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RE: New vs Old
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Ricardo
Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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 RE: New vs Old (in reply to elgreco)
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Seems you were wanting a comparison specifically of old vs new condes? Why didn't you say so. My feeling is that there is more big "hype" regarding old condes then newer modern ones. Biggest hype of all is the term "faustino conde" as if he built with his own hands some magic instrument. Having had time spent with some older ones as well as modern ones, I say there was even more inconsitency in terms of build in the old ones then new. What I mean is, when I compare two old esteso guitars from say 60's and 70's, not only look feel and bracing, but some sound aspects too, I wonder "did the same guy make both of these????"
I have a 73 sobrinos de esteso from Gravina and comparing to my 1997 A26 from felipe V, they are essentially the exact same. Same feel, same look (more or less with minor detail difference), similar long scale (664 vs 670) same bracing (5 parallels 2 angled) same mid rangy equalization and dryness, same overall volume projection. Similar bridge design and neck profile. I would be inclined if I did not know better, the same GUY built both guitars. They are so similar to each other vs if you compared to other makers or guitars of other woods of same "maker". My sanchis for example is way different then these two interms of sound bracing, top thickness, etc.
If it is true that conde hermanos contracts out to some "factory" in Valencia that has an assembly line of condes ready for the one guy with an ear that mashes the semi finished bodies into a belt sander until they are "tuned", then tosses em on a pile to go to the finishers, then I propose that their dads (faustino and marino) were doing the same darn thing in the 60's and 70's. At least with the ones I have had in my hands, the results are very similar. I will also admit, and this is painful to you guys that build your own guitars, is that even though it could be this cheap method is used to build these guitars, the end result is ideal for flamenco as time has shown. Other builders have not been so successful making a guitar that professionals want using more honorable "by hand" methods.
But who knows, maybe these guitars I have WERE hand made with great care to detail. I have no proof either way, just I know what my hands and ears tell me.
Ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jan. 14 2011 15:29:06
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Andy Culpepper
Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to elgreco)
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quote:
1. Playability (This would include dimensions of all sorts: Distance of string from fretboard, distance between themselves, width of fretboard, curvature of neck etc.). Not sure if this can be measured since people have different size hands. Something that is more playable for you, may not be for me
2. Volume of sound. (measure in decibells?)
3. Quality of sound. I think this should be able to be measured. Graphs of sound sustain when you hit a string should reveal the behavior of the sound produced.
4. Test of time. What is the behavior of the guitar's lifetime. Does it have a peek after 15 years? Does it die after 30 or continues to be joyfully playable?
5. Do the machine/wooden pegs function as they should? Do they loosen up quickly and need replacement?
6. Durability. I currently own an Alhambra 3F and the freaken thing won't get hurt despite all the abuse. Not sure if a burguet would tolerate accidental bangs that much.
7. Wood cracking and/or bending.
8. These characteristics probably imply design. Are some guitars designs better than others? (5 vs 7 type bracing etc)
Everything you just listed is either subjective, irrelevant, or relevant in the opposite way you think it is.
1. This is subjective as you say. Sabicas' Barbero that there are plans for had an action of 2.25 mm at the time it was measured. Most modern guitars have higher action because players need that. It's not better or worse it's just a fact. Most modern concert players would refuse to play a guitar with that action.
2. Some people care some people don't. At one time it was more important without amplification.
3. Subjective and impossible to measure. Sustain does not necessarily = good.
4. Depends on how much the guitar is played.
5. Not really relevant as these things always need attention over time and it doesn't reflect on the builder if the tuning machines need a little grease after a few years.
6. Durability can be counter-productive to sound especially with regards to finish. "Old" French polished guitars (or new french polished guitars) are much less durable than your Alhambra.
7. Again not necessarily the fault of the builder, lots of great older, lightly built guitars have plenty of cracks.
8. If 5 fans were "better" than 7 why wouldn't everyone build with 5??
The ultimate irony is that at some point the guitars that DeVoe, Anders and everyone else are building right now are going to be "old guitars" and somebody like you is going to be posting about how those guitars were so much better back in the day after not even having played one. Just because the good ones that have survived are commanding a high price (surprise surprise). So I think your whole premise is shaky at best.
_____________________________
Andy Culpepper, luthier
http://www.andyculpepper.com
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Date Jan. 15 2011 2:33:31
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Tam DL
Posts: 21
Joined: Jan. 1 2011
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to elgreco)
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"Lester, at least, talks in his website about some refinements of his own and I quote: "Some of the refinements I have developed involve more accurate fret placement, string compensation, top arching, stress-free assembly and internal bracing design that make my guitars unique and consistent in sound and feel." This is the kind of info I was looking for, that perhaps the old luthiers had mastered and the new ones are left alone to rediscover.
This is upside down in several ways. First, on something like accurate placement of frets, that would most likely be a fault in old guitars because they were hand sawn, as I do it today, but as good as one may be, it isn't CNC. Again, compensation is far more sophisticated at a theoretical level today, though it may be simplified in practice; Top arching is far more sophisticated these days, though why many bother, or what effect it is having is a variable; There is a lot of experimentation on bracing I doubt one could come up with a consistent explanation of anything.
The other topsy turvy element is that luthiers had mastered as a group something that those of today are struggling alone to rediscover. How would that happen exactly? Every aspect of guild thinking, communication, etc... Would have made it very difficult to share anything, and often people didn't share. Today there are no secrets, except stuff that luthiers for the most part couldn't put words to or are not able to quantify themselves. These days because so much is out there, there is little long term hope of concealing secrets, but if you are the first to express something, you get credit for it being almost your idea, even if people have been doing the same thing for centuries.
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Date Jan. 15 2011 4:41:05
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Tam DL
Posts: 21
Joined: Jan. 1 2011
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to Patrick)
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It is my opinion that old guitars are different in some ways from the contemporary ones. Some of those differences are better and some "maybe" worse. I would like to know why are there differences. Explain to me what sucks in older guitars and why? Was it the old luthiers?"
Who knows. People in an earlier time were very different, even back in the 70s. Every generation is weaker individually, and lazier. Think of the reliance on shortcuts. There are strengths to new ways of working. There is a lot of pseudo science around, look at some of the recent lutherie books. There is possibly less reliance on intuition today, it is almost embarrassing, think of your early question about how there must be some computer program. Among "Spanish makers" What is the current standing and confidence of Spanish culture, I doubt it is the same as 1970, or 1870. Who do modern makers make guitars for, foreigners, locals, rich, poor. What standard of living do they have... There are so many factors, but I doubt any of them could be linked definitively.
" Their designs?"
Obviously huge changes. Didn't you bring up earlier the idea of innovation. You see a lot of things today, you see very little in service to the instrument kind of makers. They all need some way to stand out. Constant experiments and change. Who wants to be unknown, only to be discovered in 300 years, if that kind of thing were possible. Design is a very aggressively pursued thing, what effect this has is hard to tell. When I built my first big project in 1979, I wanted to design it from scratch. The way I had been brought up was to assume I had creative authority and could contribute fundamental design idea from the beginning, or my education had been wasted. I don't consider that arrogant, but it sure is different than expecting to sweep floors for 3 years.
"Are there financial incentives for luthiers for adopting some new practices (choosing cheaper (in price) woods etc)?"
Wrongo, if anything it is the opposite. The most effortless upcharge, and the single biggest money maker in lutherie is charging for expensive wood. Clients want it, and that is where most of the profit is. It swirls around. I haven't bought any guitar backs and sides since I got a severance in 2000 and spent a lot of it on wood. I am not sure how it works today, and I am not going to say. But often the wood you get paid the most for are cheaper to buy than others. Soundboards are probably the most linear. The only tension I see is that some luthiers may have feelings at odds with what the market wants, but it generally isn't too rending. An example would be double tops. Go figure the upcharge on a classical. Now look at the task, gluing three pieces together. Plywood as an example, 64 square feet of .6mm glued immaculately to a core, 11 dollars. This isn't rocket science.
"Did the new luthiers develop new techniques and rejected some old ones. How did that affect the sound of the new guitars? Did they -have to- (re)discover some tricks on their own?"
Yes. I mean that's a 2000 page book if Somogyi book is anything to go by.
"One specific example is wooden pegs. From what I understand old flamenco guitar makers used wooden instead of machine pegs because it was cheaper. Most modern guitars have machine heads. So that is one difference of new vs old. Does that have an effect on the guitar? Does it make it better or worse? How?"
I don't believe that would have a better or worse effect. It would possibly mean that a new guitar had some tonal difference, but I can't see it being a quality or allure problem. I think modern folk are intimidated by pegs. My father in law has spent his retirement to date learning to play the cello, and has become quite good. He takes it to his teacher to be tuned! He won't touch those pegs. I know a lot of knife collector/user types, send their knives back to the factory to get them sharpened. Most people in the West are useless.
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Date Jan. 15 2011 5:23:02
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to Tam DL)
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quote:
How many people currently alive have made more good classical guitars than Torres, or Bouchet?
No question, in times of power tools.
Loving wood work ever since, at age of 12 I used to sneak into a shop whichs facility might have been close to the ones of Torres´ and followers´.
Despite all the handworks still involved today, accomplishing a guitar ought to have been uncomparably more laborious back then.
Standing in a cold room with a tiny stove to warm up the glue and with a drafty window behind the bench as the only useful source of light.
All those hunchbacked surfaces, manual cutting tools that you had to sharpen yourself instead of going into the next store and buying new heads etc.
... Yet, what a place for contemplative stay those old shops could be.
A pity that the old carpenter in there hated kids, letting me use only worn out, blund tools on waste wood. Yet shooing me out sooner everytime until no trespassing at all; eventhough I was trying to be invisible.
Could be irony that I never tried building a guitar myself, despite sensitivity for material, precision ability, and shaping of a sculptor; however of great respect for luthiery, expecting a too long break-in period / learning curve until useful output.
- And still thinking that way. Apart from beginner´s lucky strike, I guess it would be taking quite a while even for talented hands until predictable and consistant production .
Either so, or all those duds out there would have been a matter of wanton neglection and could had easily been decent to great instead with only a couple of dedicated preliminaries.
Anyway, back to the point: the workshops today with all their fine or powered tools can´t be compared to traditional conditions. Output in numbers today ought to be much higher for that alone.
Ruphus
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Date Jan. 15 2011 11:41:05
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Tam DL
Posts: 21
Joined: Jan. 1 2011
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to elgreco)
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I've done it all from the beginning, myself, except I never really thought of resawing. It's funny where one thinks the cutoff is. I have lumbered entirely by hand with my Great uncle, back in the 60s. And I have split and otherwise processed furniture wood by hand. Local environment wouldn't really serve up tone woods. There is some red spruce and maple, so one could make something, but it wouldn't be what we expect today.
I think most people today have a hard time understanding what the working environment may have been. My Grandfather was a joiner and they only had one stationary tool, a foot mortiser. He was alive till the 50s. On the other hand, as early as the 1830s, the young cabinetmaker was being counseled to search out a motorized grinding wheel to see the real efficiency possible with modern machines. So by the time the classical guitar was in a form we recognize today, at least some regions were well automated in their production.
That said, there is a significant slippery rope with power tools. Introduce any powerful tool into the shop, and there is a tendency to either adapt processes to that one tool, or to search out tools that are equally efficient for everything. Somewhere during my hand tool woodworking apprenticeship, I took a diversion through woodturning. I got the lathe, that meant the interesting part, creating the vessels, happened in the blink of an eye. So the actual day of turning would consisted of long boring bits involving hand sharpening tools, cutting out wood, and sweeping up chips, with a small bit of turning in there somewhere. Not much fun. So one buys a grinder, a bandsaw, a dust extractor, and a drill driver to mount blanks. Any part of a process that isn't automated becomes the part you spend all your time on, and the pressure to make some change is pretty solid.
In accoustic guitar, small shop lutherie, this had led to a transformation of the small shop, and the guitars that come out of them. Classical makers seem to have resisted some of the trends, but they are creeping in. Most noticeable is the move to manufactured rosettes (long past, and possibly moving in the other direction), spherical plates, sprayed finishes, and modern finishes, etc... What effect, pro or con, any of this has is another mater.
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Date Jan. 15 2011 17:52:34
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
I have a 73 sobrinos de esteso from Gravina and comparing to my 1997 A26 from felipe V, they are essentially the exact same.
Hi Ricardo,
I have a 1968 faustino plan of a guitar that was owned by Paco's brother, Ramon, and it was purchased by a friend of mine at the '69 hemisfair, here in San Antonio Texas. I made a drawing of it, and I can say, without reservation, that the top design is very different from your more modern class, which has changed considerably from the old school.
I have built several copies of this pattern and they operate fine, but different; more Gitano then the newer designs. The top thicknesses go from quite thick. 2.5 mm to very thin, 1.8-9 mm depending on the sound that players are looking for. This particular top is very thin but seems to have stood up over time and playing abuse.
The sound is very different from the modern Reyes, not as sweet, but strong and raspy in its own style.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Jan. 15 2011 18:48:06
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: New vs Old (in reply to elgreco)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jshelton5040
Don't forget to take into account the decline in the value of the currency. The Euro wasn't around 40 years ago but I suspect the current dollar is worth less than a tenth of what it was. In the 70's I was renting a house near the downtown area of a large city for $100/month. We couldn't survive on what we make from guitar making now but 40 years ago we were making and selling flamenco guitars for $150 and doing fine.
Yes; when I was in US around 1977, I remember that acquaintances there had just bought a sportscar for 3000 dollars. On the other hand a trip to Disneyland showed that the dollar wasn´t respected nearly as much, taking in incredible summs from visitors.
In the guitar example however I was referring to European currency relation, which might be serving even more obviously to indicate how purchasing and income values have developed disproportionately. In contrary to the secondary fact that apart of certain raw materials having become more scarce, upcharging and rising in prices in about every instance, especially of trade chains and tax ( respectively constantly encreasing embezzlement of states budgets, thus rising taxation of mid- to low class with yet less and lesser feedback in citizen services ) are developing severely ahead of wages. Yet, despite the fact of production of goods having become considerably less in efforts.
Blatant misproportions in general, also behind discussed guitar prices, many times raised, yet after clearing up of inflation.
Just have a look at what is meanwhile being requested for a guitars raw material. A couple sheets and a blank of wood, inquired hundreds of bucks for. And that while simultaneously there being lumbered 6500 square kilometers of primare woods alone ( over two times the size of Luxemburg ), yearly. ( On top of secondary forests harvesting.) Profits, "worth" deserting earth regardless, with maybe ten bucks investment for harvest of a whole giant tree, yet coming to you just dried and cut in tiny sheets for ridiculous money.
That is way unreasonable and boundless economizing.
Similar with suppliers or trading chains and their superfluous, countless instances wedged in and upcharging in between, enabled through excluding errangements and protected out of all through what should actually side with human society: the states.
Why the heck should distributors and dealers be allowed to scoop just as much or even more than the manufacturers, whose efforts from material to finished product being uncomparably higher?
Thelike irrationalism is what is driving proportions steadily farther away from reason, with average consumer´s income remaining the only predictable, humbly ( under inflation rate ) rising parameter in an equatation of unknown quantity.
An out of hand irrationality, inevitably to be retracted; only that it being questionable how far damage on humanity and environment will have advanced until then.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Tam DL
Agreed, it's a modern vibe. We live in a jpeg world. If the old masters were working today, they would spray can the fill, and just hand paint the parts people actually care about, like the Mona Lisa's smile. Or more to the point they don't do that stuff at all, and just spill paint around, or do street graffiti, sample music, rather than learning to play it. The only issue is which world the guitar actually belongs too.
My answer is it belongs to both. :)
My perspective is that there is no need for a luthier to abstain from power tools, wherever these can spare him manual work without quality loss on the workpiece.
To my understanding a very different case from art, where proficiency being the actual core object.
Which is why vast of "modern art" with its triviality and screened inability ain´t being art in the first place to me.
Art has to contain the combination of idea and highly skilled craft, otherwise it won´t be special enough to bear a specific term like "art" to start with.
Ruphus
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Date Jan. 17 2011 11:44:13
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When I think about publications in the best journals in my field...they are often crap.. but at lest "some" people thought its important.. 
