Alba Semi Acoustic ES

This guitar is well equipped with good quality hardware and well choice of woods. I bought on an ebay Germany auction for 50 quid (less than 75 ???) and shipped to Portugal. It was totally playable right out from the box. Came with new D'Addario strings, righteously adjusted, bridges correctly set up and overall neat specs. The tuners are very reliable and really keeps the guitar in tune. The pickups are well balances and no adjustmesnt was necessary.

Really good sound right from the box (or from China?). The pickups are great, no hiss, really smooth operators, making this guitar a beauty for jazz, with litttle hassle. The tone pot rolled back really yields a good electro-acoustic vintage warm sound, becoming more sparkling as it is rolled forward. The notes resonate warmly through the guitar's body, indicating a good construction and good choice of woods.

The factory setup was spot on and did no requre any adjustments.
I was really impresed by this, since this guitar travelled in a box from China to Germany and finally to Portugal. I've had it for more than 6 months and haven't touched a screw.

I only use it moderatly at home and for that it's fine - I don't gig.
The only negative thing I have to say regards the horn strap buton. It came off after a few days. I had to replace the original screw with a thicker and longer one.

Haven't needed it.

Really warming sound affordable guitar right out of the box. Sets a nice mood for jazz and hooks you into the playing. Better value for money is impossible.

As the other reviewer has said, this is a small-bodied semi acoustic (it actually fits in a normal-sized gigbag)with one volume, one tone control, a three-way toggle, and two covered humbuckers. the body and neck are both made of maple, and the rosewood fretboard has 22 large frets. The body styling reminds me of a PRS doublecut, but obviously with f-holes in as it is a semi. The neck is fatter than I'm used to, but I'm used to playing Jacksons. It's very comfortable however, and feels well lacquered.

The body is painted with a transparent brown finish, with cream-coloured skulls on top. It looks pretty damn cool, and suits the image of my band.

It doesn't have anything fancy, like active electronics or a locking bridge, but unless you're Matt Belamy or John 5, you probably don't expect, or want, those kind of features on a semi-acoustic. I might add a Bigsby vibrato at some point, and it would have been nice to have seperate volume and tone controls for each pickup, but aside from that it has pretty much all the features that a semi needs.

I mainly play heavy metal, although I've just joined a horror-punk/shock rock band, which is why I bought this guitar. I don't think I'd ever really use it for my heavy metal playing, unless it was to add a layer of sound to a recording, but it suits the sound I use for shock rock really well. The neck pickup has a lot of warmth to it, even with the tone control on full, and the bridge pickup has plenty of bite for crunchy riffs. I've played about with the tone control and a few different amp settings, and I can also get a good blues tone out of it too. Not quite B.B. King though, but that's a problem with my amp (and playing). I run through a Crate 65w amp at home, and use a Lainey 100w Linebacker at my rehearsal rooms. The only effect I use is wah, and a noise gate when I get one.
Although the pickups sound great, they do feed back microphonically (high pitched whine all the time), which is a problem with a lot of cheap guitars. It can be fixed quite easily, and I don't understand why more guitar manufacturers don't sort this out before shipping the guitars.

Aside from the feedback problem, this is a really great sounding guitar. The maple body makes it sound different to anything else I've ever played, and if the pickups were potted, I'd happily give this 9 out of ten.

This guitar has been set up nicely; the strings are low enough for fast fretting and picking, but high enough that there's no fret buzz, and it's easy to use a slide. When it arrived, the neck pickup was set a little too high, as it was a lot louder than the bridge one, however this is an easy problem to solve. There are a couple of flaws in the finish, especially on the neck, where the lacquer from the back has got onto the side of the fretboard, and the edges of the f-holes are a little rough, but aside from that the finish is fine, and the skull graphic is printed nice and cleanly.

At present, the guitar is no good for live use, simply due to the unpotted pickups. Once that's sorted out though, I believe this guitar would be fine for live work. It's a good weight, and comfortable to wear on a strap, and the buttons seem solid enough to last. There's no complicated circuitry to get lost in, and it's all passive, so there's no need for a battery that could die out, so it's pretty dependable. I wouldn't use it without backup though, simply because of the ever-present risk of a string snapping.

I've been playing for about six years now, and own a Jackson Randy Rhoads, Soloist, Dinky, and DK27 Baritone, along with another Alba guitar (Les Paul), an Alba P-bass, and a Yamaha five-string. In all respects apart from feedback problems, and occasional finish flaws, the alba guitars hold their own against my Jacksons, all of which cost at least five times as much as them. If this guitar were lost, I'd definately get another one, and pot the pickups on it. I love the look, feel and tone of this guitar, and I like the fact that the headstock is blank, allowing you to put whatever you want up there. I'm going to get my stage name on it. I just wish that it was giggable right from the start. However, it needs so little done to it that I'm going to give it a high score anyway.

You may have seen this guitars on ebay from Germany. They are made in China and have two humbuckers, a volume and tone controls are out of the way of the strumming hand and a three way toggle switch. There is a set neck (which reminds me a lot of the Encore Les Paul copy)and triangular tuners with tightening screws that work a lot better than they look. The whole appearnce is reminiscent of the Ibanez AWD72 in that it is a semi-acoustic which is smaller than a strat. The body is pretty well made and suprisingly thick. I suppose it is harder to cut corners for a semi.

Rolling back the tone with the neck pickup gives a nice mellow jazz sound and there is quite a good bite with the treble pick-up for solo playing. With the toggle in the middle I achieved a nice Cyndi Lauper "Time After Time" sound. All of this was achieved through a clean amp with no effects.

I'm sure the previous owner hardly played it. The action was reasonably low but the frets needed filing for a lower one. I suppose semis need not have such a low action as the shred monsters out there. My main complaint was the lack of varnish on the fingerboard. The back is a silky smooth shiny black so it felt unfinished in that respect. I gave it several coats of furniture polish which has improved it slightly.

It feels solid as a rock and I'm sure it could be used live particularly for late night jazz clubs where the small body might be welcome.

No idea

These guitars can be seen on ebay and a picture of the guitar held by a naked woman. Eyecatching it may be but I think it 's actually offputting as it cheapens the model. It is a good enough guitar without these gimmicks (and the image is what people think of when mentioning Alba). I have been played for twenty years and although I bought this as a cheap guitar to knock about for fun it does hold up well.

At its "Buy it Now" price of a hundred pounds (which puts it in the bracket of Vintage, Squiers, Guvnors, Ibanez GAXs) it is a good alterntaive to a beginner rather than having a bog-standard strat copy. With varnish on the fingerboard and binding around it Alba could have made a really good guitar although that would have raised the price. This is hard to find cheap semi-acoustics for a beginner and this is certainly a good choice. Not only due to the price but also in that it is a good electric guitar for rock playing as well as jazz.