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Miguel
12-Strings
Q
I have heard that folksingers Fred Neil and Bob Gibson
played 12-string guitars made by Miguel Company. I collect early
boutique luthier guitars but haven't been able to find any information
about these instruments. What can you tell me?
Ben Cooney
Sunnyvale, California
| A
Before
coming to the US in the early 1960s, Miguel Company was chief
luthier for the Cuban National Folk Orchestra. He made not
only guitars but other traditional stringed instruments and
did repairs and restorations as well. By the time he was making
12-string guitars in his little shop in Coral Gables, Florida,
just south of Miami, he was probably in his late 70s or early
80s. It's doubtful he made more than 100 or so 12-strings.
James Durst writes about the highest-numbered one I know of
in his story "Searching for #77," which appears
in Bruce Pollock's book Working Musicians. But 12-strings
were not just an afterthought for Miguel—along
with the year and the number of each guitar, the professionally
printed labels he placed in every one of his guitars included
the "Spanglish" inscription "Specialized on
twelve strings." As a musician in Miami in the '60s,
I saw more than a few of them—Nigel Pickering
of Spanky and Our Gang was another south Florida musician
who played one. In south Florida, with its large Cuban and
Cuban-American population, there is high demand for anything
made by a Cuban master guitar builder, and about ten years
ago a Cuban-American guitar appraiser examined my 1966 Miguel
(#54) and estimated its value at $8,000—$10,000.
—Marvin Langsam
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Miguel
Company 12-string.
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Bolt-on
vs. Dovetail
Q
There's a lot of debate about bolt-on necks versus traditional
dovetail joints. What are the relative merits of each?
Tony Claar
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
A
When I first started in lutherie, more than 30 years ago,
it was commonly held that necks needed to be reset only on really
old instruments and/or poorly built ones. But virtually all steel-string
guitars, including lightly built archtops, eventually undergo body
shape changes that result in a neck-angle problem, and today we
accept that it's only a matter of time before any flattop guitar
will need to have its neck removed and reset as close as possible
to the original angle with respect to the top and the bridge. In
fact, many will need that job repeated at regular intervals. With
that in mind, why not go with the flow and make a guitar with a
neck that can come off with minimal damage to the finish or structure
of the instrument?
A glued dovetail neck is removable as long as the glue can be softened
reasonably easily. It's the traditional method, but that doesn't
make it superior to a bolted mortise. Many people argue that the
neck joint contributes to tone—claiming that Taylor guitars
sound bright and Martins have a fuller bass response because of
their different neck joints—but that's comparing apples and
oranges. In the dreadnought size, for example, Taylor instruments
have different, heavier top bracing, which makes for a stiffer top
that emphasizes treble response, while Martins are more flexible,
due to lighter bracing and similar thickness tops and backs, allowing
for a fuller bass. From time to time, I've been asked to convert
a guitar from a solid "nonremovable" to a bolted neck,
and in no case have either I or the owner of the guitar detected
a loss of tone.
Classical and flamenco builders, in the interest of playability
and tone, often aim for a rather low bridge and saddle height, but
that presents nasty challenges for repair as the guitar's action
changes over time. I've met a number of angry owners of high-end
Spanish classical guitars who were disappointed that their necks
couldn't be removed and reset. Thanks to Bob Taylor and other highly
regarded makers such as Collings and Huss and Dalton, the stigma
of a bolt-on neck is now a thing of the past, so why not let the
dovetail be a thing of the past, too?
—Frank Ford
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Two
Parts in One
Q
On the Acoustic Guitar Method, Book 1 CD (String
Letter Publishing), it sounds like David Hamburger is playing both
the rhythm and lead parts on "Banks of the Ohio." How
does he do that?
Philip MacNeill
Providence, Rhode Island
A
Hamburger is indeed playing both parts on "Banks of
the Ohio," though not at the same time. He overdubbed one part
over the other, first recording the rhythm part, then playing that
back and recording the lead part on top. There are numerous multitrack
recorders, hard-disk devices, and software programs (like ProTools)
that allow you to do this. On the CD, the lead parts are panned
to the right and the rhythm parts are panned to the left; turn your
stereo balance control all the way to the right or left to hear
them separately.
—Andrew DuBrock
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Excerpted from
Acoustic Guitar magazine,
February
2003, No. 134.
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