Ellis Guitars Soprano TX guitar delivers mandolin-like tones

Described as a guitar and mandolin, the Soprano TX is unique to Ellis Guitars, a Houston, Texas, builder of instruments and pickups (see review of the X Series pickup blending system in the September 2023 issue). The Soprano TX is a compact electric guitar that features a 16-inch scale cocobolo fingerboard — one quarter of which is fretless — sitting atop a bird’s-eye-maple bolt-on neck.

The tuning is E to E but an octave higher than standard, so the Soprano sounds quite like a mandolin but doesn’t require you to learn Mando fingerings. With an overall length of just 26 1/2 inches, the lightweight Soprano is about as easy to carry in its soft case as a pool cue.

This is a sweet-looking guitar, with a contoured, single-cutaway body made of hard maple and a beautifully figured ambrosia maple cap. It creates a cool two-tone effect, and the top is bent for a comfy feel on your forearm. The satin-finished neck looks striking with the burl figuring and the black-chrome joint plate emblazoned with Ellis’ logo. The neck’s modern C carve feels good in the hand with its slender width that runs from 1.5 inches at the nut to 1.92 inches at the 12th fret.

It is like a mandolin neck, however, because the tight spacing between the polished frets requires adjusting your fingers accordingly. Because the last quarter of the fingerboard is fretless, it’s helpful that the pearl dots continue on to provide position reference when you’re fingering in that range.