Conceived 50 years ago to sell affordable Japanese acoustics to a guitar-crazed American public, the Alvarez brand sprang from a partnership between St. Louis Music and the late, great Japanese luthier Kazuo Yairi (whose name appeared on upscale Alvarez-Yairi models). Alvarez guitars have been used by players as diverse as Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia, Ani DiFranco, and Monte Montgomery, to name a few.
To celebrate 50 years in the biz, Alvarez stayed true to their affordable-guitar roots by introducing the 1965 series. The line of solid Sitka spruce-topped guitars includes standard and slope-shouldered dreadnought, OM, and parlor models. The good-looking, super-playable ADA1965 reminds us why Alvarez has thrived in the affordable acoustic market for so long.
Classic Style and a Touch of Flash Our ADA1965’s Sitka spruce top has fine, even grain free of irregularities. Instead of the mahogany-laminate back and sides you often see on guitars in this price range, the 1965’s satin-finished back and sides are made from layered acacia, whose sonic properties are not worlds apart from those of koa.
crisp and articulate."
It’s a pretty reddish brown, with an attractive hint of marbled figuring on the back. The satin-finish mahogany neck is affixed with a customary dovetail joint. The headstock cap, fretboard, and Alvarez’s trademark bi-level bridge are dark rosewood.
In other words, the ADA1965 is an attractive guitar. Its glossy sunburst finish (Alvarez calls it Shadowburst) imparts a pre-war Gibson vibe, blinged out a bit with purfling and a rosette of Paua abalone. The fretboard is clean and sparingly adorned, with a single eye-shaped marker at the 12th fret.
The craftsmanship is generally excellent. While there are some subtle tooling marks on the fretboard, things look and feel good where it counts. The 21 vintage-style frets are neatly seated and polished, with no jagged edges. The binding is perfectly flush with the body, and the inlay work is precise. Inside, things are mostly tidy, though there are hints of excess glue around the bracing on the bass side (not uncommon on guitars in this price range).
Ratings
Pros:
Nicely built. Excellent playability and sonic range.
Cons:
No electronics.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$499
Alvarez ADA1965
alvarezguitars.com
Walking the Big Guitar Tightrope The ADA1965 feels light and weighs in at 4.75 pounds. Traditionalists might find the C-shaped neck a bit on the skimpy side, but players with modern tastes are likely to enjoy its slim, fast, almost high-performance feel. The 1 3/4" nut width is ideal for fingerstyle, providing ample room for fretting fingers to form complex chords. The factory-set action is nice and buzz-free, diminishing fretting-hand fatigue.
Overall, the ADA1965 has a clear, strong voice. It tends toward brightness, yet it’s evenly balanced between registers, allowing notes and harmonics to shine through clearly. All notes ring true in excellent intonation, and the neck has no dead spots, lending the guitar a lively, high fidelity feel and sound.
It’s versatile too. For Carter-style strumming, the clear, balanced low end pairs well with the guitar’s essential brightness, making the harmonic blur of fast strumming crisp and articulate. Bluegrass runs and single-note solos sound fat and defined as fretted and open strings bounce off each other beautifully. Chord-melody jazz and even classical pieces sound rich and natural too. Open D, open G, DADGAD, and even C tunings showcase the guitars evenness and resonance. While you can find dreads with fatter low end, the ADA1965 never sags or sounds overmatched in lowered tunings.
The Verdict Steel-string guitars in this price range are often competently built, but they can sound bland. It’s hard to find instruments of distinction, sonic or otherwise. But the ADA1965 distinguishes itself with excellent playability, handsome styling, a balanced voice, and great versatility. It may not have the booming, low-end weight some players listen for in a dread, and even a low-end pickup and preamp might have been a nice addition. But it’s hard to imagine a better-playing, more versatile flattop for under 500 bucks.
For over five decades, audiences worldwide have marveled at Baxter’s inimitable and instantly recognizable guitar playing and generational songcraft. His output spans classic records as a founding member of Steely Dan and member of the Doobie Brothers in addition to hundreds of recordings with the likes of Donna Summer, Cher, Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart, Dolly Parton, and many more. During 2022, he initially unveiled Speed of Heat, showcasing yet another side of his creative identity and introducing himself as a solo artist.
On the Storytellers Edition, his fascinating commentary pulls the curtain back on both the process and the message of the music. This version traces the journey to Speed of Heat and its core inspirations as shared directly by Baxter in the form of detailed anecdotes, candid stories, and insightful commentary on every track.
The 12-songalbum, co-produced by Baxter and CJ Vanston, is a riveting and rewarding musical experience that features a host of brilliantly crafted originals co-written by the guitarist and Vanston, as well as inspired versions of some of the great classics. Along the way, Baxter is joined by guest vocalists and songwriters Michael McDonald, Clint Black, Jonny Lang and Rick Livingstone. Baxter notably handled lead vocals on his rendition of Steely Dan’s “My Old School.” Other standouts include "Bad Move" co-written by Baxter, Clint Black, and CJ Vanston, and “My Place In The Sun”, sung by Michael McDonald and co-authored by McDonald, Baxter and Vanston.
As one of the most recorded guitarists of his generation, Baxter’s creative and versatile playing has been heard on some of the most iconic songs in music history, including “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton and “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer.
The stunningly diverse collection of material on Speed of Heat presents a 360-degree view of the uniquely gifted musician.
STREAM / SHARE / PURCHASE HERE.
If 3 Were 6
With six times the controls found on the 1 and 2 versions (if you discount the original’s on/off slider switch,) the LPB-3’s control complement offers pre-gain, boost, mid freq, bass, treble, and mid knobs, with a center detent on the latter three so you can find the midpoint easily. A mini-toggle labeled “max” selects between 20 dB and 33 dB of maximum gain, and another labeled “Q” flips the resonance of the mid EQ between high and low. Obviously, this represents a significant expansion of the LPB’s capabilities.
More than just a booster with a passive tone, the LPB-3 boasts a genuine active EQ stage plus parametric midrange section, comprising the two knobs with shaded legends, mid freq and mid level. The gain stages have also been reimagined to include a pre-gain stage before the EQ, which enables up to 20 dB of input gain. The boost stage that follows the EQ is essentially a level control with gain to allow for up to 33 dB of gain through the LPB-3 when the “max” mini toggle is set to 33dB
A slider switch accessible inside the pedal selects between buffered or true bypass for the hard-latch footswitch. An AC adapter is included, which supplies 200mA of DC at 9.6 volts to the center-negative power input, and EHX specifies that nothing supplying less than 120mA or more than 12 volts should be used. There’s no space for an internal battery.
Power-Boosted
The LPB-3 reveals boatloads of range that betters many linear boosts on the market. There’s lots of tone-shaping power here. Uncolored boost is available when you want it, and the preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.
“The preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.”
I found the two mid controls work best when used judiciously, and my guitars and amps preferred subtle changes pretty close to the midpoint on each. However, there are still tremendous variations in your mid boost (or scoop, for that matter) within just 15 or 20 percent range in either direction from the center detent. Pushing the boost and pre-gain too far, particularly with the 33 dB setting engaged, can lead to some harsh sounds, but they are easy to avoid and might even be desirable for some users that like to work at more creative extremes.
The Verdict
The new LPB-3 has much, much more range than its predecessors, providing flexible preamp, boost, and overdrive sounds that can be reshaped in significant ways via the powerful EQ. It gives precise tone-tuning flexibility to sticklers that like to match a guitar and amp to a song in a very precise way, but also opens up more radical paths for experimentalists. That it does all this at a $129 price is beyond reasonable.
Electro-Harmonix Lpb-3 Linear Power Booster & Eq Effect Pedal Silver And Blue
