Alvarez Artist Series AF60CESHB Folk/OM Acoustic-Electric Guitar – Shadowburst
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A solid A+ Sitka spruce top over African mahogany gives this cutaway Folk/OM everything it needs to sound exceptional unplugged — and the LR Baggs StagePro Element makes sure it translates just as well when you plug in.
Alvarez Artist Series AF60CESHB Folk/OM Acoustic-Electric Guitar – Shadowburst
A solid-top acoustic-electric with professional pickup electronics and a finish that turns heads — built for players who want the stage and the living room covered by the same guitar.
Who This Guitar Is For
The AF60CESHB sits squarely in the territory where serious acoustic players live — guitars that reward you unplugged and perform equally well once you hand them off to a sound engineer. The Folk/OM body is compact and comfortable, making it a natural fit for fingerstyle players, singer-songwriters, and anyone who spends long stretches playing seated. But the OM is not a specialist — it handles strumming beautifully too, with even balance across the strings and a natural articulation that makes chord work sound clear rather than muddy. The solid A+ Sitka spruce top responds with lively, open projection that opens up further as the guitar is played in over time, while the African mahogany back and sides add warmth and midrange focus that complements the spruce's brightness without dulling it. Pair that with the LR Baggs StagePro Element — a genuinely respected professional pickup system — and the Shadowburst finish that looks like it belongs on a guitar costing considerably more, and the AF60CESHB becomes a very easy guitar to recommend to a wide range of players.
Key Highlights
- Solid A+ Sitka spruce top — hand-selected, graded independently of suppliers, and built to open up in tone over time
- African mahogany back and sides add warmth, sustain, and midrange depth to the spruce top's natural clarity
- LR Baggs StagePro Element pickup and preamp — a professional-grade electronics system trusted by touring musicians
- Cutaway body provides comfortable access to the upper frets without sacrificing tonal balance
- FST2 forward-shifted scalloped X bracing promotes energetic projection and balanced response across all strings
- Real bone nut and saddle for improved sustain, tone transfer, and tuning stability
- Shadowburst gloss finish — a striking, understated look with abalone and mother of pearl inlay accents
- Dovetail neck joint at the 14th fret for a stable, resonant neck-to-body connection
The Solid Spruce Top
Alvarez grades and selects their Artist Series tops independently of their wood suppliers — the A+ designation is not marketing language, it reflects a genuine selection process. Solid Sitka spruce is chosen for its ability to project clearly across a wide dynamic range, responding with equal clarity to a light fingerpicked note and a hard strummed chord. Unlike laminate tops, a solid top will continue to improve in tone as the wood vibrates and opens up over years of playing.
LR Baggs StagePro Element
The StagePro Element is not a budget-tier acoustic pickup — it is a system that professional acoustic guitarists genuinely trust on stage. The side-mounted preamp offers a full chromatic tuner tucked behind the control panel for a clean look, three-band EQ, phase inversion, and a Garrett Null notch filter for feedback control under challenging live conditions. The Element undersaddle pickup captures the natural acoustic tone of the guitar with exceptional accuracy. Plugged in, this guitar sounds like itself.
The Folk/OM Body Shape
The OM body is smaller and more focused than a dreadnought, which makes it easier to play for long stretches and more responsive to the nuances of fingerstyle technique. The narrower waist also makes it comfortable held against the body in a seated playing position. Tonally, the OM shape produces a clearer, more balanced response than larger bodies — you hear each string distinctly, which matters whether you are playing chord melody arrangements or accompanying vocals in a mix.
Great Fit For
- Singer-songwriters who perform live and need a reliable, great-sounding acoustic-electric in one guitar
- Fingerstyle players who want the balanced articulation and comfortable body of an OM shape
- Intermediate to advanced players ready to step into a solid-top guitar with professional electronics
- Performing musicians who need feedback-resistant, natural-sounding amplified tone without tweaking a complex system
- Players who want a visually striking guitar that plays as well as it looks
- Guitarists moving up from a laminate-top instrument who want to experience how a solid top sounds and evolves
Sound, Feel, and Live Use
Unplugged, the AF60CESHB has the kind of voice that makes you want to keep playing. The spruce top delivers clarity and projection without harshness, while the mahogany body keeps the low-mids full and present — a tonewood pairing that has worked for acoustic guitars for generations because it balances brightness and warmth naturally without either quality dominating. The FST2 forward-shifted bracing opens up the lower bout of the soundboard for maximum resonance, giving the guitar an energetic, lively response that you feel in your hands as much as you hear from the body.
Plugged into the LR Baggs StagePro system, the guitar translates faithfully. The Element pickup captures the tone of the instrument rather than imposing its own character on it, and the StagePro preamp gives you enough EQ control to adapt to different rooms, stage setups, and direct-out scenarios. The Garrett Null notch filter is the feature that performing musicians will appreciate most — it gives you targeted feedback suppression without coloring the tone, so you can push the monitor volume without fighting squealing resonances. The cutaway makes soloing and upper-fret work comfortable and natural without feeling like a compromise anywhere else on the body.
Specifications
There are guitars you pick up and immediately set back down, and there are guitars you pick up and find yourself still playing twenty minutes later without quite knowing how you got there. The AF60CESHB tends to be the second kind. The spruce and mahogany combination is genuinely balanced and pleasing, the OM body sits just right, and once you have spent a few minutes with the LR Baggs system, it becomes obvious that Alvarez did not cut corners on the part that matters most when you plug in.
The Shadowburst finish is the kind of thing that catches the light differently depending on where you are standing, which makes it one of those guitars that looks better in person than in any photo. We would love to help you get your hands on one, answer questions about the guitar, or talk through whether an OM shape is the right fit for your playing style. Text or call us anytime at 814-371-5666.