2010 José Ramírez "Auditorio C664" No. X0-030 CD/IN

This 2010 José Ramírez "Auditorio C664" No. X0-030 is a classical guitar with a cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides, built on the 664mm scale with a 53mm nut; Bokyung Byun plays Jack Frerer's "Direction" on it in the video above.

From the Ramírez Workshop in Madrid

Over more than half a century the José Ramírez workshop has built guitars for countless professionals – everyone from Segovia to Sting, Sabicas to Chet Atkins and Christopher Parkening to Lee Ritenour. It was made at Calle de la Paz 8 at the start of the second decade under Amalia Ramírez, who has directed the family business since the death of her brother José IV in 2000.

The "Auditorio": A Double-Top Ramírez

The "Auditorio" was one of the newer models in the Ramírez range: essentially the famous "1a", but with a modern double-top (a "Nomex sandwich") soundboard. The tone is still classic Ramírez, and the Auditorio adds tremendous power, projection and response in all registers. It also has a slightly elevated fingerboard with a 20th fret and its own headstock design – a truly explosive and fun guitar to play, and a perfect compromise between traditional and modern.

Specifications and Label

This early example is built on the long 664mm scale, with a 53mm nut and a lacquer finish. The label (Calle de la Paz 8) is signed by Amalia Ramírez, dated 2010 and numbered X0-030 – with the model code "C664 Trad. Auditorio" written beside it.

In Amalia Ramírez's Words

The Auditorio guitar was born, as a project, in 2006, when we made the first prototypes. I was making my experiments with the called double top using nomex, and I knew that the first luthier who ever started using this material was Gernot Wagner. For this reason I contacted him, and he was very kind helping me since the very beginning to let me know how to work with it. He even came to my workshop to make a top with us. After this, my guitar makers and me have been making some changes to adapt this system to our own criteria, techniques and design, until we got what we were looking for.

The double top helps get a better projection and sustain. However, it does not improve the quality. If the guitar has a good sound, then it will give it more power, but if the sound of the guitar is not good, then it will be more powerful but with a poor sound.

My intention was to keep the personality of Ramírez guitars, and we have really done it, so we have the sweetness, depth and richness, as well as the balanced sound that is characteristic of Ramírez, adding more power, wideness and sustain. The best things of our guitars are even more noticeable with this new technique. It takes much more work, because building a double top is very delicate and takes a long time, but it is well worth the effort.

– Amalia Ramírez

For more on Ramírez, be sure to read The Ramírez Family: Masters of the Guitar; meet the family members from Amalia Ramírez back to José I; and for some interesting fact-checking, see our article 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.