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ah, i should have never sold the nice guitars i had back in the day :). I never owned more than one at a time, but i ve gone through a Conde ( great sounding one, though the intonation was always off), an Eladio Fernandez, a Benito Huipe, a couple of Pimentels, and perhaps my favorite ,a 1962 Juan Alvarez that was badass in every way. did nice gigs and some albums with them.
all gone....life throws stuff at you. start from scratch.
when i got the bug last year to get back into this, the only nylon string available was my girlfriends Giannini classical. She let me put golpeadors on it ( cell phone screen protectors work nicely, btw), I lowered the action, and it was enough to start getting flamenco hands back in order.
But, it doesnt do what it needs to do. particularly the distance from string plane to top totally wrong for golpes, and the general warmth and sustain made for muddy rasgueado work.
But i now have a surprisingly decent little starter flamenco, one i ve been eyeing at a shop here for over a year, a Tomas Lazaro TL20F.
Ebony board, solid top (cedar i believe), cypress back and sides, probably laminate -- grains dont match at all looking at the inside vs the outside, but otoh theres the undeniable delightful cypress aroma, so im not sure.
action is maybe a tad high -- about 3.5 mm on both treble and bass -- and really nowhere to go lower. Good workout for the hands i suppose:)
overall its a respectable and solid flamenco sound... i wouldnt say its a magical muy flamenco /duende inducing/ heart stopping tone like one could get from a any of the luthiers here, but its in the solid flamenco camp and that will have to be good enough for now. Good, swift attack and pretty dynamically responsive, especially for a laminate.It doesn't have that immediacy and big range that a seasoned all solid wood guitar will have -- its still constricted by comparison -- but I'm surprised by the range it does have.
Rasgueados crisp, golpes nice and loud, and overall i like how articulate it is --every note is separate and defined.
one of the tests i use - and its been mentioned by others on this foro -- is if a guitar retains its tone throughout the dynamic range that you push it and also as you move up the neck at various volumes. Playing this in the shop a few times, this definitely passed that test.
im surprised by the trebles, they are really nice -- very clear and a lot of dynamic range. Basses are respectable and present, if not magical.
I liked the mids better with the existing strings (Daddario 45s or 46s, the dealer told me, he cant remember precisely), but I strung it up with Luthier 20s a few days ago, which I remember liking back in the day, and were working well on the Ginannini.
I'm not sure the Luthiers are the right fit for this guitar-- each guitar decides what strings it needs -- but the mids seem to get a little darker and lose a little definition and character with the Luthiers, especially when pushed. Maybe they need time to settle. Ill try the Daddarios again after a week or so. I remember liking Hannabachs on the right guitar, but instinct and memory tells me maybe not for this one.
Tuners seem really crappy to me, but they work. Not feeling the need to upgrade them unless I keep this for a while before upgrading to a a whole new guitar. TK hardshell case, the original case was shot, I was told.
I could have done a lot worse for 500 I think.
overall I'm very pleased to have something a little more true to flamenco form and spirit then the Giannini...I'm invigorated to revisit and renew what i used to do! At the same time, it does make me a tiny bit nostalgic remembering the better guitars I"ve had, but I'm happy to have this , and I'm determined to make this sucker sing.
So now the real work begins!
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