic guitars built with imported tonewoods. The neck is African Mahogany, the fretboard and bridge are Eucalypt — also native Australian hardwoods — and the electronics are Cole Clark's own PG3 three-source pickup system. Cole Clark guitars are made in Melbourne, Australia, and the BLBL designation confirms all-blackwood construction throughout the body. This is a premium, Australian-built acoustic-electric guitar with a strong identity — in materials, construction and electronics — that reflects Cole Clark's position as one of the most respected names in acoustic guitar manufacturing.

Australian Blackwood — The Defining Tonewood

Australian Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) is a native Australian hardwood with a tonal character and visual appearance that has made it one of the most sought-after tonewoods for acoustic guitar construction. It shares botanical family ties with Hawaiian Koa — both are Acacia species — and the two tonewoods share overlapping tonal characteristics, though Blackwood has its own distinctive identity developed by Australia's growing conditions.

Tonally, Australian Blackwood produces a warm, balanced, full sound with a strong midrange character and a natural sweetness in the upper frequencies. It delivers clear note separation and a musical, resonant sustain without the extreme brightness of spruce-topped guitars or the very dark character of cedar. The all-Blackwood construction of the CCSFL1EC-BLBL — top, back and sides all in the same timber — produces a coherent, integrated tonal response: the top, back and sides resonate sympathetically with each other rather than producing the contrast effects of a mixed-timber construction.

Visually, Australian Blackwood ranges from warm honey-gold through to deep amber-brown with pronounced figure — ribbon grain, fiddleback and interlocked grain patterns are common, and the poly satin finish of the FL1EC displays this grain without obscuring it under a high-gloss surface.

All-Solid Timber Construction — Why It Matters

The CCSFL1EC-BLBL is an all-solid instrument: every piece of structural timber — top, back and sides — is solid wood rather than laminate. This distinction is fundamental to how the guitar sounds and how it ages. A solid top vibrates as a single sheet of wood, responding to string energy across its full surface and producing the complex, harmonically rich sound characteristic of fine acoustic guitars. Laminate construction bonds multiple thin layers of wood together, which dampens this vibrational freedom and produces a flatter, more compressed tonal response.

All-solid guitars also improve significantly with age — as the wood fibres loosen through regular playing, the instrument opens up and becomes more resonant and responsive over time. Laminate guitars do not undergo this change in the same way. The all-solid construction of the CCSFL1EC-BLBL means the instrument being purchased today will sound progressively better across years of regular playing.

Cole Clark PG3 Pickup System — Three Sources, One Natural Sound

The Cole Clark PG3 is a three-element pickup system that captures the acoustic guitar's sound from three independent sources, each addressing a different aspect of the instrument's acoustic output:

• Face sensor: A piezo element mounted on the inside face of the soundboard (the top). This captures the vibration of the top itself — the primary sound-producing surface of the acoustic guitar — rather than the string vibration transmitted through a saddle. The result is a more natural, acoustically accurate representation of the guitar's top resonance.
• Strip piezo: A conventional undersaddle strip piezo element that captures the direct string vibration and mechanical energy transmitted through the saddle. This adds definition, attack and string clarity that complements the broader face sensor signal.
• Condenser microphone: A small internal microphone that captures the air moving inside the guitar's body — the room-resonance, breath and spatial character of the instrument that no contact-only pickup can reproduce. The microphone adds the acoustic-space dimension that makes amplified acoustic guitar sound live rather than processed.

The three signals are blended by the on-board preamp, which gives the player control over the mix of these sources. In practice this means the PG3 can be dialled for a clean, bright direct sound dominated by the piezo, a warmer more natural sound led by the face sensor, or a more open, room-acoustic character led by the microphone — or any combination. The system is designed specifically for Cole Clark's all-solid instruments and is calibrated to the resonance characteristics of solid-timber construction.

Eucalypt Fretboard and Bridge — Australian Timber Throughout

Cole Clark uses Eucalypt for the fretboard and bridge — maintaining the all-Australian timber philosophy of the FL1EC into its playing and hardware surfaces. Eucalypt is a dense, hard-wearing hardwood with a tight grain and smooth playing surface. Its hardness makes it an excellent fretboard material that withstands the wear of regular playing, and its tonal character — producing a clear, defined note response — complements the Blackwood body's warmth. The use of Eucalypt in place of conventional fretboard tonewoods (rosewood, ebony) is a deliberate part of Cole Clark's brand identity and commitment to Australian timbers.

African Mahogany Neck — Stability and Warmth

The neck is African Mahogany — a well-established choice for acoustic guitar necks for its tonal warmth, dimensional stability and comfortable weight. Mahogany necks resist warping and twisting over time and are known for their consistent playability across climatic variations. The 25.5-inch scale length is standard, and the 12-inch fretboard radius is a comfortable modern specification — flatter than vintage-radius necks and well suited to both chord playing and melodic single-note work. The 44mm nut width provides a comfortable string spacing for fingerpicking and flatpicking alike. The Graph Tech Tusq nut offers consistent string break angle, low friction and uniform tone transmission.

Cutaway Design — Access to the Upper Register

The cutaway in the bass-side bout of the body creates a clear path to the upper frets — positions above the 12th fret that are inaccessible or difficult to reach on non-cutaway guitars. For players who use the acoustic guitar for melodic lead playing, fingerstyle passages in the upper register or live performance where reaching the highest frets is essential, the cutaway is a practical design choice rather than an aesthetic one. The Cole Clark cutaway design maintains the body volume of the Fat Lady shape as closely as possible while opening the upper register access.

Who Is the Cole Clark FL1EC Blackwood For?

• Performing acoustic-electric players who need a live pickup system that sounds like a microphone rather than a piezo — the PG3 three-source system is the primary reason to choose this guitar for live performance
• Players who want an all-solid instrument that will improve sonically over years of playing
• Players drawn to Australian tonewoods — specifically Blackwood's warm, balanced, Koa-adjacent tonal character
• Fingerstyle, folk and singer-songwriter players who value nuanced acoustic response, natural tone and upper-register access
• Players who want a premium acoustic guitar built in Australia using Australian materials

Specifications

Expert Advice at Angkor Music

At Angkor Music Melbourne we stock Cole Clark acoustic guitars and can demonstrate the PG3 pickup system through a PA or amplifier in store. Cole Clark instruments are made in Melbourne and we have extensive experience with the range. If you are comparing the all-Blackwood FL1EC to other Cole Clark timber combinations, or want to understand how the PG3 performs live versus studio, contact our team.

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