2011 José Ramírez "R1CWE" CD/MH

This 2011 José Ramírez "R1CWE" is a classical guitar with a cedar top and mahogany back and sides – the R1 with a cutaway and a Fishman pickup.

Built in the Calle de la Paz Workshop

For more than fifty years, guitars from the José Ramírez workshop have been in the hands of countless professionals, from Segovia to Sting, from Sabicas to Chet Atkins and from Christopher Parkening to Lee Ritenour. By the time this guitar was built, Amalia Ramírez had been in charge of the workshop for ten years – she succeeded her brother José Ramírez IV in 2000, and she inspects every guitar during and after construction.

A Ramírez R-Line Guitar

Lightweight and quick to respond, the R-line guitars adapt the traditional Ramírez designs without the cypress lining of the back and sides, built to the highest standards of Spanish construction as an alternative to the NE and concert lines. The R1CWE is the R1 in a cutaway design, with a Fishman Prefix ProBlend on board – perfect for performance and recording – with a solid red cedar top and African mahogany back and sides.

Sound, Label and Case

It keeps the sweet sound of the R1 and adds the convenience of a pickup and on-board equalization. A new HumiCase Protege hardshell case was included. The label is the orange "Guitarras de Estudio" R1CWE one, dated 2011, "Diseñada, Revisada y Certificada por Ramírez".

There is much more about the workshop on our blog – The Ramírez Family: Masters of the Guitar, the family members from Amalia Ramírez back to José I, and some fact-checking on myths and facts about this legendary workshop.

The José Ramírez Workshop of Madrid

Founded in Madrid in 1882 by José Ramírez I, the Ramírez workshop has produced guitars for more than a century and through five generations of the family. José Ramírez III (1922–1995) took over as maestro in 1957 and developed the Ramírez concert guitar we know today – large in body, with a long string length and a cedar or spruce top, with great power, sustain, sweetness and balance across the entire register. He popularized western red cedar as a soundboard wood, and from the 1960s Andrés Segovia played José Ramírez guitars to the end of his days.

Ramírez Craftsmen and the Next Generations

From the 1960s to the 1990s the workshop trained many of the most talented guitarreros of the day, among them Paulino Bernabé and Manuel Contreras. In 1995 the shop moved from Calle Concepción Jerónima 2 to Calle de la Paz 8, and since the death of José Ramírez IV in June 2000 the business has been directed by his sister, Amalia Ramírez, who inspects every guitar during and after construction.

The Workshop Under Amalia Ramírez

Under Amalia Ramírez the workshop has kept the classic concert guitar at the heart of its range – the "1a" (first class) in the "Tradicional" design, its model code written by hand on the label: C650 for a cedar top with Indian rosewood, "-A" for a spruce (abeto) top, "-P" for CSA rosewood (palosanto) and "-AP" for both, with F656 and F656-A for the cedar and spruce flamencos. Around it she has built a wider family of models: the "Centenario" and "Elite", made with the workshop's most precious woods; the reissued "SP" and "2a"; the "Auditorio", "Antigua" and "Guitarra del Tiempo"; anniversary series such as the "125 Años" and "130 Años"; replicas of historic guitars, from the 1912 Manuel Ramírez played by Segovia to the 1913 "Guitarra de Tablao" of José Ramírez I; and the studio lines NE, R and FL. The concert guitars carry the Calle de la Paz 8 label, signed by Amalia Ramírez with her star signature and numbered with a letter-and-number code (Centenario and Elite have numbers of their own), while the studio guitars have an orange "Guitarras de Estudio" label, "Diseñada, Revisada y Certificada por Ramírez", with the red "Calidad Ramírez" stamp.