Seagull Artist Studio Concert Hall Element

Mid-priced OM-style guitar includes L.R. Baggs Element electronics.

October 27, 2015

Seagull guitars have a deserved reputation for offering excellent value. Made in Canada, the instruments are built with quality materials and great craftsmanship, and have consistently good playability. In recent years, the company has expanded several of its lines with models that are more closely inspired by vintage flattops than previous Seagulls, creating excellent mid-priced instruments that include several upscale features.

The Seagull Artist Studio Concert Hall Element we checked out for this demo is fundamentally an OM-style guitar. It has a 000-size body shaped much like Martin’s OM design, a long 25.5-inch scale, 1¾-inch wide neck, herringbone purfling, and a vintage-style sunburst finish. The guitar has solid Indian rosewood back and sides and a pressure-tested solid Sitka spruce top. Like all Seagulls, it has a bolt-on neck and the company’s distinctive pointed headstock design, which allows the strings to follow a straight path from the nut to the tuning machines.

The Seagull Artist Studio Concert Hall Element includes L.R. Baggs electronics, which consist of an Element undersaddle pickup, endpin-mounted preamp, and simple volume and tone controls mounted inside the guitar at the edge of the soundhole. The system is powered by a nine-volt battery mounted inside the body (accessible through the soundhole).

We were impressed with the guitar’s complex and dynamic acoustic tone, which sounded warm, yet had enough bite to distinguish itself when played forcefully with a pick. And the L.R. Baggs electronics proved to be an extremely user-friendly and great-sounding solution for amplifying the instrument.

SPECS: 14-fret 000 body. Solid spruce top. Solid Indian rosewood back and sides. Bolt-on mahogany neck. Ebony fingerboard and bridge. 25.5-inch scale. 1¾-inch nut width. Enclosed gold tuning machines. L.R. Baggs Element electronics. Made in Canada. $1,850 list/$1,495 street. Seagullguitars.com.