buying a new guitar

[geoff]

After using a perfectly reasonable but uninspiring Yamaha for many years I recently decided to take the plunge and get a 'proper' instrument. I had decided to spend up to £3000 on a new or secondhand instrument ( don't tell the wife!). Although I have never played any quality guitars before there was something about Bernabe that appealed and I was about the begin a thorough search for one when an advert appeared in my locality for the sale of Maldonado classical. I was the only person who enquired and perhaps it was my inexperience of playing auperior guitars, i can't say, but it struck me as a fine instrument. It is very playable and has a great deal of volume. There is certainly a good few years playing in it for me before I might begin to feel I have moved beyond it in the way that I felt I had with my old Yamaha. Does anyone know anything about the Maldonado and how they are rated? I still have a hankering for a Bernabe and everything i read about them suggests they are wonderful guitars.

[keith]

they have a website and you can go to their website (type the name in your search engine). if your ears and hands are happy, and you are happy, i think your problem has been resolved.

i have read many comments about this guitar and that guitar in this forum and the general rule seems to be: if the sound grabs you and you are comfortable with the instrument, then all is well with the world. when you are ready to move upwards, and have the cash, then you will do so. it is amazing how ears change over time. 8)

[TJ]

I can say a few things about Bernabe. I consider his guitars among the very finest available today. Consider that in the 60's he ran the Ramirez shop and is generally regarded among the finest luthiers to have come from that venerable training ground. He is one of the last living makers to own such credentials. Contreras, Fleta, Gilbert, Romanillos, and similar names are also fine instruments, but new ones are made by sons or family members, not the famous original maker. Though Paulino Bernabe does work with his son, the father still builds the Concierto, Especial, Imperial, and Royal. The models labeled M-5 through 50 are also wonderful instruments, but not made by father and son--rather by small shops contracted by Paulino.

Bernabe guitars are known for powerful, dynamic tone. I own a cedar Especial, have owned a Concierto and M-20, and can say that it is the right guitar for me---masterful workmanship, exceptional aesthetics, bold yet lyrical tone, shimmering sustain and overtones. Very, very musical and versatile. My spruce Concierto had a direct, typical clear spruce tone, but the Especial's double sides replicate this with the added warmth of cedar. Bernabe's guitars make me linger over a note and cause me to stop a piece (practice only!) just to savor a given tone.

It's been said before, but do play a wide variety of makers and models. It is a very individual thing. I am not a concert player, but I know what I like. The Spanish makers, particularly Bernabe, offer the player a quintessential classical guitar experience that makes it worth the assets it takes to buy one. David at GSI can guide you through the full range of possibilities. Note that two spruce Conciertos on special at GSI are amazingly good values.