Alvarez Artist LJ2E Little Jumbo acoustic / electric Travel Guitar Alvarez

Demand of small body acoustic guitars never seems to slow. They’re great for travel, hitting the beach or lazing around the house. With a few tricks and careful design you can make small body guitars sound fantastic and much louder and balanced than one may think. This year we revisited the design of the JL60 and came out with the LJ2 – and the LJ2E adds a SYS250 3-band EQ pickup system to make this instrument stage-ready.

The LJ2 is a fantastic “little jumbo” with great projection and balance. It’s made with high-grade solid Sitka top, and is carefully designed to get the best from its small body while staying clear and balanced. Many small-bodied guitars will have a “tubby” or “muddy” voicing. We’ve managed to give the voice clarity, balance and volume, making it a really fun instrument to play.

After 50 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 tone woods 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 sound box.

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 multi award winning Artist Series is one of the finest solid top guitar lines in the world today and demonstrates our commitment to design.

The term “solid top” of course refers to the soundboard of an acoustic guitar being made of solid wood, rather than being laminated. However, just because the top is solid, it does not necessarily mean the sound automatically benefits from this feature. The tone of the instrument only improves significantly when the whole guitar is built correctly to optimize the energy a solid soundboard can generate. Artist Series is built to do exactly this.

Each model is designed to get the best out if its components, and for them to work together to produce balance, lively projection and great response. These components include our FST2 bracing system, bi-level rosewood bridge, real bone nut and saddle, great quality tone woods and thin finish.

FST2 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 asymmetric tone bars are carefully scalloped. The scalloping design was the result of years of continual development in our Yairi workshops.

The Artist Series sound and personality is open and powerful. FST2 also creates very good balance so both the treble and bass registers are clearly present and balanced in relation to each other.

Artist Series feel right and are exciting to play; no matter if you are strumming hard or picking lightly, the guitar will do what you ask of it. For a more focused sound with fewer overtones, choose a mahogany top. For power, go for Sitka. For warmth and response to a lighter touch, choose a Cedar top.

All of our tops are selected by our team and graded independently of our suppliers. If it isn’t worthy, we won’t use it. Top quality improves as you move up the Artist Series models but all are stiff and finely grained.

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.

Artist 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.