Alden Bluesline Spalted Maple

Korean Made, designed by Alan Entwhistle. Basically a Les Paul style body. As it says on the website, their guitars are inspired by classic guitars, so it's not a Les Paul clone. There are differences in the shape and I don't remember seeing a Les Paul with the same Spalted Maple top (at least as far as I know). Two Entwhistle designed passive pickups. Separate volume and tone knobs for each pickup. Selector switch to pick both or either pickup. Les Paul style bridge, perfect for me because I don't use a whammy. Non locking tuners, but so far it stays in tune all the time unless I bump the tuners. The Spalted Maple top is beautiful. Gold colored hardware. There aren't any modifications I will do to this guitar. There is nothing I want to replace or wish it had.

I love the sounds I get from this guitar. I am NOT going to replace the pickups. I get awesome metal and blues tones out of this guitar. That's mostly what I play, so I can't really comment on other styles. On most guitars, the neck and bridge pickups are so drastically different that they usually sound terrible together, but these pickups are different. They are somewhat similar in the basic sound, but the bridge has that bright edge you want for rhythems, and the neck has that bluesy tone, but the main body of each is similar, so they mix really well, and I've found that when I use both at the same time and adjust the volumes and tones of each I can get a very wide variety of sounds. My favorite is having the bridge pickup all the way on and the neck turned up only to about 2. It has all the heavy tone for metal, but that neck pickup turned up slightly ads a little bit of a clean sound that adds a lot of clarity to the notes. I do a lot of sweep picking, so clarity of the notes is very important to me when shredding and playing a million notes a second. I play through a Mesa Nomad Head. The guitar is awesome for metal, and sounds incredible for a bluesy clean with a little dirt in it for chords and solos. I'm very pleased with the sound of this guitar.

The guitar was set up really well at the factory with great intonation. Being that I play a lot of shred sweep picking, I like the strings really close to the frets. So the action was a little higher than I wanted. If was I only doing blues solos, I would have left it exactly how it was, but I lowered the bridge and got the strings really low, and was shocked to find out after retuning it that the intonation was exactly the same. It seems on every other guitar I've ever had that when I lower the bridge, I get fret buzz or other problems that leave me frustrated and tweaking forever to get it good. So that was a very pleasant surprise. This is a very well made gutiar and feels and functions perfectly. The only reason I'm taking a couple of points off is because there are a few small cosmetic flaws. They're in spots that you don't really notice and that certainly no one would notice from stage. The maple and finnish are beautiful and this guitar would definitely get noticed for it's beauty from the stage. I didn't notice the cosmetic flaws for a couple of days till I closely looked over every inch of the guitar.

I've only had it a couple of months, but I can tell this is a very sturdy guitar. Well made and put together with quality parts.

Never had to deal with them.

I love this guitar. If it was stolen, I would definitely buy one again. The feel and tone of this guitar are just what I want. I will use it both for recording and I would use it live too. These guitars are very good and at a relatively low price. A friend of mine has Gibson Les Pauls, and An Alden, and he says side by side they're just as good. The only reason I'm giving it a nine instead of a ten is because of the minor cosmetic flaws. Like I said, not one will ever see them unless they pick up your guitar and look at it closely all over. The flaws are on the back. If this guitar was cosmetically perfect, then this guitar would be perfect. I don't know if any of the other ones have similar flaws or if it's just mine. I love the way the guitar is weighted too. You can stand and play and take your hand off the neck without the neck either falling down or up. If you're looking for a beautiful guitar with an incredible sound at a very good price, I really don't think you could beat one of these.