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Hello, as I wrote before on another topic, here.. where I live Flamenco is very unpopular, I live in brazil, study this and listen to this looks very exotic for people here, where bossa nova and country songs get the most from the people. Anyway, I found a very good luthier in my city (a miracle), he also does guitars for people abroad, I called him and told that I would be happy if he could do a guitar, a flamenco guitar, he just makes classical and popular intrumentos, but he said yes, so we started talking about Cypress and thickness of the woods, and also the fingerboard, told him I don't like cutway, so I asked about doing a guitar in which the connection of the body and the neck starts at the 14th fret... he told it wouldn't be nice, and offered this idea:
The guitar of the photo is very ugly for me, but anyway... the fingerboard is more important, do you think that a high scale like that could kill the "muy flamenco tone"?
Another doubt, he asked me if i would choose Cypress or Maple, basically i like maple because is beautiful, but i'm worried.. because searching on the internet i've just found these models:
*note that on the picture he says: "maple with special processing"
Does the maple can sound flamenco like a good cypress ? What about the volume and bass frequency? I would like something with great volume, but it does not need to kill my ears, also a clear bass, although I know cypress is not a wood for strong bass, i just want something with clear and open sound. I like Paco's timbre in Cositas Buenas video-clip, and others blancas I've seen which I can't give you a reference now.
Does anyone could give the thickness of the woods for this 'dream guitar'?
If possible, please, give all the tipical specifications of a flamenco guitar, later i'll try to search more in the fórum, but please... I would be happy if you could tell me your own experience.
The other specification is the peghead, but this one i'll search in the forum again, because i've been reading about before, i love that visual, but it always seems to me.. to be untuning the guitar, as I wrote.. we never use that in brazil, and I think in argentina (the flamenco there is popular) they don't usually use it also.
That's all for now, thanks for your attetion, and hope your comments and helps,
hugs,
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In my opinion you mix a lot of things together into a soup I dont understand. So I will give you a very good advice.
If you want a maker not used to building flamenco guitars to make you a flamenco guitar. Have him make a copy, using one of the many plans out there. And yes, I mean a copy. No 14 frets, maple, raised fingerboards etc.
A plain 12 fret cypres guitar with spruce top. If that not good enough, then I´m not to sure its a flamenco guitar you´re looking for,
hehe... you are right, to be honest i think i want a "flamenco guitar with modifications", when i asked him to put the connection o the body on the 14th fret, that was just because i don't like cutway, and also because in normal guitar it's just difficult for me to play after the 12th, anyway... he told me that my idea is awful and probably doesn't work and suggested the High Fingerboard as a solution for me. I'll discuss it with him later, maybe it's really not a good idea. But your idea... of making a copy of flamenco guitar, a tipical guitar... seems good too, he probably has something about it in his home, i'll check via internet if i can find the plans you told.
See the link at the bottom of this page. Tom Blackshear contributes to this forum, and there are recent posts regarding other luthiers using his Reyes plans. His entire website is interesting, see the links at the bottom of this page:
Don't get too hung up on the wood. The sound of a guitar depends more on the design and how it's constructed than it does on the species of wood it's made from. So often we hear and read that certain woods will give a certain sound, etc., etc. but that's just nonsense. There are plenty of real world examples out there that prove that such statements mean nothing. As I've said many times before, there is no magic wood.
i would recommend following a Reyes plan for a guy that hasn't built a flamenco guitar before. cypress and spruce is probably the easiest the to get the right sound. and i think timber is very important when building a guitar. maple would no doubt gice you a poor result. all the maple guitars i have seen are soft in tone and no where near bright enough to produce the paco tone you are after. you could try getting him to build a negra as im sure brazilian rose wood would be easy to get out there. a good finishing thickness for the back is about 1.9mm and sides 2mm but this varys on stiffness of the wood of course. and i believe paco's negra also is a cedar top! very loud very bright.
i also think a join at the 14th fret would be strange look odd and ruin the whole dynamics of the guitar! e.g scale length. good luck and send some pictures when you get the guitar made
RE: Making a flamenco guitar in braz... (in reply to C. Vega)
quote:
ORIGINAL: C. Vega
Don't get too hung up on the wood. The sound of a guitar depends more on the design and how it's constructed than it does on the species of wood it's made from. So often we hear and read that certain woods will give a certain sound, etc., etc. but that's just nonsense. There are plenty of real world examples out there that prove that such statements mean nothing. As I've said many times before, there is no magic wood.
How refreshing to hear wise words from a man of knowledge and experience. Thank you!
RE: Making a flamenco guitar in braz... (in reply to Stephen Eden)
quote:
maple would no doubt gice you a poor result.
SEden,
I have to disagree. Maple makes a wonderful flamenco guitar. What is going to make a good or bad guitar is the top. I'm sure there are not so good maple flamencos but there are also not so good cypress flamencos as well.
haha oh yeah i was miss informed about pacos negra. thanks for pointing that out. must have been confused with manolo sanluca from a vid i saw of them playing i was told they were both cedar.
RE: Making a flamenco guitar in braz... (in reply to Stephen Eden)
personally, id buy just to see the process of building, it'd be like orange county choppers, only much more interesting. plus id get an idea of how my anders guitar in the making was constructed.
RE: Making a flamenco guitar in braz... (in reply to Stephen Eden)
quote:
haha oh yeah i was miss informed about pacos negra. thanks for pointing that out. must have been confused with manolo sanluca from a vid i saw of them playing i was told they were both cedar.]
Hey, I think this is your video, when I saw you comment above, I remembered exactly the same video:
wonderful techiniques, lovely guitar devils
What about Sycomora, does anybody have experience with that?
To Vega: I think you have some reason, but my intuition says:
65% for design 35% for the wood
Anyway, I'll discuss your idea with him, and many thanks for your opinion ; )
I came from the world of electric guitar, in the forum i use for electric guitars they always say thinks like:
-"maple gives you a clear and bright sound.." - "use mahogany for a stronger timbre.."
and so forth..
Now i'm starting with acoustic guitar, and I really would like to know if a negra usually has a stronger timbre than a blanca, basically most of the video clips of flamenco I have are made with blancas, including the dvd of the Sr.Graf Martinez. Does anybody can comment about it?
IMO!! i made a brazilian negra and a cypress to pretty much the same spec top wise. they both had similar grain to the tops too. kinda of an experiment. they both had different sounds. the cypress was a very traditional sounding instrument. metallic, percussive, bright and very earthy. most of this comes from the set up of the instrument. the negra maintaining the metallic percussive and bright sound i felt it had a clearer more crystal tone to it.
as for sycamore ive only seen it on student guitars and they were set up classically so i can really comment. although the quality of sycamore is great! the quartering is immense.
I did the same experiment with the exact same result. The negra more crystaline and the blanca more punchy. I find this to be very characteristic of Negras and Blancas.
The above mentioned difference in sound between Blancas and Negras made me build two negras with cedar tops. I liked them a lot. The cedar works very well in the midrange and it gives the negra a more punchy and earthy sound. I found that both had very nice trebles to. Maybe not the best guitar for accompanying dance, but certainly a very nice sole guitar.
I agree with Charles Vega in that the wood is not to important. Its the builder creating the sound. The different wood combinations are in the hands of an experienced builder a sort of painters "palette" giving him the choice of coloring the sound and other tonal properties.
Thats also why I said in my first post that a builder without experience in flamenco guitars IMHO should use standard woods like spruce and cedar because its the reference point in creating a flamenco sound.
There are two spruces grown in Canada which are used for guitar building. Sitca spruce and Engelmann spruce. Of the two, I prefer Engelmann. But now I only work German spruce.
IMHO means "in my humble opinion" Its something you write in order to not sound like you know everything.
and as I know there is also a Swedish spruce, we call it Pinho, come here and you find a lot of guitars made with Swedish/German Spruce + Jacarandá da Bahia (Brazilian Rosewood), very very common to find this type of guitar.
Don't get too hung up on the wood. The sound of a guitar depends more on the design and how it's constructed than it does on the species of wood it's made from. So often we hear and read that certain woods will give a certain sound, etc., etc. but that's just nonsense. There are plenty of real world examples out there that prove that such statements mean nothing. As I've said many times before, there is no magic wood.
How refreshing to hear wise words from a man of knowledge and experience. Thank you!
John...Charles,
Oh I have to strongly disagree!
What about the hart wood from the Royal Spruce that was the last tree cut in the Alhambra Forest on the forth Tuesday in January 89 when it was raining and exactly 42 degrees at 5021 feet above sea level at 10:52 GMT? Now you guys have to admit that wood must have some special, magical power!
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