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Not speaking for Ricardo, but as an owner of a couple PDM's he probably means the way by which they farmed out a lot of their guitar construction, and then final tune the guitars and sell them out of their shop as PDM's. At least for the semi prof models, etc. Like the 27F variants, etc. Which if you look inside of with a mirror you can see obvious whittling of the braces, etc.
Regards, Jeff
Ricardo may have been a little facetious in regard to my ordering a PDM from James Greenberg, as a first class flamenco guitar advertised at Zavaleta's store.
I don't consider this as James fault and I don't return guitars, I just fix them and send them on to a good home, which I did and Dan Zeff sold it for me.
Does this reflect on all PDM guitars. Obviously, PDM has grown in knowledge and expertise from that time, and I'm sure he will keep going like all the rest of us.
If you say that using different strings will change the tone of the guitar itself, does that mean that the tone will also change if you use the same strings but leave them on for a month or two? What I mean is playing with old strings on 80% of the time.
I use whatever string set anyway, Iam only asking to better understand this theory.
Strings will tighten up with age and pull the top tension more. In most cases the builder does not tighten the top too much, so when this age thing happens, with the strings or natural age, then the guitar will usually play just fine.
But my view is that if a builder tunes a guitar with a certain string brand, then it might be best to stay with it.
Not speaking for Ricardo, but as an owner of a couple PDM's he probably means the way by which they farmed out a lot of their guitar construction, and then final tune the guitars and sell them out of their shop as PDM's. At least for the semi prof models, etc. Like the 27F variants, etc. Which if you look inside of with a mirror you can see obvious whittling of the braces, etc.
Regards, Jeff
Ricardo may have been a little facetious in regard to my ordering a PDM from James Greenberg, as a first class flamenco guitar advertised at Zavaleta's store.
I don't consider this as James fault and I don't return guitars, I just fix them and send them on to a good home, which I did and Dan Zeff sold it for me.
Does this reflect on all PDM guitars. Obviously, PDM has grown in knowledge and expertise from that time, and I'm sure he will keep going like all the rest of us.
I just remember you admitting to sanding the inside of one. It stuck in my mind for 2 reasons. 1. I have a few player friends, very GOOD players mind you, that love those guitars. I personally can't stand em, very stiff sounding. So when you said you went at one of em it made me curious as your description of your complaint about the instrument I was in agreement with....taste wise. 2. I was at Dan Zeff's place in 2011, I believe. He showed me one PDM I was not even interested to touch, but I did, and low and behold it sounding very punchy and flamenco. Could it have been the same one? Most likely.
So Just poking fun at you for saying, now after all, it might be "ethically" wrong to mess around with an other builder's work.
My friend, pro player and amateur builder, claimed that R. Diaz gave him a Manuel Cano years ago (aka andalusian) in hopes to promote the mexican builder that had a "Made in spain' label, but he proceeded to lop off and replace the hideous headstock, and went filing like crazy up inside at the braces and top to make it sound more flamenco. It certainly worked, I played it after all that. After all he put electronics in it. But I am thinking that simply removing wood will get any guitar sounding more percussive and flamenco....to the point the top just caves in I guess?
So Just poking fun at you for saying, now after all, it might be "ethically" wrong to mess around with an other builder's work.
I understand your having fun with it and I would not have messed with it at all, if I hadn't needed to recoup my investment. As it was, the fingerboard shrank a considerable amount and I let Dan figure that one out before he resold it.
The guitar had a non-voice to it, more like cardboard. But the potential was there to adjust the voice to be more significant.
So I took the fan braces down to about G#-F on the top key, which primarily was constructed at about A-B Flat This helped more music to come out of the top, which, in my opinion, was too thick at about 2.6 MM. This would have required a lot of playing to open up the top.
The guitar had fine wood and a beautiful Spruce top, so no doubt Dan found a good home for it.
I thought it was a Torres from afar, but it makes sense you would have a Rodriguez on your wall.
I'm trying to decide if I'll tussle with that again, I've built Friedrich, Rodriguez and Fleta models once each, A lattice top, but never a Hauser or a Torres. My next guitar after the blanca I'm almost done with is a Torres model with 640 scale. Then I think a Hauser just to do it to see what it is like. After that I'm going to make more classicals, but I'm wondering which style suit me best. The Friedrich I built was very good, the Rodriguez I did not have the feel for with only one, it was trickier than I thought. But it a good.
Have you ever work with Friedrich's ideas or Fleta? The Friedrich is deceptive, it seems like too much timber in the guitar, but it sounds complex and rich despite having half a lumber yard in there.
Are you using BWB Fiber Purfling? I was using that for a while but I found it a pain to chisel down.
I thought it was a Torres from afar, but it makes sense you would have a Rodriguez on your wall.
Definitely a Rodriguez picture :-)
quote:
Have you ever worked with Friedrich's ideas or Fleta? The Friedrich is deceptive, it seems like too much timber in the guitar, but it sounds complex and rich despite having half a lumber yard in there.
I've built all the major builders' guitars except Fleta, which i didn't have an interest in, even though I have a pattern for it. I've pretty much settled on the Miguel Rodriguez and the Reyes style, but with some modifications that I think make the guitars better.
quote:
Are you using BWB Fiber Purfling? I was using that for a while but I found it a pain to chisel down.
I'm not sure, as I get my binding/purfling built by Michael Gurian. This saves me time, not having to build my own. It's flexible but pretty hard. The binding is actually IE rosewood but the purfling is questionable. Most of my experiments were building at least 5 guitars of each model.
On the side: Richard Brune made some Fleta purfling for me years ago and I still have it in stock. Brune is an excellent builder but I have yet to build a Fleta style. I'll leave that to the artful hands of Brune.
BTW, Brune and his son, Marshal are going strong building their passion... extremely nice people, and Richard is currently fine tuning one of my guitar's fingerboards, which I have to admit, although passable, will never be as good as his work :-)
What was it you did not like about Fleta's design? The two Fleta's I have been able to play were rather stiff and tough to handle, but would give back if you could handle them. Really to much for me though. And agreed about Brune', he's nice guy too on top of it.
I had that same Gurian fiber purfling, I like how it looks, but hard to scrape and cut. The interesting thing is how it can be so thin can be an still be workable, wood that thin would be to fragile.
What was it you did not like about Fleta's design?
When I was playing the flamenco guitar, Ramirez mostly, I thought the Fleta sound was a little tubby. But I have since grown to love its characteristics for classical music. And I finally made the choice for Miguel Rodriguez as a compromise in tone between a Ramirez and a Fleta.
I built one Bernabe' flamenco with the pyramid style bracing and it was very good, even for a classical guitar tone. But the overpowering volume and tone with this instrument had its down side when it came to some compositions....but nonetheless, impressive.
You know I don't really like the fancy details on flamenco guitars, it seems unflamenco even though customers eat that stuff up and pay more. Then on classicals I don't like it either because it's is ostentatious. Well to me, but again people love that stuff. I've always had a struggle to embrace super intricate detail work because I see it as non essential, but line work is one of the main things that sell guitars. Ironically it has nothing to do with sound. But the line work I like best is on the understated side, Like Bouchet or Antonio Marin and your line work is quite clean and tasteful.
Gene says the difference between good work and great work, is rework. Looks like you agree.
It's been mentioned on a couple of other threads that some people are getting tired of my advertising fine tuning for builders, etc.
There is truth to the fact that this is what I do but I agree that this issue should be condensed into this thread about fine tuning and leave the other threads alone to discuss the topic at hand.
This, I will try and do for the duration of my time on this list.
Here is a picture of me, Manuel, and Carlos at a great restaurant for fish, to start our visit and business for the week-end.
Name of the restaurant?
I get down to San Antonio a few times per year, and I haven't found a good seafood place in Austin, except for my neighborhood sushi bar.
Every few weeks in the summertime I'll make it to Quality Seafood for 3/4 pound of jumbo shrimp, which I'll shell, boil and ice down at home. They have excellent red and tartar sauce. It goes well with a dry white wine, some French bread and a salad. If I get there early enough in the day, they may still have some flounder filets, which I sauté in butter and decorate with some mango/onion/cilantro/Tabasco salsa.
Of course I was spoiled for years by fresh caught fish at Kwajalein, the fish warungs on the beach at Jimbaran in Bali, good fish places in Honolulu, Bangkok, Tokyo etc.
Back when my parents lived in Corpus Christi I liked Black's Oyster Bar, and a place downtown where you could get good speckled trout.
When my brother lived in Galveston he was a member of the Pelican Club, the jacket-and-tie-only tourist-free private club that shared Gaido's kitchen. Damn! Now I'm remembering the stuffed flounder….
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