Walden G570CETB

OK, let's break this Walden model number down to the basics. G equals guitar, 570 is the model number, CE refers to cutaway electric and TB stands for tobacco burst. Opening the case, it's looking good. The tobacco burst, matte finish visual presents well. Nothing broken… bonus! It even comes with a few accessories such as 9V battery, truss rod/neck adjustment tool (don't use this if you're a newbie to guitars…leave it to the guys at the shop) and even a black walden T-shirt. A nice little touch of value.

This Grand Auditorium shaped guitar is designed in the USA and made in China… what isn't these days? Sealed machine heads with a black plastic trim/binding, plastic nut bridge and string pins. This is a solid top guitar made of western red cedar with mahogany back and sides. The fingerboard is solid rosewood and it features two ring inlay rosettes. Now let's give it a strum and see what happens. Great… it's in tune and nothing broke. First port of call… tuning. Let's put this into DADGAD Dsus4 tuning and see if it holds. I played Zeppelin's Kashmir for a few minutes and then decided to tune it back to standard EADGBE and retest the stability of the tuning. It held up fine and I found the sealed machine heads to be pretty good accurate. They're not big-branded, so don't expect Gotoh or Grover quality, but none the less they do the job as well as one would hope.

As for tone… well this guy is bright and brittle. I have a heavy right hand (I'm right handed) and a percussive style when it come to playing, so the shimmer really stood out to me. I also tried some softer finger picked tunes to test its versatility. There was a slight buzz coming from the frets so I decide to check the position of the neck. This one is really straight, a bit too straight and an adjustment of the truss rod solved all of that.

Overall this is about right for a young or beginner player. A more mature player may not get enough from the tone. The electronics worked fine, the pickup good and E.Q.  (bass, middle, treble) responsive enough to do what needed to be done. Option includes Venetian cutaway style with B-band T35 EQ.