GENUINELY HANDMADE CONCERT GUITARS
Guitar that is made for performer and audience - with love.
Handmade high quality concert guitars built in Spanish tradition.
GALLERY
About
Every instrument is a being for itself - very fragile at the beginning and as a very delicate being needs special care through all of its life. It needs care but also attention and love, that if administered wisely and gently, will nourish it into a beautiful and gracefull partner bringing joy and happiness to the player and the audience.
By carefull selection of materials, moulding them into a harmonious shape while working on the characteristic sound, builder brings the instrument into the world. It is the builder that brings that being into existence and gives it initial breath of life. These first steps are probably the most important, as with any creation for that matter. - And that is how I create my guitars.
Personal Info
GUITAR BUILDING
.... as seen by Velimir Novkovic
Musical instruments are crated for a long time and the trade itself seems to be based on a tradition - one builder passes on his/her knowledge to its disciples that keep caring on with more or less adherence and success. Those that have achieved more praise have over time developed their shops into bigger enterprises. But building techniques have been strenuously preserved and almost religiously practiced from generation to generation.
Guitar is one of those instruments that has experienced vehement development in the past two centuries, not only in the way its played and the sound it produces but also in the way instrument is created. Early European design has been over run by new Spanish shape; six strings have overtaken other variations; at the dawn of 20th century electronically amplified guitars have experienced strong adoption; sing along guitar accompaniment introduced new demands on the sound. So today classical guitar has few connotations: classical western, classical jazz, classical Spanish, and perhaps some more.
Today there is a myriad of fantastic builders that create instruments of high quality. Yet each of those instruments differs to the other in many different aspects.
Guitar - Spanish classic guitar, is very complex wooden music instrument. It is constructed on a fairly traditional basis as a soundboard that is supported by sound box that resounds tones produced by plucking the strings while string length is adjusted by shortening strings on exact distances on the fretboard.
Guitar is built of many different parts that are made of different variety of woods: neck of cedar, fingerboard out of ebony, soundboard of spruce, etc. Each and every of these species today can be found all over the globe yet there is a noticeable difference in tonal quality between them.
But there is more than that. Each tree belongs to the forest that is brought up under different circumstances. Imagine corner of the forest that has not been exposed to human influence; and then the one that is close to highway net or industrial park. More than likely tonal characteristics of trees coming from those forests, given the same age, etc, will be vastly different.
As of recent there is more emphasis given to the way the trees are fell. Tree felled during summer months requires quite different way of handling and shows different properties than the one that is felled sometime in February during moon's waning phase and then left in the woods untouched all the way till mid/late spring.
Guitar is one of those instruments that has experienced vehement development in the past two centuries, not only in the way its played and the sound it produces but also in the way instrument is created. Early European design has been over run by new Spanish shape; six strings have overtaken other variations; at the dawn of 20th century electronically amplified guitars have experienced strong adoption; sing along guitar accompaniment introduced new demands on the sound. So today classical guitar has few connotations: classical western, classical jazz, classical Spanish, and perhaps some more.
Today there is a myriad of fantastic builders that create instruments of high quality. Yet each of those instruments differs to the other in many different aspects.
Guitar - Spanish classic guitar, is very complex wooden music instrument. It is constructed on a fairly traditional basis as a soundboard that is supported by sound box that resounds tones produced by plucking the strings while string length is adjusted by shortening strings on exact distances on the fretboard.
Guitar is built of many different parts that are made of different variety of woods: neck of cedar, fingerboard out of ebony, soundboard of spruce, etc. Each and every of these species today can be found all over the globe yet there is a noticeable difference in tonal quality between them.
But there is more than that. Each tree belongs to the forest that is brought up under different circumstances. Imagine corner of the forest that has not been exposed to human influence; and then the one that is close to highway net or industrial park. More than likely tonal characteristics of trees coming from those forests, given the same age, etc, will be vastly different.
As of recent there is more emphasis given to the way the trees are fell. Tree felled during summer months requires quite different way of handling and shows different properties than the one that is felled sometime in February during moon's waning phase and then left in the woods untouched all the way till mid/late spring.
Exotic woods are used in guitar building for parts that are not tone critical, yet they do affect the sound in a certain way. They are brought from far away places - most of the times it is impossible to trace the origins of specific tree trunk and the way it was handled.
So even before the wood arrives to the shop there are quite a few considerations to take into account. Ideally guitar builder would have all the wood he needs growing as close to his backyard as possible.
Each wooden guitar part comes raw as plank or block of wood to the builders table and needs to be shaped, finished and incorporated into final instrument.
There is a difference if power machines are used. Undeniably precision, ease of handling and speed are among few that entice many builders into using them. But the end result is different too. Resulting instrument has very good chances of great looks and speedy delivery but will also inherently acquire the characteristic of how it is build in the way it sounds.
Power machine building brings out more mechanical, metal, cold, easily replicable sound character.
When builder uses power machines his/hers focus during different phases of instrument creation is significantly different than when no power machines are used. For example, thinning the guitar sides can be done by power sander that will produce uniformly desired thickness. Builder focuses on proper use of sander, sanding paper, ventilation, noise protection, etc. On the other side when planer and scraper are used in thinning process, the wood piece itself never falls out of focus and builder intimately acquaints himself with it. Sanding machine will sand the wood regardless of how it is fed through it; but when plane hits the surface it can easily completely destroy it if stroke is going against the grain. The side does not have uniform thickness either - in a way it resembles nature's 'perfection'. But most importantly builder will familiarize himself with the side so that later in assembly phase he'd be able to bring out the most out of it: turn the right side up, spot the imperfection/perfection that can be concealed/emphasized; adjust thickness or shape to better fit some other part, etc. Most of these things one can control during the power machine building process but again they are not in focus - the notion that precision takes care of all blurs the vision.
As I build my guitars I very seldom turn to the power machine - almost never. Most of the work in my workshop is done without buzzing noise of an electrical tool.
So even before the wood arrives to the shop there are quite a few considerations to take into account. Ideally guitar builder would have all the wood he needs growing as close to his backyard as possible.
Each wooden guitar part comes raw as plank or block of wood to the builders table and needs to be shaped, finished and incorporated into final instrument.
There is a difference if power machines are used. Undeniably precision, ease of handling and speed are among few that entice many builders into using them. But the end result is different too. Resulting instrument has very good chances of great looks and speedy delivery but will also inherently acquire the characteristic of how it is build in the way it sounds.
Power machine building brings out more mechanical, metal, cold, easily replicable sound character.
When builder uses power machines his/hers focus during different phases of instrument creation is significantly different than when no power machines are used. For example, thinning the guitar sides can be done by power sander that will produce uniformly desired thickness. Builder focuses on proper use of sander, sanding paper, ventilation, noise protection, etc. On the other side when planer and scraper are used in thinning process, the wood piece itself never falls out of focus and builder intimately acquaints himself with it. Sanding machine will sand the wood regardless of how it is fed through it; but when plane hits the surface it can easily completely destroy it if stroke is going against the grain. The side does not have uniform thickness either - in a way it resembles nature's 'perfection'. But most importantly builder will familiarize himself with the side so that later in assembly phase he'd be able to bring out the most out of it: turn the right side up, spot the imperfection/perfection that can be concealed/emphasized; adjust thickness or shape to better fit some other part, etc. Most of these things one can control during the power machine building process but again they are not in focus - the notion that precision takes care of all blurs the vision.
As I build my guitars I very seldom turn to the power machine - almost never. Most of the work in my workshop is done without buzzing noise of an electrical tool.