I’ll have to admit, when I think about a company like Alesis, what immediately comes to mind are top notch synths, mixers, and signal processors. The first Alesis product I experienced was the SR-16 stereo drum machine – revolutionary because of its size and sound quality, and still remains one of the most versatile programmable drum units on the block. Alesis is also equally as well known for their incredible reverb units, with the MidiVerb now into its 4th iteration. Just recently we reviewed the DEQ-230, a phenomenal dual channel, rack based graphic equalizer. Alesis has taken all of this experience and technical expertise and ventured into a new line of products aimed directly at guitarists and bassists. One of the most interesting of these is the XGuitar, which has quickly become one of their hottest products.

The X Guitar

At first glance you might confuse this guitar with a nice black-bodied Strat® copy. However, on further review you would quickly notice a control panel on the upper bout and couple more jacks and switches than usual. The guitar itself has the versatile S-S-H combination of pickups (i.e., single-coils at the neck and middle positions and a humbucker at the bridge). Pickup combinations are controlled via a 5-way switch allowing the player to select neck only, neck-middle, middle, middle-bridge, and bridge only. A single volume knob controls the overall signal strength coming out of the guitar.



The headstock, painted glossy black to match the guitar, is different from most Strat® copies, with a carved out notch between the 3rd and 4th tuning keys and more angularity overall. The neck is solidly bolted onto the guitar and the overall fit and finish is excellent; however, I did notice some slight imperfections in the paint on the back of the guitar.

The string action was low relative to the rosewood fretboard and played easily. The strings that were on the guitar when it arrived felt a bit rough, so I exchanged them with D’Addario XLs which improved the feel dramatically. The frets were of medium height, which might take a little adjustment if you typically play on guitars with jumbo frets.

The guitar behaves nicely in passive mode - acting just like a traditional guitar - however, this guitar comes alive when you switch the guitar “on” using the toggle switch found near the output jack. You can run the guitar into headphones, into an amp, or directly into a PA using the same output jack.

Basically, the whole idea for the XGuitar was to take the technology designed into the Alesis GuitarFX pedal and fit all of those effect specifications into small module that is inserted into and directly interfaces with the guitar. I found the control panel to be relatively user friendly; however, I did need to give the manual a quick glance to interpret all of the functions and codes. You can navigate up and down through the presets using the arrows on the control panel or by using a separate toggle switch found near the volume control on the pickguard.

The control panel is very compact, but very powerful. It allows you to switch among any of 80 preset programs. These presets are numbered on the LED panel as A0 - A9, B0 – B9, etc., all the way through G0 - G9. The preset tones range all the way from ultra clean to heavy fuzz to super spacey.

More important, however, are the editing functions which allow you to modify any of the presets or create new tones entirely. For instance, I wanted specific sounding “clean” and “distorted” tone presets to be right next to each other so that I could use the toggle switch to easily change between them during any given song. So I simply dialed in my settings for my clean tone that included cabinet type, compression settings, signal chain effects order, and reverb/flange/phase settings. Then, I duplicated these settings exactly on the setting number above it, except that I adjusted the distortion and drive settings to a gritty overdrive setting.

After playing with those two tones for awhile, I then created a third tone setting where I pushed the distortion into a more rectified type tone. With these three settings dialed in, I was able to move from clean to overdrive to heavy tones and back again by quickly flicking the toggle switch up and down.




I’m pretty elemental in my effects needs so these three options would serve me well for most songs, with maybe a couple of others for country or jazzy type tunes. For you effects geeks out there though, this guitar will be heaven. I can visualize setting up groups of unique tones among the 80 slots available for different song sets, styles, and moods. The possibilities are almost limitless.

For quick review, I have listed the effect options below so you can get an idea of the range of possible options.

Effects Summary:
10 amplifier modeling algorithms, 30 effects, 9 module effects, 8 signal routing options. 80 preset/user programs.

Distortion Options:
Acoustic, Tube Clean, Rhythm, Overdrive, Distortion, Blues, Fuzz, Lead, Metal, Stack, Drive, Combo Drive

Other Effects:
Wah, Phaser, Tremolo, Ring Mod, Cry, Step Filter, Slow, Attack, Auto Pan, Auto Phase, Flanger, Rotary, Chorus, Pitch, Doubling, Ping Pong, Tape Delay, Stereo Delay, Echo, Hall, Room, Reverse, Plate, Decimate, Bit Reduce

Even with all this, the coolest feature on this guitar is probably the simplest…the built in tuner. Whether you use any of the effects on this guitar or not, having a built in LED style tuner on the guitar is priceless. After using the tuner on this guitar, I can’t figure out why more manufacturers haven’t made built in tuners a standard feature in all their guitars. It just makes sense!

Sound Test

I tested this guitar through a solid state Marshall AVT-20 amplifier and ran the guitar directly into an Atomic tube amplifier. The guitar sounded great through both of these amplifiers; however, I found that running the Alesis XGuitar through a tube amplifier was extremely beneficial in helping to “de-digitize” the signal, making it more warm and lively. The distortion effects were adequate – but in all truth, I still would prefer to run the guitar through a good pedal. The other effects sounded great. I was most impressed with reverb on this guitar. Even through headphones, I felt like I was playing in a giant concert hall.

I did not have a chance to test this feature, but for more versatility, you can purchase an optional Alesis CF-1 expression pedal that allows you to have on-the-fly control of some of the effects such as wah, volume, and reverb.

Alesis has a sound demo on their XGuitar product page that provides a very nice aural overview of the types of sounds you can expect to get out of this instrument. You can visit it here:

http://alesis.com/products/xguitar/SoundsoftheX.mp3

Ultimate Travel and Practice Guitar:

I really think that Alesis is on to something big here. The XGuitar is a very affordable, high quality guitar, using traditional design elements. There is something very appealing about having a versatile effects unit built into the guitar. The most obvious use is as a practice guitar or for songwriting since you can plug the guitar directly into a CD-Trainer, or a personal recording device, or your computer. However, I found great utility in using this guitar as a travel guitar. The XGuitar fit nicely into a standard gig bag. I was worried that it might be a bit heavy, but in reality found the guitar to transport easily. I flew on three flights with this gig bag and found that it was compact enough to fit into almost all overhead bins, except for some of the ones on smaller planes where you will check the bag at the gate anyway. Because I could plug headphones directly into the guitar it was perfect in hotel rooms and in airport lobbies during long layovers since I wasn’t worried about disturbing others. In fact, more than a few people came up to me and asked me what kind of guitar I was playing and where they could get one! With 30 hours of operation on 4 AA batteries, the guitar definitely had enough juice for even the longest trips.

Conclusion:

The Alesis XGuitar is a great concept that realizes two key success factors. First, the guitar is a traditionally designed guitar with the added benefit of a full-featured effects processor built right into the body. Although quite good for recording and live applications, this guitar is hands down one of the best options available for practice or travel. Second, this guitar has a street price of $299 – making it not only a versatile guitar, but an affordable one.

With all this value packed into a tidy package, I am happy to award the Alesis XGuitar with the GearHead “Approved” award for 2005. In addition, since this guitar has now become my permanent travel guitar, it receives the “Rig Ready” award as well!



Written by Daniel L. Halberg

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