Guild or Alvarez?

dazzajl · July 2022

If you were comparing similar spec guitars from these two, would you expect one to be a generally better instrument than the other? We’re talking solid top, laminate, Far Eastern made, pickup/pre-amp level of the food chain. Guild a little north of £500, Alvarez a little south of £400.

Tannin · July 2022

I have limited experience in that price range, but from the few I've played, much of a muchness. You are unlikely to get a real dud from either company.

munckee · July 2022

There is an all solid guild on here for £500 I have one from the same series and it’s a lovely guitar.

TheMadMick · July 2022

If you would be prepared to look at something else, I have a Yamaha AC3R, all solid wood, for sale in Acoustics£.

dazzajl · July 2022

I appreciate the heads up on lovely things here. I didn’t put the models I’ve been looking at because I wanted more of a general overview on quality, feel and QC. As we all know, these are very variable at this shallow end of the acoustic gene pool.

I wasn’t trying to be secretive or go fishing but I probably should have started out saying I’m looking at the 8 string baritones. Not something where there’s a lot of choice.

Mellish · July 2022

I'd always say go to a store, try what guitars interest you. Inspect them.

Yes, you can buy online, with the option of returning. Many on the forum have done and been happy with their purchase, but trying before buying means you can check it out for tone, playability, possible issues

Cirrus · July 2022

The Alvarez Masterworks Elite Grand Auditorium that I had with Walnut Back and Sides, new is just a bit north of 500, second hand would have been well within your budget (I sold mine for £350 late last year). Tonally was pretty loud and resonant, bit more midrange than I usually like but solid sounding within the price range.

Build quality/ finish was fantastic, with the only proviso: I couldn't take to the neck profile, it was chunky/ blocky feeling and ultimately that's why it had to go. Also, factory setup was pretty high so I had to file the bridge saddle down. I think the necks might be epoxied to the body, too, making neck resets a lot harder down the road - but don't quote me on that.

Tannin · July 2022

Ahh. An interesting choice @dazzajl I have played two examples of the Taylor 8-string baritone (or, just possibly, the same one in one shop when it was new, and then again in the other shop second-hand - Hobart isn't a big city). It is said to be a good unit, and it is certainly priced that way, but I didn't warm to it at all.

Back in 2020 when I tried the first one, I was pretty keen on a baritone but I'd never played one and no-one had stock of the Alvarez this side of Melbourne, 5 hours drive and an overnight ferry away. The Guilds were not yet released. I was advised by a couple of people I respect that the Alvarez was much better than you'd expect at the price point. One of them was a happy Alvarez owner who, apart from that one, only had top-shelf instruments costing thousands more. I think that says something. I played the expensive Taylor but wasn't going to spend four grand plus. After a while I went cold on the idea and bought other things. (Which cost even more, but that's another story.)

Fast forward to late last year. By that time I'd owned a completely different baritone for about 12 months. (More about that shortly.) I met another (or just possibly the same) Taylor 8-string, second-hand. I played it fairly thoroughly and couldn't warm to the tone. Possibly that was just dead strings? I said as much to the shopkeeper. Next time I went in, he'd sent away for some new strings and put them on (8-string baritone sets are not something most shops have lying around), and also dropped the price quite a lot. I played it again and came up with the same answer: it just didn't do anything for me.

That other one I have (bought at the same second-hand guitar shop the year before) is an old Tacoma Thunderhawk. It is a very different thing, and the key, in my opinion, is the scale length.

A standard guitar has a 648mm scale. A standard bass is 864mm. The low string on a baritone is typically tuned to B - half-way between a guitar and a bass. A good first approximation to a sensible scale length for it, then, would be about half the difference, say 750mm or so (possibly a bit less because you have to remember the treble strings too unless you are going fan fret). Alas, nearly all baritones have much shorter scales, which is why they often don't sound so good. They lack snap and definition on the low notes, and as any bass player knows, the lower the note, the more important it is to have some edge on it to make it kick some arse.

My Thunderhawk was designed to be tuned to A and has a 737mm scale. Tuned to A it is nearly as flubby and lack-lustre as most acoustic baritones in B, but tuned to B it is vastly better, and tuned up to C it is downright awesome. It has the bark and growl of a cello - another instrument tuned to C as it happens, and with a fairly similar scale length. The difference between that and those two Taylors is huge. It is more alive, more vibrant, more present. The Guild baritones I've seen (but only on You-tube, not in real life) are more similar to the Taylors than the Tacoma.

The Alvarez has a semi-respectable 704mm scale. Compare with the Guild and the Taylor at only 686mm. Possibly this is why my friends thought so well of the model.

I only know of three baritones in this price range (I'm sure there are others, these are the three I have heard of) - Alvarez, Guild, and Faith. (The Faith is even shorter than Guild at 680mm.) I would certainly want to play before I bought. Baritones are a different world. I love them!

Dave_Mc · July 2022

dazzajl said:

I appreciate the heads up on lovely things here. I didn’t put the models I’ve been looking at because I wanted more of a general overview on quality, feel and QC. As we all know, these are very variable at this shallow end of the acoustic gene pool.

I wasn’t trying to be secretive or go fishing but I probably should have started out saying I’m looking at the 8 string baritones. Not something where there’s a lot of choice.

I was going to say yesterday when I first say this thread that you could probably get something all-solid (even from those manufacturers, though I haven't tried them) for that budget or slightly more... but something told me to hold off. I guess it's just being around forums for years, or maybe just that I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, that if they haven't mentioned something that it doesn't necessarily mean they haven't thought of it! Anyway, I haven't tried any 8-string baritones at all, but I would suspect you're right... not likely to be as much choice there.

Mellish said:

I'd always say go to a store, try what guitars interest you. Inspect them.

Yes, you can buy online, with the option of returning. Many on the forum have done and been happy with their purchase, but trying before buying means you can check it out for tone, playability, possible issues

Just playing devil's advocate for a second- you can easily miss something in the shop. I certainly have before! Not saying not to try first- if you can you might as well- but it's not as simple as "Try in a shop first and nothing can go wrong!" In some ways it can be more likely for something to go wrong, and you have less comeback if you buy in a shop (compared to online I mean).

Mellish · July 2022

@Dave_Mc ; - Ah, but I didn't say try in a store and nothing can go wrong

Sure it can but you're not buying blind. You're trying it, checking it over, preferrably away from the other guitars to prevent sympathetic chiming in, if you like

maltingsaudio · July 2022

From a general perspective, I would expect the Alvarez to be of lighter build and more responsive than the Guild, if the makers of the Guild are following the way the Americans build them.

Dave_Mc · July 2022

Mellish said:

@Dave_Mc ; - Ah, but I didn't say try in a store and nothing can go wrong

Sure it can but you're not buying blind. You're trying it, checking it over, preferrably away from the other guitars to prevent sympathetic chiming in, if you like

Sure

You can check it over- arguably better, with more time and less pressure- if you buy online though.

Granted... I always feel when I try stuff in a shop I have to be persuaded to buy the thing, whereas if I buy online I pretty much want to keep the thing unless there's something seriously wrong with it- I don't really like to send it back unless there's something actually wrong with it (i.e. faulty). It definitely does seem to skew the decision-making process! (Also you may well be out extra postage to return the thing, and there's always the chance something will go catastrophically wrong with the return, too!)

You pays your money and makes your choice... I usually end up going the online route, but then again a large factor in that is being in Northern Ireland where there's not a whole heap of interesting stuff to try. If I lived next door to one of the big English shops, I dare say I'd be a bigger fan of trying stuff first!

Mellish · July 2022

@Dave_Mc ; - mostly

to that.

Not quite sure what you meant by "feel I have to be persuaded to buy the thing". You mean persuaded by sales? Never do that. The only thing that should persuade you is the guitar itself

EDIT: aah, now I get it. Yes, totally with you if circumstances more or less force you online mate.

Dave_Mc · July 2022

Mellish said:

@Dave_Mc ; - mostly to that.

Not quite sure what you meant by "feel I have to be persuaded to buy the thing". You mean persuaded by sales? Never do that. The only thing that should persuade you is the guitar itself

EDIT: aah, now I get it. Yes, totally with you if circumstances more or less force you online mate.

Oh sorry for the confusion, reading it back it was a bit ambiguous! I don't mean "be persuaded by the salesperson", I mean "be persuaded by the instrument"- i.e. my default (unless it absolutely blows me away) in a shop is, "Hmmm, I'm not sure, it's pretty nice, but I'd better not, I'm not 100% sure", whereas with an online purchase I'll probably keep it unless there's something glaringly wrong with it!

But I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of it is the lack of interesting stuff to try here- that doesn't help!

Mellish · July 2022

@Dave-Mc ; - that's the right way to think. If you're not 100% sure, don't buy. I think most on here would tell you that

Dave_Mc · July 2022

Mellish said:

@Dave-Mc ; - that's the right way to think. If you're not 100% sure, don't buy. I think most on here would tell you that

Yeah definitely. The problem with online buying is that it kind of subverts that standard model- you're buying before you've even tried, in a lot of cases!

Mellish · July 2022

@Dave_Mc ; - just carry on ordering online mate, if that works for you.

If you get a guitar that you're not sure about, return it. There's no shame in that

Dave_Mc · July 2022

Mellish said:

@Dave_Mc ; - just carry on ordering online mate, if that works for you.

If you get a guitar that you're not sure about, return it. There's no shame in that

Yeah. Thanks

PAL · July 2022

Best thing is to find somewhere that has both models then decide which one you like . Then if you can try more than one
example of the guitar you like then find the one you like out of them you will be happy !
Years ago we played what we could get our hands on these day because of choice it can be confusing !

dazzajl · July 2022

Thank you all for your thoughts. I’d love to go and play them both, who doesn’t like a trip to the toy shop and the potential of leaving with new treasure. Sadly to get my hands on these two would take a very long road trip and in terms of time and fuel, put hundreds of ££s on the price.

That’s a wealth of fabulous info @Tannin, I had a Tacoma Thunderchief many many moons ago. Actually I had two, the first was the standard bass but that had to go back with a few issues and they offered me a fix or an incredible spec fretless in exchange. They built amazing instruments and it’s very sad we lost them. When it comes to baritones I’m all about the biggest scale on offer. I’d thought these two were the same but that bit more on the Alvarez is a big swing that way for me. I know neither are far off the bottom rungs of quality but this just to amuse me at home, so pleasant to noodle with will meet my needs nicely.

TheMadMick · July 2022

I know nothing about Baritones let alone 8 string ones but I've owned a few Guilds and have never had a bad one - even Chinese ones.

Tannin · July 2022

Cheers @dazzajl and wow! A Thunderchief! You can still find Thunderhawks second-hand but they are rare and getting expensive. I paid $2400 AUD for mine (about £1350) and had a couple of people contact me making higher offers as soon as they found out I had it. I reckon I'd probably have to spend over £2000 to replace it now - famous Tacoma orange peel and all. The shop I bought mine in also had a Chief. After I'd had the Thunderhawk for a couple of weeks and realised what it was, I went back with an eye to getting the Chief as well, but it was sold.

(I am having a second baritone built here in Hobart to the same general specifications (scale length and body size) but in different timbers. There is a thread on that somewhere here, which I must remember to update soon.)

I am a big fan of Guild guitars (and own a very nice little Guild CO-2, which was made in the Tacoma factory) but scale length is scale length and it's pretty hard to overcome. My friend who owned and liked a 6-string Alvarez baritone also owned a Custom Shop SJ-200, a couple of fancy Martins, a Huss and Dalton, a Collings ... the fact that *he* reckoned I'd like the Alvarez made a bit of an impression on me.

All that said, I have never played one or even seen one, so I'm only guessing.

Oh, and be aware that the nut on the Alvarez is only 44.5mm. That's standard for a 6-string, but a bit squeezy for a baritone, let alone an 8-string. (The Thunderhawk is 48mm and I reckon 46mm is a sensible minimum for anything with 8 fat strings.) Sadly, neither the Guild nor the Taylor is any better. You are not going to have a lot of finger room. But I managed OK on the Taylor, so perhaps it's not the end of the world.

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Guild or Alvarez?

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