NUD- Cordoba Mini R Guitar/Baritone Guilele

I had wanted to get an Islander GL6 Guilele but HMS has stopped carrying them, someone said due to setup issues. I checked with them and they have no plans at the moment to order any. I saw the video of Corey playing the Cordoba Mini R "guitar" at NAMM and when I looked at the specs it seems to really be a Baritone Scale Guilele very similar to the Islander GL6 but with a more standard body shape. Same scale length, fingerboard width, ADGCEA tuning, and it sounded nice. Here is the video

https://vimeo.com/117778157

Cordoba is marketing this as a Mini Guitar but for all intents and purposes it seems to me to be a Baritone Guilele. I noticed that Elderley happened to have just gotten them in stock so I got a Rosewood like the one in the video. I later found out that HMS actually has the Cordoba Mini in stock even though they are not on the website yet and they are recommending them as an option for those looking at the Islander GL6. In any case, here are some photos of the one I got from Elderley. The Rosewood is $249 and there is also a mahogany is $199. Cordoba also shows an Ovangkol as the third option. I notice that they are sold out now at Elderley.

I've got the rosewood mini on order.

I think you will like it. HMS is really giving it great reviews...

gregmchugh said:

I think you will like it. HMS is really giving it great reviews...

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And others on other sites too. Thanks for posting your pics.

Ha Ha!

Greg, it seems you have succumbed to the influence of that other thread where the topic was to justify/explain the guilele/guitalele!

My budget level makes it hard for me to justify spending on one of the K brands, and the Cordoba Mini seems to be just right...

Not sure I'd splurge for the higher 2 models myself, the M (as in Mahogany might be just fine for me).

After re-watching all the Cordoba NAMM videos, and watching Corey and Noah's videos, yet again, last week I actually had already called my local music shop (who is an authorized Cordoba dealer), and asked them about the Mini, and they never heard of it, but told me they would be contacting Guild (who is apparently the distributor for Cordoba) and find out for me.

6 months ago I had purchased an Art & Lutherie parlor guitar, their Ami Cedar Nylon, which is VERY nice, plays great and sounds awesome, but I find it's really a bit bigger than I really want, which is something in betw my Yamaha 4/4 Classical (which I've had for 30 yrs) and my Yamaha GL-1 Guitalele (Dec 2012).

Thanks for letting us know that you got one. I hope you can put up a video review or some audio clips so the rest of us mortals can get a taste of it.

Thanks for sharing!

Booli said:

Ha Ha!

Greg, it seems you have succumbed to the influence of that other thread where the topic was to justify/explain the guilele/guitalele!

My budget level makes it hard for me to justify spending on one of the K brands, and the Cordoba Mini seems to be just right...

Not sure I'd splurge for the higher 2 models myself, the M (as in Mahogany might be just fine for me).

After re-watching all the Cordoba NAMM videos, and watching Corey and Noah's videos, yet again, last week I actually had already called my local music shop (who is an authorized Cordoba dealer), and asked them about the Mini, and they never heard of it, but told me they would be contacting Guild (who is apparently the distributor for Cordoba) and find out for me.

6 months ago I had purchased an Art & Lutherie parlor guitar, their Ami Cedar Nylon, which is VERY nice, plays great and sounds awesome, but I find it's really a bit bigger than I really want, which is something in betw my Yamaha 4/4 Classical (which I've had for 30 yrs) and my Yamaha GL-1 Guitalele (Dec 2012).

Thanks for letting us know that you got one. I hope you can put up a video review or some audio clips so the rest of us mortals can get a taste of it.

Thanks for sharing!

Click to expand...

Thanks, Booli, for the info on the Art and Lutherie parlor guitar. I had been tempted to go that route, until last Friday when I tried a Seagull parlor. It felt huge after a winter of uke playing!

Does anyone know how the Mele guitelele sounds?
ay

turtledrum said:

Thanks, Booli, for the info on the Art and Lutherie parlor guitar. I had been tempted to go that route, until last Friday when I tried a Seagull parlor. It felt huge after a winter of uke playing!

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Here's the link:

http://artandlutherieguitars.com/aminyloncedar.html

they retail for ~$299 USD

specs are scant so (from memory):

2" nut width
25.5" scale length
Top: solid cedar
Back & Sides: mahogany
truss rod

Body size is about half-way between a 4/4 classical guitar and baritone ukulele, dont have measurements handy, but can take them and post if there's interest...

(no thread hijack intended, apologies to the OP for the tangent )

No problem on the "hijack", take it wherever it wants to go...

Booli said:

Here's the link:

http://artandlutherieguitars.com/aminyloncedar.html

they retail for ~$299 USD

specs are scant so (from memory):

2" nut width
25.5" scale length
Top: solid cedar
Back & Sides: mahogany
truss rod

Body size is about half-way between a 4/4 classical guitar and baritone ukulele, dont have measurements handy, but can take them and post if there's interest...

(no thread hijack intended, apologies to the OP for the tangent )

Click to expand...

Thanks, Booli! Will check it out and look for sound bites.

turtledrum said:

Thanks, Booli! Will check it out and look for sound bites.

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FYI- IIRC, Godin, La Patrie, Seagull, Art & Lutherie are all connected somehow, like 'sister' companies.

You can see links to all these sites, from here:

http://www.godinguitars.com/

I saw similar La Patrie and Seagull parlor guitars for 2x and 3x the price of the A&L, and while I'm sure they are very nice guitars (especially if the A&L is supposed to be their budget line), I don’t need a crazy or expensive instrument at this time, exotic woods or fancy ornamentation do not motivate me so much, so I went with the A&L Ami, with which I am VERY impressed. The resonance of the cedar top is amazing, and the neck and fretboard are effortless to play.

This was the result of almost 1 yr of searching online to find a nylon string guitar with a smaller body (and/or neck) that had a 2" nut width. MANY 'travel' and fractional, and 'student' guitars have a nut width significantly smaller, closer to 1.65" which may be fine for an 8 yr old, but with adult-sized hands, found them quite problematic.

I know all about the 'requinto' instruments, but any that I found that seemed ok (Cordoba & others), were way outside any reasonable budget for me.

When I got the A&L AMI, it came with a nice gig bag, but I wanted better protection, and I ended up spending the $99 for and buying their TRIC case (amazon), which is canvas covered hard foam, but has an interleaved gasket edge that is designed to keep it hermetically sealed. The design intention of this is that if you have a humidifier in the case (as I do) that it keeps as much of the generated humidity inside as possible. It seems to be working, as the Caliber IV hygrometer that lives in the case, consistently shows ~60% every time I open the case to play and/or check the humidifier.

see the case info and pix here:

http://www.lapatrieguitars.com/tric.html

A fellow UU member recommended to buy the hygrometer, pre-calibrated for the 40-60% range direct from luthier David Burgess, which I did. Otherwise, out of the box, most of these hygrometers are set and calibrated more for the 70% range which is really intended for a cigar humidor, and you have to try and recalibrate them yourself for musical instruments, otherwise the readings are not accurate. By purchasing it from David Burgess, the extra cost was only around $6 (+shipping), and it came in less than a week.

Here is the link to the relevant page on his web site:

http://www.burgessviolins.com/products.html

hope this helps...

I still want to check out the Cordoba Mini in person. I have to call the local Guitar Center (evil place) to see if they actually have them in stock...so I can spend an hour with it and actually PLAY it...as I need to see if this is 'the one' before I even (G-d forbid) consider selling the AMI (which I love, but if I get a Cordoba Mini, would become redundant for me)....

Booli said:

Here's the link:

http://artandlutherieguitars.com/aminyloncedar.html

they retail for ~$299 USD

specs are scant so (from memory):

2" nut width
25.5" scale length
Top: solid cedar
Back & Sides: mahogany
truss rod

Body size is about half-way between a 4/4 classical guitar and baritone ukulele, dont have measurements handy, but can take them and post if there's interest...

(no thread hijack intended, apologies to the OP for the tangent )

Click to expand...

I got the specs wrong in my post, so correcting them here, this is copypasta direct from the above link:

Ami Nylon Cedar specs

Back & Sides : Wild Cherry
Neck : Silver leaf maple
Top : Cedar (Pressure Tested Solid Top)
Fingerboard & Bridge : Rosewood
Finish : Semi-Gloss Custom Varnish Finish
Tusq® nut & saddle by Graphtech

Click to expand...

Booli said:

I got the specs wrong in my post, so correcting them here, this is copypasta direct from the above link:

Click to expand...

The cedar, maple, rosewood combo seems beautiful to me. How do you find the sound?

turtledrum said:

The cedar, maple, rosewood combo seems beautiful to me. How do you find the sound?

Click to expand...

Despite having a smaller body in the parlor size, I find this guitar to have as much resonance and volume, as my Yamaha C120 4/4 classical guitar or my Gibson Hummingbird acoustic.

The AMI nylon has a wide spectrum of tone, spanning from a deep rich bass, penetrating midrange, and a little sparkle in the trebles, and as such very well balanced. Overall a very sweet and rich sound, neither boomy nor muted. The instrument responds very well to my playing dynamics.

I've never owned an instrument with a solid cedar top before, and the AMI seems to epitomize that tone that I've heard described and in many videos online.

A part of the sound is in the strings. I'm using the 3 basses from a set of Thomastik-Infeld (T-I) CF128 set, and as such are CHROME flatwound strings, and have the lowest string noise of any classical strings I've tried (and I've tested more than a dozen sets, these are my faves so far), and I'm using the Oasis Carbon trebles (which are fluorocarbon, similar to the ukulele strings) and they are a bit thinner than most nylon strings, which in fact makes it easier to fret the notes IMHO.

Also, with these strings on this guitar, there's tons of sustain, almost 12-15 seconds worth, which I really enjoy.

I don’t have any sound samples online, but can try to do one if there is interest.

Just as a comparison, last Thursday I went to my local music shop (http://ritchiesmusic.com/) and played (and tuned for them) 6 different models of Cordoba nylon string guitars, and it was not until I played the GK Studio that I found an instrument that was even comparable to the A&L AMI in terms of tone and playability.

Sadly all of the Cordoba models suffered from setup issues that would need to be remedied in order to even be properly evaluated, and I'm not talking about action, but rough fret ends, buzzing due to high frets and intonation problems due to the nut slots not being cut deep enough (causing the first 4 frets to pull 8-12 cents sharp, as verified with a Snark tuner).

After doing this play-through for nearly 2 hrs at the music shop, when I came home and played my AMI, the sound and playability seemed almost MAGICAL in just how much better the AMI is than the ones I played in the shop just before.

I have not done ANY setup tweaks on the AMI at all, it was great right from the start.

I would HIGHLY recommend the A&L AMI cedar nylon to someone wanted an instrument of this size and type.

I picked up my Cordoba Mini-R today. Fun little nylon string guitar or guilele. Fit and finish very nice, good volume and intonation. Will be fun to noodle around with. Can't beat the price.

frets alot said:

I picked up my Cordoba Mini-R today. Fun little nylon string guitar or guilele. Fit and finish very nice, good volume and intonation. Will be fun to noodle around with. Can't beat the price.

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That's awesome! I want one now so bad. Holding off to buy until I can test one hands-on.

I just tried all three models a few days ago, and I think the Spruce/Rosewood is the best out of all three. I'm a classical guitarist, and I could not put it down. The sound is nice and punchy with stock nylguts, but still has a sort of sweetness to the tone. I've tried a bunch of other guileles, including the Islander which I thought was the best guilele out there... not anymore.
For the price point and the design, it's definitely a winner in my eyes. I'm waiting for the right time when I can pick up a Mini R for myself!

Looks like Cordoba just upped the stakes, much like Kala did with the new California edition. If I could play 6 strings, I'd have to go for this, regular guitars are too d--n big for me, even my parlor guitar was too big. But this thing looks just right. Pretty wood too.

Was at guitar center yesterday and asked one of the sales guys. He said he'd seen two of these come into and leave the store already. Apparently they're more popular than the yamaha guitarlele. So I guess I'll have to keep an eye on the GC stock online and in store as well.

All Strings Nylon just got a new shipment and they do good job of setup. I don't see them mentioned here but the only brand they carry for ukes is Córdoba. I bought a Córdoba Guilele from them and got great service.

I've been playing my Cordoba Mini-R quite a bit. It's a lot of fun and my fingerstyle sounds nice on it. The intonation is spot on. I'm anxiously waiting for the E tuning Aquila strings that are supposed to be out this summer. This baby is going to the next uke jam with me. Also, I'm going to order one of Cordoba's polyfoam cases for it (baritone size also fits the mini), for added protection and to have a nice inside gear compartment for capo, tuner, etc. That looks to be a really nice case.