Richard Jernigan -> RE: volume of a guitar (Feb. 7 2014 2:43:26)
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Different strokes for different folks. My favorite flamenco is the loudest (for the player) flamenco I have ever played. It is percussive and brilliant, but has a solid tone, ringing but not excessive basses. Arcangel Fernandez, the builder was a pro flamenco player before he became a guitar maker, but it was pretty much in the pre-amplification days of the Madrid tablaos. I don't know how it sounds in a big hall. When I had Richard Brune appraise it, he commented on how thin the top was. He also said he had played it a few hours, and "I really like this guitar." The classical I play most, by the world class Mexican Abel Garcia, is also loud to the player, very brilliant in the treble, as well as strong in the basses. I like the tonal variety you can get out of it. I haven't played it in a really big room. My Contreras Sr. doble tapa is also loud, lots of treble and bass, strong in the upper midrange. The tone seems a little cold to me, compared to the Garcia, but it projects well in a big room. My '73 Romanillos has a thick top. It takes a little more force to get it going. When I pick it up after the Garcia, I am sometimes a little disappointed, but that goes away after ten or fifteen minutes, as I settle back into the appropriate right hand technique. It is missing the very highest overtone frequencies of the Garcia, but nail noise simply disappears. When I had it less than a year, I thought the 3rd string was a little weak. After I moved for six months to a condo in Honolulu with a glass wall in the 18-foot living/dining room, I was astonished at the sound that came back at me from the wall, and the 3rd string was perfectly balanced with the rest. The Romanillos has the plantilla and bracing pattern of a 1950 Hauser, but to me it has that distinctive Romanillos tone. It projects like a bandit, though it isn't any louder to the player than the Garcia or the Contreras. Maybe that's why Bream didn't buy his famous '73 Romanillos until John Williams told him how he sounded on it. After I have played the Romanillos for a few days, I sound better on both the Garcia and the Contreras than I did before. The Arcangel just blows me away. But for a different player, with different technique and different requirements, it might stack up completely differently. RNJ
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