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Hi all i am in the market looking for a flamed Hawaiian Koa blanca. Has anybody play or seen one? i like the firey look of the Koa. what is sound like ?
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
I nearly had the chance to build one of these but it ended up as Madagascan RW instead. My first impressions were that being somewhat less dense than rosewood the sound would be closer to a cypress blanca.
I can't help you find one though I wouldn't imagine that many if any factories are building them. So it maybe a luthier jobby
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
A guitar made with Koa, will normally be called a Negra. Blanca means white and you use the word for flamenco guitars with whitish wood like cypress or maple.
The Koa I´ve had in hand was a lot closer to rosewoods than to cypress both in weight and taptone, so the sound will be negra and since the wood is brown, it´ll be called a negra anyways
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
quote:
The Koa I´ve had in hand was a lot closer to rosewoods than to cypress both in weight and taptone, so the sound will be negra and since the wood is brown, it´ll be called a negra anyways
Anders,
We have a wood on the Mainland called Black Acacia, it is related to the Koa of Hawaii, some even call it "California Koa" ....a joke. I've built with it and seen a few other flamenco guitars with this material. I have to say it sounds more blanca than negra to me, but still not totally blanca. When it is worked thin it does not have the glassy tap tone of a rosewood at all. it is dark and thuddy compared to the bell ring of denser rosewoods. But then again wood varies from flitch to flitch.
I would not call it a negra or a blanca, but a rosa or a cafe' or a marron. It also sounds to my ear something in between a negra and a blanca. How do you say auburn hair in Spanish? Or maybe that hair color chestnut brown? That first seven string I built was Black Acacia and it does not really sound negra either.
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
Acacia melanoxylon, commonly known as Australian or Tasmanian blackwood is also a close relative of koa. There are a few luthier suppliers who sell it and it's generally cheaper than koa.
GSI has had a few koa Condes that dated from 2005-2006. Your guess is as good as mine as to who actually made them. They're in the "Archive" on their website.
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I would not call it a negra or a blanca, but a rosa or a cafe' or a marron.
Stephen, you may call whatever thing whatever you like. The division into Blancas and Negras has nothing to do with tone. Its looks and here in Spain a Koa guitar would be a Negra. After all, its their culture and I think its correct to respect it.
Spanish devide everything into two. They still do so and its very obvious everywhere: Madrid><Barcelona. Calor><Frio. PP><PSOE (Conservative >< socialist). One of the more interesting ones. They are very much in favor of laws and justice but they dont have to follow the laws themselves. This with putting instruments strictly into two boxes you only see in flamenco. Classical and steel strings dont suffer that.
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
I would probably call it a negra too but still it's not overly relavent to the topic.
Maybe you have some very light IRW and comparing it to some very heavy Koa? Or I have some very heavy IRW and compared it to very light Koa? Its still not as light Cypress though.
Also I assume you would call a maple guitar a blanca? Koa and maple have very similar densities still lower than IRW. So there you go we can say a Koa guitar could Sound Very similar to a Maple Blanca
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
A maple guitar is normally called a Blanca or a Maple blanca.
Again, its not the sound that matters but the color of the instrument before putting the finish on. So a black colored cypress guitar would still be a blanca. Just like Real Madrid are called "merengues" even when they play in black or dark blue. (Merengue is a totally white sweet thing made of puffed up egg white and sugar) I´ve lived here more than 10 years and I´ve learnt to accept that they are like that.
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
Thanks for posting a photo of my guitar Sean! That set of Koa was the most absurdly beautiful set I ever laid eyes on. The neck is flamed Spanish Cedar which was a nice compliment. In all honesty the guitar is a classical that is fit with pegs. The shape is my Romanillos inspired shape, which is to say I traced a Romanillos and then altered the curves to match my standard plantilla.
I have a few sets of Koa that are quite nice but in my experience with the wood, as a raw material it is closer to a dense mahogany (at least the sets I have) than anything else. In the end it's it's own thing. It's beautiful and builds a very nice guitar. I don't think labels like blanca or negra are imprortant, if anything misleading. Saying that a koa guitar is a blanca gives one impression, saying it's a negra gives another and yet its still the same guitar.
For me, flamenco guitars are cypress. That gives me the sound I most associate with flamenco. I build negras and I don't make them like I make my classicals but what they bring to the table tends to be (for me) more sustain and bloom to the sound. Not muddy, which I wouldn't want in any guitar but the lines are definitely blurry
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
Aaron, Wow, what a beautiful guitar! Why more people don't talk you up on this forum is a mystery to me. Your experience with some of the world's finest instruments (Hauser, Fleta, Esteso, Barbero, etc.) alone is mindboggling, not to mention your own wonderful creations. Of course, I own a classical by Aaron-just a little biased, eh? Best to you, Dennis
RE: enquiry about flamed Hawaiian Ko... (in reply to erictjie)
The brilliant Hungarian gipsy musician Ferenc Snétberger plays a Koa 'blangra'
it was made specially for Him. I've also heard it live in a relatively small hall on a concert. I think it has wonderful warm and full tone, but sure One could make a guitar with it that also has a some more raw power to it.
Another one:
The look of this wood is just beautiful by the way.
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