My Alvarez Parlor

[epaul]

www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MP66eSB--alvarez-mp66e-masterworks-acoustic-electric-guitar-shadowburstit

Broke my heart, but I returned it.

Prettiest guitar I have ever held. Photos can't capture how pretty the finish was with the hints of dark red lying underneath the warm mahogany. Unbelievably lovely!

Playing experience:

I pulled the guitar from the cheap and over-sized gig bag they shipped the guitar in (ridiculous, it was an OM bag, with the customer expected to pay an extra $200 for the factory case the guitar left Alvarez shipping in). I gave the guitar a strum... and the low E string was dead and muffled. Like the nut was made of sponge. Something was wrong.

I racked my long dormant guitar mind. An idea floated out of the cobwebs... and then I loosened the truss rod half a turn or so. Magic. The low E came alive and the guitar sounded pretty darn good. (so much for that $200 Plek job... never again!).

But, the guitar just felt a little cramped, fingering and picking felt a little off.

Needs a strap, I thought. So I went digging though my guitar closet and pulled out a guitar I hadn't played in eons and eons with the intent to steal its strap. But before I pulled the strap, I gave the guitar a strum...

HOLY SHIT! I heard a choir of angels with harps and trombones. That guitar just rang and rang, and it rang with such a full sweetness. And the neck, which wasn't skinny, felt wonderful and left my fretting fingers in just the right places. So comfy!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, MY DARLING SWEET LOVE?

Ok, stuck ignored and un-played in my closet for darn near ten years. Well, we'll not bring that up again.

Anyway, my closet guitar that blew my socks off ruined the Alvarez parlor for me. I spent a week trying to come up with a reason to keep it as it was so pretty. And it sounded good. But, only good, not a choir of angels with harps and trombones good like my closet find. And it just felt a little cramped to play... neck, strings, body...cramped.

I wanted to keep it, but I just had no desire to play it. So pretty... sigh... but I sent it back.

I ran through all my guitars, went on a playing frenzy. None came close to matching the forgotten one that had been stuck in my closet un-played virtually from the day I got it.

I don't know what was going through my head when I put it there. I was playing 12-string with metal fingerpicks at the time, so maybe my ears were shot. And I had marred the finish in a couple spots by pulling off a John Pearse armrest, and that bugged me at the time (I was young and superficial).

Anyway, one is gone, another is found. And I am playing every day again.

[drlj]

Why didn’t you just stick it in a closet for 10 years and then make up your mind?

[RickW]

With the low E string, did you check whether the ball end of the string was properly seated against the bridge plate? I had a guitar like that, and it turned out that the ball end of the string had been pushed out by the bridge pin, so it wasn’t touching the bridge plate. Loosened the pin, pulled up on the string, and it was perfect.

[epaul]

The truss rod adjustment did the trick. The guitar sounded just fine and it had a good low E, not tubby or tricked up, but solid and in proportion and shared character with the rest of the strings. My guess is the fellow doing my $200 Pleked setup went for the moon on setting up a wonderful, amazing, out of this world easy-peasy action (as not just any schmuck shells out a non-refundable $200 to Plek an un-played guitar, only the most discerning of shmucks) and he cut it too fine and Sweetwater whistled it out the door without waiting a day or two to see how it all settled out. A rushed Plek.

If I had felt more comfortable with the neck and string spacing, I probably would have enough of an argument to keep it (as it was so darn cute and pretty, it wouldn't have taken much). But, as for sound and tone and all that, the guitar sounded fine.

[Cosmic Wonder]

David has a friend/neighbor who he plays with occasionally who has a absolutely stunning sounding old Alverez.

Mike

[epaul]

I did think about putting it in the closet for ten years...

[david]

I am glad that you were inspired by something you already had. Did this all really happen or is it an Epaul parable?

[amanajoe]

This inspired me to get my (virtually identical) Alvarez parlor out of the closet again. (It has been sequestered for a couple of months, don't know why) I do get the short scale and the string spacing as it is causing a completely different feeling in playing style (especially for me with the short fat finger syndrome that makes me a poor guitarist anyway). The guitar itself doesn't take well to many of the ways I generally play, but responds well to avoiding some of the chords and fingerings I generally play on a 25.5" scale narrow string spacing and more towards the jazzy fingerings that will fit.

Overall, it is still my favorite couch guitar and small gathering device as the music choices in those environs tend to be more fitting on it.

I bought it after looking at several parlors and said the next time I see one, I'm going to buy one come hell or high water. Went to a GC in Arlington Heights one night when I was stuck in the Chicago area for work and they were having a jam. Guy running it said grab something off the wall (I didn't have a weapon with me). This one was on clearance. After playing it for a few tunes, I asked why it was on clearance and they said the battery box was missing and since B-Band hand gone under they couldn't get another one. I recognized the battery box as being identical to some cheap joyo units I had at home and snatched it up, out the door for $200 plus the egregious Illinois State, Cook County, and Arlington Heights taxes.