.-Custom
orders:
Order today and your
custom concert guitar will be ready August 30,
2010
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Brazilian
rosewood
US$ 2,550 with case
|
Gabon Ebony/Sinker
US$ 3,680
with
case
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Maple
US$ 1,950
with
case
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African Blackwood
US$ 3,375 with case
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African Padauk
US$ 1,780 with case
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10-Strings
(Inquire)
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8-Strings
(Inquire)
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Indian
Rosewood
US$ 1,780
with
case
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Cocobolo
US$ 2,014 with case
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Special Design
(Inquire)
|
Sri Lankan
Macassar Ebony
US$ 2,170 with case
|
Flamenco
US$ 1,780
with
case
|
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CLICK HERE
to learn more about Back and sides characteristics
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These are the main characteristics or Spruce, cedar
and redwood: Spruce will give you a brighter crispier sound with
more punch....open, clear tone. Cedar, will be a little warmer. Spruce
takes longer to open up. You can also see it this way: Baroque Classical
and Renaissance music will sound better on spruce, Romantic, Spanish and
program music will sound better on cedar. These are of course generalizations
and what is definitely true is that both Cedar and Spruce make for excellent
sound boards. Redwood is very similar to Cedar but with more presence.
Italian Spruce is my favorite. Brilliant sound and tight grain. Port Orford
cedar has qualities of both Spruce and cedar. Sinker redwood is simply
outstanding but rare and expensive. If you have other wood varieties in
mind for the top, let me know. |
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640mm or 650 mm?
Regarding 650mm or 640 mm guitar construction,
keep the following rule at hand: If the distance between the tip of your
thumb and the tip of your little finger is equal or less than 9 in. when
fully stretched, use 640 mm (image above). In over 33 years teaching and
playing the classical guitar and having worked closely with such great
teachers as the Spaniard Jose Tomas and the Uruguayan Abel Carlevaro, it
came clear to me that often hard to polish musical passages were
not the fault of the player but a fault of the scale used for the fingerboard.
Modern guitar construction is no longer dependent on scale length to produce
a substantial volume. When we talk about scale length we are talking to
the relative distance of the frets from one another... we are talking millimeters
or fraction of a millimeter, but it is these fractions that make all the
difference between flawless and sloppy technique....let alone the great
frustration that derives from never being able to polish a given musical
passage.
Radiused or flat fingerboard?
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The radiused fingerboard has been
around the acoustic and the electric guitar since day one. The same is
true for most instruments of the Stringed family of instruments
(violas, violins cellos, bass). Radiusing (image above) makes barre and
left hand stopping A LOT easier. The only drawback is that you will NEVER
want to play a flat fingerboard after that. If you are having your
custom guitar built, I am all pro radiusing the fingerboard. The
standard fingerboard is flat. When you relax the hand, you will notice
that the natural shape is with a slight curve on all 5 fingers. Pros playing
is about achieving to perform on the guitar in as much a natural
and relaxed manner. Whenever you part from these directives, you are making
your path to perfection steeper.
The radius is standards on the acoustic,
electric and archtop (jazz) guitar and, if you look closely, you will notice
that these players will use lot less energy than classical players and
that their fingers are almost always curved.
Machine head:.
model 1: Argentinean Luxury Gold
plated tuners
model 2: Carved Gold plated tuners
w/ white butt.
model 3: Carved Gold plated tuners
w/ black butt.
model 4: Exclusive Bellucci hand painted
tuners |
Construction
for the top:
Hauser Bracing, Lattice or Double
top with Nomex, Doble tapa Contreras style
X-Ray picture of a lattice Braced
Bellucci Concert guitar. Thanks to my dear friend
photographer/guitarist Alberto
Martinez from France for the fabulous picture
(Copyright 2009).
The lattice
is a concept based on the A frame of grand pianos. The back and
sides are kept rigid by means of
a sturdy A shaped frame and the top is thinned as much as possible to allow
the top to vibrate generously. As you see from the picture above, the thinned
area is approximately 1.2 mm thick (VS 2-2.5 in the standard thinning techniques).
Lattice delivers a lot of volume (approximately 21 dbs more) and wonderfully
clear trebles.
The Doble tapa was
introduced by Manuel Contreras II and refers to an additional piece of
wood that is covering the inside of the back. "Tapa" in Spanish means back.
Therefore, the Contreras Double top is actually a Double back. The other
variation to the doble tapa, is a system I first saw and played on a 1986
Ramirez Doble tapa when I lived in Madrid. The system was a Contreras based
one nevertheless. It is variation to the doble tapa Contreras.
It is extremely powerful. It consists of a second top (normally cedar)
that runs parallel to the first one halfway between the top and the back.
It is the system that better seems to show what one would expect a double
top to look like. The 2 tops are connected through the sides and the transversal
struts and the resulting sound is full and very powerful. This is the most
laborious of the 3 doble tops from a construction point of view.
Double top with Nomex core |
Doble tapa Contreras style (variation
1) |
The double top with Nomex
is basically a sandwich where a thin layer of synthetic fire retarding
material (Nomex) is inserted between two super-thin tops. The total thickness
of the 3-layered top is equivalent to a normal top. The center layer is
practically speaking hollow, therefore it is also called "hollow guitar
top". This is more expensive because 2 tops+Nomex and special adhesives
have to be used in the construction... Double top makes the sound of the
guitar stay up longer before it decays. It brings about balance in the
voices and approximately 21 dbs more in overall volume. |
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Rosette
Special features
The violin type of bridge or archtop
guitar style bridge are a great input in guitar construction. A lot of
the strain caused to the guitar top by the pull of the strings is taken
away prolonging the life of the woods for many decades. The armrest is
also genial because it keeps the tendons in the forearm more relaxed and
is a source of comfort during performance. The hole in the upper and/or
lower bout augments the trebles output and works as a sound monitor
for the performer. |
Highly detailed
mother of pearl inlay
Inlay work on the fingerboard, rosette,
bindings, headplate and tuners. See this inlay beauty we built recently
Add US$ 688 for mother of pearl inlay fingerboard
.........Add
US$ 152 for mother of pearl rosette
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PREMIUM GUITAR CASE (hand embossed leather)
The
hand embossed leather case is a work of art on its own right. Built by
one of a handful of very talented leather embossers in Latin
America. Its built following my
specifications for the interior to fit Bellucci guitars like a glove. All
Plush interior. You can request that your initials
be engraved on the case.
Standard
Professional Guitar Case: US$
239 PREMIUM Leather GUITAR CASE: US$
299
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Custom
Concert guitar. You choose every single part.
Mark your
options. At the end of the form, you get the total price.
*The
options with an asterisk MUST be selected |
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