Novo Voltur B6 Copper Aged (2025, new)

A versatile lightweight with a retro look and sustain for days.

Novo Guitars hardly needs an introduction. These are superb instruments, handmade in Nashville, and long established among professionals worldwide. We're pleased to be able to offer our first orders to customers, and every single one has impressed us. All of the guitars were shown at this year's Guitar Summit by arrangement, which — we suspect — meant an extra layer of care went into them.

This one is an extravagant Novo Voltur B6 in light distress Copper, with superb ageing and a wealth of sounds in it. Not an everyday guitar, certainly. Or is it a bass? Novo has made something here that doesn't really fit a category. It's a guitar, tuned exactly one octave down — which puts it lower than a baritone. Because it's tuned like a guitar, just an octave below, it isn't a bass; a bass would simply add lower strings.

In theory you can accompany yourself in the bass register and take off on the high strings, provided your hands can keep up. More to the point, it opens doors to sounds you haven't heard before, and the possibilities really don't run out. The Lollar Goldfoils are a reliable partner in that, and plenty of bass players would be delighted with this kind of voice and range. As if that weren't enough, there's the rock-solid Mastery M1 tremolo on board.

As with every Novo, the foundation is tempered, hand-selected timber, and it lands at a very light 3.5 kg for an instrument of this kind with three pickups and a tremolo. The full specs are on the spec sheet, and everything on it is top drawer. Have a look at the design as well — it's a pleasure from every angle. Because we ordered several together, we can offer a reduced “Guitar Summit” price to mark the start of the partnership.