Modern fan bracing Cedar/Ziricote

This is my second in a series of guitars which take inspiration from the work of Dominique Field, this time in Red Cedar and 640 scale. With the addition of an elevated neck and a discreet soundport, I believe these offer an excellent blend of tone, volume, projection and playability, perfectly bridging the gap between purely traditional guitars and modern, heavy body lattice braced soundboards.

This set of Ziricote has been in my possession for more than 10 years. Perfectly quartersawn and virtually impossible to improve upon. Finest quality old rosewood headplate and bridge, matched in figure to the ziricote, ziricote headstock back, maple binding, African blackwood fingerboard, steel frets, cedrella neck, Gotoh premium tuners. 

I am including a couple videos, as always the pure sound as it came from the microphones, without any silly reverb or any other enhancement. First with zero finish (raw wood) and second with partial finish on, giving a more polished, closer to final sample. Also including a video from when I was bending the sides, quite terrified at the prospect of anything going wrong, as ziricote has a reputation of being extremely delicate. These actually bent like butter with zero distortions or any other of the usual bending issues.

A modern fan braced instrument in Alpine spruce and wenge

Pleased to present a 2022 guitar built for my friend, guitarist and teacher Costin Soare. Here I am revisiting the French school, this time taking inspiration from the works of Dominique Field. It is a Fleta style bracing (two harmonic bars under the soundhole but with only five fan braces, meaning a rather meaty soundboard) with densely braced, stiff back and sides. The guitar has excellent sustain and a thick, powerful first string. The tone is refined, reminding me of a Bouchet but with less nasality, more explosion, and a bolder more Spanish bass. The sound has good spontaneity and seems eager to project forward rather than being trapped inside. Overall I am very pleased and I will be using this as a starting point for my future modern spruce guitars.

Austrian Alpine spruce soundboard, African wenge back and sides, African sipo mahogany neck with rosewood reinforcement, African blackwood fingerboard with stainless steel frets, matched Brazilian rosewood bridge, heelcap and endgraft, Amazon rosewood carved headplate, Gotoh premium tuners.

Sample recordings are made in its early days (raw tone being bare wood) with carbon strings.

A double top prototype

One of my composite soundboard prototypes which came to completion during the pandemic. Alpine spruce outer, balsa core, cedar inner, Indian rosewood body, Brazilian rosewood bridge, ebony binding and armrest. As always I did not design this for absolute volume/boom but a blend of tonal quality, sustain and projection. I was very pleased with the result: quality, singing trebles, low nasality, natural tone.

#74 Traditional with modern features

Celebrating the aquisition of “marianguitars.com” with a post 🙂 This is my number 74 delivered in spring 2021. Hauser engine but with an elevated neck and armrest, Alpine spruce, old Rio bridge, ABW fingerboard, Madagascar rosewood body. Fortunate to have Dragos Ilie in town for a test run.

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#59

Another one that slipped through, built over 2018 and 2019.  This time a fan braced soundboard (Italian spruce) on a modern chassis.  Indian body, African blackwood armrest.

 

And a fresh bare wood, raw soundclip took with somewhat worn test strings:

 

First elevated neck

My first elevated neck guitar!  While it doesn’t seem to make a tremendous difference in playability (at least for my hands/skill) there are several constructive aspects that make me wish I had started doing it sooner.

Red cedar soundboard, lattice braced, muninga bridge
Indian rosewood body and headplate, mahogany binding
Spanish cedar neck with African blackwood fingerboard, Gotoh premium tuners.

Recording is made with just a shellac seal coat on the soundboard, fresh uncured nitro back and sides, carbon strings (fresh as well thus going out of tune)