Classical Concert Guitar
The philosopher Lorenz Oken once wrote:
“The Eye of the human shows the world, The Ear leads into the world of the human being.”
TONAL QUALITY
I truly hope that my devoted approach may unveil the beauty of the guitar by presenting great power with great subtlety. It is our goal to develop powerful instruments without the loss of their original beauty. To create colourful richness and subtle sound, respecting the deep warm voice the guitar originally has and moves our soul.
Many musicians describe the sound of our guitars as unusual and truly surprising in comparison: The power, sustain and dynamics provide the player an inspiring arsenal of tonal possibilities.
The guitar presents challenging contrasts and tonal unity at the same time: fast resonance and strong presence when played piano however accepting an unlimited force when required. The basses are deep with bright overtones and the trebles fierily clear with a deep warmth staging the guitars voice in a velvet tone.
The tonal quality is reliable yet always pleasantly surprising preventing getting bored. The guitar produces an impressively full and broad tonal spectrum: soft, silk and golden but also bright, clear and silver… The strings have an impressive sustain, therefore the player has a choice to hold the note or to mute. The overall quality appears especially when playing polyphonic music; each single note still dominates over the chord without vanishing into the chord. It is remarkably that this quality is noticed and very much valuated by singers, cello or violin players, who hear this guitar.
We believe that there is always an interaction between a player and his instrument. Therefore, we try to see the personality, the passion and spirit of the player to influence such in our design. The guitar’s tonal quality can indeed support the player to enhance performance on stage.
Yehudi Menuhin about his Stradivarius:
”A good instrument wants to be conquered; it does not present itself unguarded.
It expresses painfully every mistake and rewards the touch of a true master gracefully.”
DESIGN
The visual beauty and design of the guitar is very important to us. We take great care for many small details often only a trained eye will notice.
We have developed our own varnish method, which has become an intense and a very labour full work. The varnish, developed over the past 25 years, does not only protect the wood but also enhances the tone and beauty. The process includes several kinds of varnishes and different thicknesses at different positions of the instrument.
It is a challenge to create an interesting lively appearance of a spruce or cedar top. Often only old guitars have an interesting patina that challenges the eye.
In 2008, we have refined the “plantilla” to improve the acoustic design of our concert guitar. The result is an even more powerful strong sounding guitar.
CONSTRUCTION
Our atelier stands for a long time of research for improvements, a journey that still continues, connecting acoustic science with a creative working method. Due to our long experience, we can repeat and guarantee the quality of each new instrument. All our guitars present a high quality; like the guitar you heard before. Similar but not the same: each of our guitars is unique with a unique soul that will mature through the player. It takes time for a new guitar to come in an equilibrium kind of state.
Quality is a recognisable value: to produce quality only the best materials are used for our innovative building process. In the small workshop, we produce instruments one by one, taking great care to select the individual pieces of wood to create in harmony that particular guitar. Each piece of wood has its own soul that can be discovered by touching and listening during the selection and the work process. This learning process takes time, lots of practice and serious devotion. We use beautiful old cedar or spruce wood that is extreme light: an almost bell sounding wood. The sides and back feature colourful old Brazilian Rosewood.
The construction of the guitar offers some original features: like our Free-floating Topdesign™ or our semi-cutaway. Due to the unique semi-cutaway and the raised fingerboard, it is possible on this classical guitar to access easily the highest registers. In addition, it is noticeable how powerful the guitar still sounds in these high registers.
The use of the ebony veneered neck reinforces the neck to make it less flexible.
The purpose to stiffen the neck is to produce a better response and prevent dead spots. The result is an even-balance of tone over the entire fingerboard and a longer sustain. Another unique feature which is the beautiful curved arched back.
Free Floating Topdesign™:
“The topplate is able to vibrate very intensively and is seen as the most important medium to amplify that short pulse. The other parts of the guitar are designed in a way to enhance the tonal development and not to dampen the pulse vibration, as this will have a negative impact to the further develop
