Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks for the info and definitely the pictures David, I guess I am going to have to buy the Romanillos book.
Wendy

What an enjoyable thread. I have no interest in playing such guitars, nor trying to build one. However, the "roots" factor just draws me into reading and feeling a sense of awe at the Master's elegance of design and execution. The modern builds to Torres' designs are impressive and inspiring.

As a college age young man I was privileged to see the great Segovia and flamenco artist Montoya-my Dad went with my wife and I to the concerts-Dad and I got to talk to Montoya because the concert was at my small undergraduate university and he is the only person whose autograph I have ever requested. He was a charming man-by that time, he included some humor to his performance-a tiny injection of the warm and kind Victor Borge touch. I recall that Montoya did "St. Louie Blues" in flamenco style, with frequent smiles. Segovia's performance reflected the Classical strictures.

A guitar shop in Cleveland was a Ramirez dealer and they were so kind as to let me fingerpick a couple- quite tolerant when I picked Hurt's "Avalon." I wanted one -at $3000 1968, even though I was a committed steel stringer, playing a Brooklyn/Hoboken Guild D-40; serial # A-234.

No doubt that the "Spanish" guitars can mesmerize. Thanks to all for the contribution here. mt

To illustrate how FE17 was 'butchered' by a previous 'restorer' before Luca did his great work on it here is a picture of the interior of the soundboard as he received it!

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Ouch, ouch, ouch!

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

So a previous restorer threw away all the original braces ?

_________________
Build log

Doug, how much of the sound quality of your FE17 do you think is due to the tornavoz, and do you think it would be that much better than the other guitars had you built without it?

Who can say? The only way to find out is to build one of these without the tornavoz in the regular second epoch fashion.

There is not just one thing that is the answer to the results that I obtained with this guitar: it is a system. The tornavoz does its thing, as does the absence of the lower harmonic bar, as do the props which support the tornavoz against the back, and I used some very nice White Pine for the soundboard. This whole guitar was a gamble and flew against all the advice one is given about only changing one element at a time.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

I have been making Torres guitars with and without a tornavoz, in the original Torres configuration, for some time now, using the FE19 plantilla for both styles so can make some comparison, my main impression is that the tornavoz takes the Torres guitar but then makes it more so. One of my tornavoz fitted guitars, in a blind listening test at the RCM in London beat among others a Romanillos, a Hauser and a Smallman in the test judged by 30 or so graduate and post graduate guitar students and college tutors. I have made a number of the tornavoz guitars for ther college faculty members including one Professor who is a past winner of the Tarrega prize and who uses it in all of his concerts and recordings of Spanish and Latin American music. The non tornavoz guitar is probably better for ther Northern European music, but for that I used a lute anyway.

I made a CD of Tarrega using my La lena guitar which has a tornavoz, I think the only Tarrega recorded with one, here are a three of the resulting recordings. And for comparison some Llobet recorded on a similar guitar without a tornavoz.

Caprichio arabe

Recuedos de la Alhambra

Sueno

El Testament d'Amelia

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin-
Thanks for the info and the music.
Lovely!

Cheers
John

As lovely as the music and sound of the recordings that Colin supplied is, it really does not convey the real quality that a good tornavoz guitar has live.

The Caprico Arabe has some of that quality, as much as an mp3 can have when played through computer speakers. If you like what you hear in the Caprico, then build with the tornavoz!

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Colin, that is beautiful,
Where can I obtain your CD

Colin,

The sound of your guitar in "Capricho Arabe" is astounding! Do you have plans for the tornavoz or did you figure it out from info' in Romanillos' book and/or other sources?

Thanks,
Max

_________________
Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

I finally took some better photos of my SE 151A replica.
This guitar is quite similar to the SE 117 and differs mostly in that the side depth is somewhat less.
As you can see, the top is three pieces joined at rather odd angles as on the original.