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Posts: 310
Joined: Jul. 16 2015
From: De camino a Sevilla
Cedar over Maple
i've always preferred cedar over spruce tops (i.e., classical gtr with rosewood) so it's hard to get used to the look of cedar over maple, but it sure sounds sweet on this flamenca. and it's really nice to hear Paco on this particular guitar (as opposed to his Conde negras, which i also like). make/model?
[pushes up guitar nerd glasses]Actually the top on that guitar is almost certainly Spruce, as it appears to be an old Domingo Esteso, and as far as I know, Western Red Cedar was not used on Spanish guitars at that time.
Also, are you sure the back and sides are Maple? Actually looks more like Cypress to me.
Cedar/Maple IS a combination of woods I'm very interested in trying on a flamenco guitar some day...
Killer guitar either way, and one of my favorite later compositions of Paco.
I have two cedar tops one on cypress, one on Brazilian; one is very sweet and round; the other is very, very dry with an attitude; both have power to spare. And, incidentally, the Brazillian is not only louder, but the dry one.
You just pretend the natural Red Cedar color is a gaudy red orange Conde' finish you can do a Jedi mind trick on yourself to believe the cedar is normal.
These are not the suspect cedar tops you are looking for......
My next two are going to be a spruce top and a cedar top on Hinoki back and sides. One cutaway and one regular, but parties involved can't decide which will be which!
I am going to start making more percentage of cedar tops from now on abut 50%, I am liking the cedar if it is real stiff across the grain.
On the subject of back and sides an interesting although not fully comprehensive blind test project was a just published in the recent edition of the GAL. It is called The Leonardo project, I'll make a thread with a link to it to start a separate conversation. I say not comprehensive however because Maple was one of the back and sides choices not used in the testing. A bold omission.
The gist of the blind trials was to challenge players and listeners to hear the difference between tropical hardwood backs and non tropical hardwood backs in separate heats of blind and non blind listening. Guess what happened? In blind trials non tropical woods were preferred by a few percentage points over 50%. The rosewood wood and non rosewood back and sides fared about 50% with non tropicals have a slight lead. In sighted trials Rosewood was favored at 75 average percentage points over non tropicals.
In this project one of the obvious results is that there was a definite visual bias for Rosewood, but not a sonic bias for rosewood. In other words sight unseen the back and sides wood mattered very little.
[pushes up guitar nerd glasses]Actually the top on that guitar is almost certainly Spruce, as it appears to be an old Domingo Esteso, and as far as I know, Western Red Cedar was not used on Spanish guitars at that time.
Also, are you sure the back and sides are Maple? Actually looks more like Cypress to me.
Cedar/Maple IS a combination of woods I'm very interested in trying on a flamenco guitar some day...
Killer guitar either way, and one of my favorite later compositions of Paco.
I will go deep nerd on you...I doubt the guitar in the video is the same as we hear in the audio. I am pretty sure the audio is the same old Conde NEGRA he always uses live. Perhaps cuz I know these old viuda (Sobrinos) de Esteso (I would say 1950's by rosette and tie block details, D. Esteso guitar would from 20 years earlier) guitars well and the basses and brightness of that recording don't jive with the old Blanca mid range honking I am used to. Saura movies, like any movie, are "playback" and match up fairly well but not exact to the studio produced audios in most cases (not all). I admit the video is beautiful in HD, and you can almost smell that guitar on a big TV screen. Spruce and Cypress I would agree, perhaps refinished top (new plate for sure), but M.Morao also had a Sobrinos with similar dark/light complexion.
Paco might be playing a legit Cedar top here...quite the different sound for him. Unfortunately the noise reduction takes out hiss and important high end sparkle of this Jose Ramirez III, but you get the idea. Probably not the guitar used on the Album that this piece comes from (El Duende Flamenco), but I also admit to be fooled by the visual aspects at times, though I am getting better.
The audio and video definitely do not match, I've transcribed the piece and there were many places where they didn't match exactly (and at least two places where they differed completely).
So we can't know for certain what guitar he used on the original recording because the information isn't listed somewhere
One could simply contact the producer, get the engineer's email, and ask which guitar Paco used. For my ear, being really into Paco and taking notice of his different guitars, it is obvious in certain spots that it's THAT guitar. Close your eyes and compare. At the very least you can admit the guitars sound pretty much the same, even if different.
ORIGINAL: Ricardo One could simply contact the producer, get the engineer's email, and ask...
i wouldn't question your expertise as i can see you are a diehard fan, but...
do flamenco producers/engineers keep such copious records? and the same guitar recorded with different mics and mixed in various ways can sound different enough from one recording to the next
i have no info as to whether Paco productions involved the same people using the same techniques all those years
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