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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Tom's tutorial Manuel Reyes Flamenco negra (Jan. 20 2018 21:03:57)
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More on the comparison of the '82 Arcangel Fernandez blanca and Tom's latest Reyes negra:
As soon as Tom strummed a few chords on his new negra, I said, "Tom, that's a great guitar." After an hour of comparing the two, I still think so. I think both of them are great guitars, but they are different, so some people might like one better than the other, or some people might fall in love with both of them. I might be among the latter group.
Tom's guitar has more brilliant trebles than the Arcangel, played with the same touch. Tom remarked upon the "separation of notes" on the Arcangel. Trained as an engineer and physicist, I often have trouble understanding the usual guitar lingo. One hint to decoding "separation of notes" is that Tom said he could really dig in on the Arcangel, even in rasgueados.
The strings on the Arcangel were a well broken in set of Savarez "red cards" (520-R), but there was no visible wear of dirt on them. The strings on Tom's were two weeks old, presumably the D'Addarios he uses.
For the same stroke on both instruments, the trebles on Tom's guitar have more upper harmonic content than the Arcangel. At first I thought the Arcangel had more sustain than Tom's guitar, but more listening revealed that it wasn't the case. Maybe I had that impression as the upper harmonics decayed on Tom's guitar, but the character of the notes didn't seem to change as much on the Arcangel. Both instruments sustained for seconds on strongly produced chords.
I said I thought the Arcangel trebles reminded me of a great mezzo soprano, while the Reyes model was more like a coloratura.
Of course the basses on Tom's guitar had more harmonic content than the Arcangel as well, but it wasn't quite as obvious as with the trebles.
My recollection of the pulsacion of Tom's guitar was just a little stiffer than the Arcangel, but well within comfortable range.
After we had been comparing the two for a while Tom gestured, "Your guitar goes like this, mine goes like this." I interpreted his gestures to correspond to my impressions: the midrange on his guitar was slightly stronger than the treble and bass, while on the Arcangel, the bass and treble were slightly stronger than the midrange.
I was already driving back to Austin the next morning when my cellphone rang, displaying Tom's caller ID. In a minute or two I found a spot to pull over and returned the call. Tom spoke excitedly. He said he had lightly sanded four of the seven fan braces on his guitar to "give it an inverted pull like a real flamenco guitar."
I said I thought it already was a real flamenco guitar, but Tom said he thought he now had it just right. The light sanding on the braces had brought the "key" down to F#-G, just where he liked it, and it had the "inverted pull" of a true flamenco. As I said in a previous post, Tom told me that when he said "pull" it was pretty much what others called "pulsacion. I took the "inverted" part to mean slightly stronger trebles and basses, compared to the midrange.
As I said, I think they are both great guitars. I know the Arcangel much better, but I think I would very much enjoy getting to know Tom's guitar. New spruce guitars generally improve with age.
RNJ
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