Alba black semi acoustic guitar

I bought this Alba semi acoustic earlier this year.


It arrived all glossy, shiny and new and looked fantastic. I was surprised how heavy the guitar was when I lifted it from the box. It weighed in at around 8lbs on my bathroom scales.


First impressions on playing are that the neck has a traditional C shape, thicker than modern "fast" necks but still comfortable to play. The neck is set into the body and unlike many Asian guitars, there are no cracks in the lacquer at this point, it all looks perfectly sound.



The action was high and the frets were very chunky. The volume and tone controls were loose as was the selector switch. These are typical faults on Asian guitars, all down to poor quality control. Fortunately these are not big issues and are easily fixed. After repairing the selector switch I eased off the tone knob and tightened the nut below.


The volume knob however was stuck fast and I had to jemmy it off. I had to use a lot of force to release it and unfortunately ended up chipping right through the lacquer.


On the plus side the damage hardly showed once the knob was back in place.


The only other mark on the guitar is a barely visible 1cm graze which doesn't even go through the lacquer on the back of the neck. I can't get it to show up in any photos regardless of lighting and only mention it here to be completely thorough in my description of the gutar.

I then set up the intonation and tried to lower the action but was only able to set a medium action, any lower resulted in string buzzes and rattles. While the modern jumbo frets are ideal for beginners and make playing chords a breeze, I find them difficult when playing solos as I am used to playing a Classic Strat with small vintage frets. I know big frets are the norm on semi acoustics like Epiphones but they're just not my cup of tea.

The machine heads work smoothly and seem to be good quality. They look similar to the Gibson "tulips".


With the guitar issues all sorted out it was now time to try it out. Once plugged in, the humbuckers give a classic warm creamy sound although to my ears the guitar does sound more like a Les Paul than a semi acoustic.


As I play my strat 90% of the time, I've never got comfortable with these jumbo frets (which look like they'll last a lifetime). This, combined with the fact that I have way too many guitars, means that I'm gonna sell this guitar. While there are plenty of these guitars available on Ebay covered with stupid skull logos, I don't think the black ones are available anymore and if nothing else this guitar certainly looks cool in the black.




Here's a video I made so you could hear how it sounds...