Alvarez MD60CESHB Masterworks Acoustic Electric Guitar, Spruce Top, Shadowburst

The MD60CESHB is beautiful and powerful yet understated, with clean lines and minimal decoration. This design language allows the AAA solid Sitka top to take center stage, shimmering under a flawless Shadowburst gloss.

Sonically, this guitar is everything you would except from an all-solid Dreadnought body. It has been designed to achieve an open projection, instant response and broad tonal palette. Bass frequencies are clear and robust, and the marriage of Sitka and mahogany deliver strong woody mids and sparkling trebles.

The MD60CESHB is made with a cutaway to allow access to higher frets and is fitted with the excellent LR Baggs VTC system with Element pickup and soundhole console.

Nothing can really match a guitar made from all-solid wood. The deflection of the notes is quicker, the quality of the sound is better, you can achieve optimal response and the sound of your guitar will improve as it ages.

After 55 years of making guitars, continual improvement through the use of emerging technologies, processes, and materials is still at the heart of our culture. Alvarez guitars are constructed correctly in every sense, from raw material preparation to construction and manufacturing processes.

Our tonewoods are carefully cured; our components such as neck blocks and wood joints are carefully designed. The painting, sanding and polishing techniques we use are continually researched and developed, and our tone is impeccably crafted and married to a stable, consistent and lively soundbox.

This caring approach to development comes from one simple goal: To deliver the best guitars in the market at every price point, instruments that are truly amazing value and offer a fantastic player experience.

We believe our Masterworks Series is one the best value all-solid guitar lines in the market today. Their specification is incredibly high in relation to their cost, and they perform as all-solid professional guitars should, with fantastic response and projection.

The term “all-solid” of course refers to the guitar top, back and sides being made of solid wood rather than laminated. However, just because the guitar is made of all-solid tonewood, it only performs to its full potential when it is designed to get the best out of its materials and components. As the tops we use in Masterworks are very high quality we can make them a little thinner to heighten vibration. The radius of both the top and back are also refined to help increase volume.

Each guitar is designed to get the best out of its components, and for them to work together. These components include our FS6 bracing system, bi-level bridges, real bone nuts and saddles, carefully seasoned tonewoods and a thin finish.

FS6 is a forward-shifted X brace design, this means the axis of the X is closer to the sound hole and therefore creates a larger soundboard area allowing for more energy and vibration to be harnessed. Both the X braces and scalloped tone bars are carefully considered in order to deliver an attractive and eloquent voicing.

The Masterworks personality is open and powerful. FS6 also creates very good balance so both the treble and bass registers are clearly present and balanced in relation to each other. All of our tops are selected by our team and graded independently of our suppliers, and they are cured with care using traditional ovens and modern thermo-kilns.

Masterworks Series also demonstrates our great finishing capabilities; the gloss models have a clear deep shine from a finish that is applied as thinly as possible, again to help optimize tone.
We hope this unwavering attention to detail can be enjoyed every time you play and help inspire great musical progress and performance.

About Masterworks Series

We created our Masterworks Series to be the best value all-solid guitar line available to players today. Their specification is incredibly high in relation to their cost and they perform as all-solid professional guitars should, with fantastic response and projection.

Nothing can really match a guitar made from all-solid wood. The deflection of the notes is quicker, the quality of the sound is better, you can obtain optimal response and the sound of your guitar only improves as it ages.

After 55 years of making guitars, continual improvement through the use of emerging technologies, processes, and materials is still at the heart of our culture. Alvarez guitars are constructed correctly in every sense, from raw material preparation to construction and manufacturing processes.

Our tonewoods are carefully cured; our components such as neck blocks and wood joints are carefully designed. The painting, sanding and polishing techniques we use are continually researched and developed, and our tone is impeccably crafted and married to a stable, consistent and lively soundbox.

This caring approach to development comes from one simple goal: To deliver the best guitars in the market at every price point, instruments that are truly amazing value and offer a fantastic player experience.

The term “all-solid” refers to the guitar top, back and sides being made of solid wood rather than laminated. However, even when the guitar is made of all solid tonewood, it only performs to its full potential when it is designed to get the best out of its materials and components. The tops we use in Masterworks are premium grades, which means we can make them slightly thinner to heighten vibration. The radius of both the top and back are also refined to help increase volume.

Each guitar is designed to get the best out of its components, and for them to work together. These components include our FS6 bracing system, bi-level bridges, real bone nuts and saddles, carefully seasoned tonewoods and a thin finish.

FS6 is a forward shifted X brace design. This means the axis of the X is closer to the soundhole, creating a larger soundboard area to harness more energy and vibration. Both the X braces and asymmetric tone bars are carefully scalloped, a design that was the result of continual development in our Yairi workshops. Our FS6 system brings uniformity across Dreadnought, Grand Auditorium, OM and Parlor body sizes, so that the voicing has a similar character, but the individual tone is more purely influenced by the size and shape of the guitar.

The Masterworks personality is open and powerful. FS6 also creates very good balance so both the treble and bass registers are clearly present and balanced in relation to each other. All of our tops are selected by our team and graded independently of our suppliers, then cured with care using traditional ovens and modern thermo-kilns.

Along with a more angled headstock, our bi-level bridge increases string tension by making the break angel of the strings from the saddle to the top more acute. Improved string tension adds to our sound, feel and response, which are also heightened by the use of real bone nuts and saddles.

We hope you can see and feel our unwavering attention to detail and that it inspires you every time you play our guitars.