Cordoba Stage Thinbody Nylon Acoustic-electric Guitar - Edgeburst Reviews

Beautiful and excellent guitar!!

I've played guitar for over 65 years and this is my first nylon string guitar. Beautifully crafted by Cordoba, the tone and playability is better than expected. Plugged in this guitar truly shines. The warmth and generous sound is a gift to your ears. As a steel string guitarist I'm enjoying a period of quiet panic as my lack of precision is exposing string squeaks and thump notes. All for the best because practice is improving my ability. Yes, even at my age, practice works. My older hands love this guitar

What a lovely guitar. Beautiful craftsmanship, clean fret edges, intonation is good and comes with a nice gig bag. The sound acoustically is unreal, can practice well without an amp. Plays very easy and fits well on my lap. Like my Yamaha Classic, it has easy knob EQ and mic type controls, way better than slide EQ'S. Easy controls gives a great sound combination.

After getting this guitar set up it is awesome and plays great. If your looking for a classical sound with an electric guitar feel. I absolutely recommend this guitar.

Sviteknology Music

Beginner here. The guitar is gorgeous, light, fits me well. Looking forward to lots of practice with this beauty.

Recently I have been working on some original Bossa Nova music and my PRS just wasn't cutting it for some tracks. I have an old Yamaha nylon acoustic that I tried to mic, but the action is uncomfortable. I bought this Cordoba Stage without trying it anywhere just based on review and youtube videos and I am So glad I did. I can't put this guitar down. The sound it amazing and the action is perfect... and it's beautiful. It is also very light. I absolutely Love this guitar.

Just got this and I'm in love with it. Beautiful as well as great sound. Plays effortlessly. Very happy player!

Plays like a dream and sounds awesome, especially plugged in. Unplugged, it still sounds great, just a bit quiet so it's great for practicing and creating without bothering anyone else. I use this one almost exclusively now for all nylon string work in the studio even though I have another much more expensive model. This one is just so easy to play and comfortable to hold, it's hard to put down. Truly inspires creativity.

I am a professional musician who plays both acoustic and electric. This Cordoba straight out of the box was instant magic! Beautiful tones, authentic and touch sensitive. Rich and deep low end. The in-body microphone, when turned up, enhances the tone but also will howl with feedback quite easily. It seems that to use it in a live performance setting, I would have keep the mic off and only use the piezo. The piezo sounds good on it's own. When recording & using headphones, the body mic can be brought back up. The recorded tone is amazing, full of detail & depth. It plays like a classical, a wider neck than electrics for sure. The gloss finish is amazing, I got a demo model still in great shape. It even fits in an electric case! Super happy with purchase.

I had a cordoba before i got this on but my other one cost more than twice what this one did. It plays maybe even better and sounds sooo good. Without an amp is not the same as with. The piezo pick up covers high and mid and that body mic gives you really nice bass(very clear). The first thing i really noticed is the harmonics ring very close to played notes when amplified. I had been trying to get through habanera (from carmen) and it is actually easier on this guitar. Something about how it is layed out is really nice. When i got it the strings were very close to perfect and i only changed the truss rod a little(till i got a tiny buzz on the a strings 1st fret, then backed it off a tiny bit). You will likely find that the weight is next to nothing! The neck sits halfway between a regular accoustic and a few of my classical nylons so playing tremolo is very easy to keep clear even when going very fast. I played playing god by polyphia on this guitar(it sounds just right) and i would bet it is better than the ibanez tim hemson signature guitar that seems to not be in stock anywhere. I would give it a 9 out of 10. A very nice nylon that i wish i had had when i started learning classical guitar.

This is my first nylon string guitar and I'm really impressed by the craftsmanship, tone, and playability. This guitar is beautiful as well. When it is plugged in to my Fishman Loudbox it really shines. I'm planning on using this for church and my studio to teach. This guitar is about 5 lbs. and comes with a decent gig bag. A big shoutout to Joel Helton my sales engineer for making this happen. Delivery was prompt and as usual well packed from Sweetwater. I'm a very happy customer!

This guitar is beautifully made and with great quality. When you finally hold one in your hands and inspect it, and when you finally play one, you will agree this guitar is amazing. Especially for its price point, it can't be beat. It has great acoustic tones and projects very clear with enough volume for a small room or practice. It's electronics seem to be designed perfectly for this instrument as it sounds amazing through both pickups, independently or blended. It does very well through effects if desired. The case is of high quality as well which is a very nice bonus. These types of guitars are game changers as they allow for so much creativity and diversity in playing and tones. Overall the looks, feel, playability, tones and craftsmanship is top notch and would be hard to beat at this price point.

This guitar is awesome

Guitar is great and surprisngly loud acoustically. The pickup system works well and the tone is amazing. All the benefits of a classical guitar and the versatility of an amplified acoustic.

It is an exceptional guitar. It has a great sound and potential on stage.

I decided a while back to replace the bone nut with a brass nut, which I have done on all my guitars and basses, with the exception of a few guitars with tremolos, that I used rolling nuts. I found out the roller nuts were pointless, when you install inexpensive Chinese made roller saddles for the bridge.
I scoured the internet looking for a brass nut made for classical/nylon string guitars and could not find one. I even briefly considered customizing a brass nut for a 12 string guitar, but they do not have the width, height or depth. I could never understand why the guitar manufacturing industry is so functionally fixed on bone, that bs overpriced tusk comp material, plastic or graphite nuts. For tone and clarity, brass is by far the best material I have used.

I de4cided to fabricate a brass nut using a brass rod. Fabricating the nut was alot more work than I anticipated. Even under the best of conditions, modifying by filing and sanding down a stock nut and bridge piece to fit can be a fair amount of work, but since I could not find a brass nut that would fit the wider neck of a nylon string guitar, I had to make one out of a thick brass rod which was quite alot of work, grinding it down with my angle grinder, then filing, sanding and steel wool, cutting to width with a hacksaw, then sanding to final fit, which is so tight, glue is unnecessary then cutting the nut slots with a jewelers saw and finishing the slots with a fret file.

Well the jury is in and the verdict is that the brass nut and brass bridge piece I made by cutting lengthwise with a hacksaw and filing doen made the difference I had anticipated. While not a night and day difference, the string articulation is significantly improved. Not only that, but there is a slight aesthetic improvement, as the color of the brass looks great and certainly alot better than the stock white nut and bridge piece.

While I stand by everything I said in my first review and although I have not begun the customization process I have played this guitar constantly since receiving it and LOVE it more than ever. The feel, tone, neck, color, finish, (its alot darker than the picture) everything about this guitar feels like an extension of myself. While I play fingerstyle guitar and love Classical, Baroque, Flamenco, Jazz, Blue Grass, Country Indian, African guitar and have absorbed these influences and more, I do not fit into any of those categories because my musical objective has always been to be an original.

I own 25 guitars and basses, so speaking from experience, any guitar can be used to play fingerstyle or shred, but for me the Cordoba Stage is a perfect melodic-shred guitar

OK, I seemed to have found the sweet spot for this guitar. String squeak is now negligible, probably because I improved my technique and added polished strings on it. For a $ guitar, the sound is amazing, kudos to Fishman. I also have a Takamine TH5C, and I have to say this Cordoba blows it away. I can't help but pick it up first thing in the morning and find it very difficult to put it down. Go for it.

As a hobby guitarist, I'm probably not the target demographic for this guitar. Despite that, it's a perfect fit for me.

I've had a hard time finding a guitar that's comfortable to play with short fingers and arms. My hands are built for turning wrenches, not for making chord shapes. The insanely thin body, and smooth, even frets just makes it a joy to play. It's less fatiguing to play, and I'm making less mistakes.

Gear will never replaced skill, but this guitar inspired the confidence I needed to push my skills to the next level. I find myself really digging into the strings, and experimenting with percussive picking techniques.

And lets not forget the sound. Unplugged, its got plenty of volume and a rich warm tone. Plugged into a spark 40 with a little compression and reverb sounds incredible. I've been riffing on everything from John Mayer, to green day, to Harry Styles. Its easy to forget your playing a nylon string guitar.

Now to the negative: The factory strings, although they sound incredible, need a lot of pressure for being nylon. They can be a bit squeaky until your used to pressing that hard.

This guitar's design is a great concept and it is very well executed!
Lightweight, easy to play, sounds great, loud when you need it to be, and feedback resistant.
Cordoba & Fishman did a great job!

The non-amplified sound of the guitar does carry quite a bit.
So the thinline hollowbody tone of the guitar works great acoustically as well as electrically.

The body microphone sounds excellent!
Finding a functional blend between the under-saddle pickup and the body mic is easy.

Pair this guitar with any acoustic DI or preamp, and you are gig-ready right out of the box!

And as with any guitar that you purchase online: don't be discouraged if it needs a pro setup.
If you like it and it sounds good, take it to your local guitar tech or DYI :)
I had to change out the factory strings to really get this guitar going...
Cheers!

The guitar sounds weirdly good with a pick, and percussive styles sound great. Playability and comfort are top notch, and it's convenient to not have to fiddle with microphones. It's loud enough for practice but quiet enough to not bother someone in the next room.
The guitar sounds a little warmer and a little squeakier than I anticipated. It has some great tones, but the traditional tones are sometimes tricky to dial in. I'm interested to see how different strings affect the tone, and maybe reduce string squeak.
Overall, I'm satisfied with this purchase and as always the Sweetwater team is great.

I had to finally put my ol' faithful classical guitar away in her case. She's 46 years old, and it's time to retire I guess. The fret board had dips, the bridge had grooves where the strings sat, and the top wood was deforming near the bridge. I'll miss you Belle.

Good new is I got this beauty! If you're going to mic your guitar I would get a full body classical guitar. If you want to plug it in and go this guitar is great. Fishman and Cordoba did a great job with the electronics on this instrument. Plug it in with the Hi z output and your ready to go. Light weight and a pleasure to play. The controls make it easy to get your sound just right. Not much output without the electronics, but that is a plus for me... I can play while my wife sleeps and she is none the wiser. :)

Cordoba Stage

Since I already owned a Cordoba Orchestra Fusion which I love, I decided to purchase the Cordoba Stage with the hope that there would be a significant reduction in feed-back and that the combination between the Piezo bridge pickup and the internal microphone pickup would create a significantly different, warmer sonic ambience.

I had seen several Peruvian bands that played beautiful melodic music and all of the guitarists played the Godin, Multivac. I wanted a nylon string electric similar to the Godin because I loved the concept of a nylon electric and Godin Guitars are superbly built high quality instruments, but I had played one and was unimpressed, so I was not willing to pay $ to own one, especially because I can use the Graphic EQ in my pedal board and don't need one built into the guitar.

My first impression of the Cordoba Stage was that is is beautiful, elegant in it's simplicity, comfortable and felt like an extension of myself, however I was disturbed by the murkiness of the excessive warmth and muddiness that comprimised string articulation and clarity and a bizarre background frequency that I found annoying, but was able to eliminate with the balance oif the mix knob.

Played with my fingers, the string articulation was too dark and muddy, regardless of how I mixed the pickups and adjusted my Graphic EQ. As a further test, I disconnected the guitar from my pedal board and Helix, playing straight through my amps, the problem remained constant, which eliminated the pedal board and Helix as the problem.

My first impulse was to return the guitar, and I even called Sweetwater to request a return label. However the feeling that the guitar fit like a glove was undeniable, so I decided to give it another chance. Up until that point, I had been playing finger style, so I decided to use a pick.

The two types of picks I use are a modified brass pick that I drilled a hole through the center and filed and sanded the rough edges and the other for a different feel and sound, are the Dunlop Utrex picks, which are better for nylon and flatwound strings.

With a pick, the guitar really began to sonically shine, the string articulation vastly improved and after playing the guitar for several more hours, I realized that despite its sonic flaw of being too dark and warm, this guitar fits me like a glove and is absolutely beautiful, so it is a keeper.

Just for ***** and giggles, I tuned the guitar to an open E and played some slide and although I have never seen slide played on a nylon string, it actually sounded very good.

Since I love almost everything about the guitar, the feel, the look, the neck, I realized that that like the overwhelming majority of commercially manufactured instruments, the Cordoba Stage needs some work to correct the flaws, so I decided to customize the guitar to correct its shortcomings. In the near future, I will make essentially the same changes I have made on all my other guitars, to customize a brass nut and bridge piece, change the pots and tone capacitor to facilitate greater roll off to tweak the upper registers which will solve the problem and transform a good instrument to a great one.

I opened the box last Thursday and after my Wow Moment have really enjoyed playing this beautiful instrument. It is very light, the neck is more than comfortable, the radius is helpful, and the tone suits me just fine through my Blackstar 60 acoustic amp. It is visually stunning eye-candy for sure.
The set-up is a little high for me in the upper frets, but I am going to play it a while to see if I can adjust to the nylon string feel before I ask a luthier to lower the action. String squeak is real, as noted in other comments; this can be helped with better technique on my part. I will eventually change out the strings to see if that helps.
All that said, I am very pleased with this purchase and am looking forward to showing this guitar to my musician friends.
I am always impressed by Sweetwater's customer service and my rep, Nick Blough, was helpful to the max. Sweetwater is the poster child for how to best work with customers.
All the best,
Michael S.

The guitar itself is beautiful. Sounds ok acoustically, much better amplified - which is what it is really designed for. Overall, a great guitar for the money.

My issue is with the gig bag. I couldn't believe how poorly it fits the guitar. It does have Velcro tabs to hold the neck, but it is so much bigger than the guitar, that it just flops around, and not very good padding. When closed, it looks ok, but I don't see that it's going to protect the guitar very well. That's disappointing, as having the gig bag included was part of the consideration of buying this guitar. :(

I'm still happy with the guitar; just disappointed that sometime in the near future I'll need to get a better case than what the guitar came with to feel confident that it's well protected.

Just got this yesterday and i am really impressed by the awesome tones and loudness coming from this thing unplugged!

Beautiful, comfortable and light weight design. This guitar has a unique sound that is brighter than a classic nylon string guitar. Almost more like a ukulele. Played acoustic it puts out a surprising amount of sound, and plugged in it has a good amount of tone control. This guitar will add a pleasing sound mix to your playing.

This is a beautiful guitar that really puts out beautiful sounds, and because the neck is just a little narrower than a typical classical guitar, playing it is a real pleasure. However, the string squeak on this guitar is louder than any other classical I have ever owned. Putting polished strings on it helped a little, but not as much as I had hoped. Now, it may not bother everybody, so I would suggest if you decide to buy one, TRY one out first.