This little Alvarez parlour acoustic guitar was unplayable with a really high action at the 1st and last fret; too much neck relief, totally dead strings and a fair amount of bellying behind the bridge. It desperately needed help to play well again. Incredibly, the owner tells me that it has been like this since he bought it new (cost around £600). That's simply shocking.
Had it been a Taylor then I could have improved it with their bolt-on neck & shim pair system; but had it been most any other brand of acoustic then it would be ready for either a neck reset or to - sadly - go in the burner. But it's not any other brand - it's an Alvarez and those people did something smart : they stepped the bridge down from the saddle to the pegs. That little innovation gives the owner of the guitar SO much extra scope for reducing the saddle without losing the all-important break angle of the strings over the saddle. Without this innovation, there would be nothing I could do except make the nut end play as lightly as possible and inform my customer that after this, it was neck reset or nothing.
Instead, the guitar going back is completely different - but most important of all, it has a good few years of life snatched back from the Guitar Grim Reaper!
5 сен 2024
