Review of Thomann.de Baroque Guitar

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Comment by Michael. N. on February 15, 2011 at 11:28

Let's see. 1,000 Euro is around £850 UK. Less materials of approximately £150 - £175. Take into account other business costs, holiday pay etc. and the maker has 3 to 4 days to make the Guitar - for very little profit. Hardly worth the risk and not many individual makers get into making to churn instruments out at that rate.

I've recently costed how much I could produce a student lacote model for. It was a real exercise in 'bean counting', cutting material, technique and time costs to produce an instrument that would do some justice to the originals. It simply wasn't feasible below £1200 - and that's without a case or shipping. Start mass producing and things change very quickly, except that you are left with the problem (and costs) of employing people and shifting large numbers of instruments. That's hardly a walk in the park either. If it was, I can guarantee you that someone, somewhere would have done it by now. 

Off course, all my comments apply to W. Europe.

Comment by Chris Despopoulos on February 15, 2011 at 9:48

I suspect you could induce a maker somewhere to come up with student-level instruments in the range of 1,000.00 euros.  Perhaps they would use less expensive (read more sustainable) hard woods, and dispense with much ornamentation? Perhaps they would be made in the shop, but not signed?  I also suspect such instruments would be better than this Thomann instrument...  worth the higher price.

 

I believe my instrument is in the middle somewhere.  It is signed by the luthier (erm, violero), and made with fine materials.  But it dispenses with non-essential ornamentation. I believe it plays as well as any instrument I've tried, and I believe the sound is fine.  (But then it's my instrument, isn't it?  I would believe these things.)  It was not a budget instrument, but it didn't break the bank either.  It's pictured in my profile photo...

 

A side note about ornamentation -- I heard in a seminar about early instrument building that the rosette is not mere ornament.  Comparing instruments with, to instruments without, yielded a notable difference, where the rosette imparted a preferred quality to the sound.  Perhaps if these Thomann instruments had parchment instead of plywood the sound would improve significantly???

Comment by Rob MacKillop on February 14, 2011 at 12:29

Well, that sounds OK for a cheap instrument. No one should buy it thinking it is as good as one at three times the price, but it is fine for dipping your toe in the water.

 

My student will visit again tomorrow, this time with nylgut strings on it. I'll try to make a video.

Comment by Mark Day on February 6, 2011 at 4:34

"I suspect that many who buy one will eventually comission a high-end instrument that wouldn't have made such a financial commitment without having the chance to get their feet wet first at a lower cost."

Precisely, Gavin! It's not like you can go down to Guitar Center and try out a lute or a baroque guitar to see if it's you or not. If it is, you can always get a good one later and the Thomann becomes your "campfire" guitar, or you give it to your kid to see if he/she takes it up.

730 Pounds is a pretty good price for a lute, though it still translates to over a grand in US dollars given the state of our woeful dollar!

Comment by Gavin Cawley on February 4, 2011 at 16:34

Thanks for the interesting review.  The thing that struck me was why make a cheap student guitar with a vaulted back, rather than a replica of, say, one of the Stradivarius guitars with a flat back, surely that would be cheaper? 

 

I'm not sure the price is indicative of exploitation though, I have recently commisioned a lute from an English luthier, whos instruments start at about £730.  Given the difference in the cost of living in England and (say) the subcontinent, it doesn't seem to me to be a given that the low price is at all exploitative.  I certainly hope that is not the case. 

 

I don't think the Thomann guitar is a bad thing for European or American luthiers either.  I can't afford a baroque guitar (especially after having comissioned a lute!), and I would have been tempted to buy one if I hadn't already bought most of the materials to have a go at building one myself (I'll be overjoyed if it turns out even half as well as the Thomann one ;o) The Thomann guitar gives a cheap way to find out if the baroque guitar is the instrument for you, and I suspect that many who buy one will eventually comission a high-end instrument that wouldn't have made such a financial commitment without having the chance to get their feet wet first at a lower cost.

Comment by Mark Day on February 3, 2011 at 18:06

This is a subject near and dear to my heart.

First, thank you, Rob, for making this video.

I can say with some confidence that this instrument was made by the same company as my "Pakistani lute". The lighter "mapley" ribs look exactly like the ones on my lute. The case is also the same. Weird blueish colored vinyl, red velvet interior, etc. The combination is set to "000" when you get it. To set the combination you push the button towards the handle, set it and release. The instrument is likely finished in a godawful satin varnish.

Now to the whole ethical question: I am by necessity, a self-taught luthier. I'm poor, left-handed, and interested in early stringed instruments. Growing up, and unfortunately still living in the Detroit area, I have not had much access to instruments, teachers, or luthiers who make lutes and such. I have wanted to play lute since I first bought Ronn Macfarlane's "Renaissance Lute" CD in....1990-something. At that time my only option was to have a lute built. It would have cost a couple thousand then, just as now. It wasn't then, and isn't now, a justifiable expense given my financial situation.  Finally for my 40th birthday, I "splurged" and bought the Pakistani lute for $300. Not being a professional musician, I still had to justify the purchase to my wife by expressing how much I have wanted to learn to play lute and "real" ones cost at least a grand.

Being left-handed I also have always had to buy right-handed instruments and modify them. I can tell you that despite braces being on the opposite side, after removing the bridge, sanding down the top, and making new body frets, the el-cheapo Pakistani lute doesn't really sound that bad. Yes the strings that come with it are crap. You're going to change them anyway so who cares?

I don't have the skills (or a proper shop) to build a lute yet, but I have built a vihuela-mostly with hand tools and I can tell you that $2000 or Euros is not an exorbitant price for a hand-built instrument. But the bottom line is it is still out of reach for a lot of would-be musicians. I call my vihuela my "depression-era vihuela" because I built it with materials and tools I had on hand, at a time when I was making $10/hour and my wife was (and still is) unemployed, and we had to move back in with my mother. I built the thing in her basement. Believe me, for some of us, $300 is a lot of money to spend on a musical instrument. Everyone here in the States bitches about Walmart and Chinese-made goods and turns right around and shops at...Walmart. I try to support locally produced stuff when practicable, but when it comes down to spending $300 for an instrument or waiting for 20 years in the hope that someday I'll be able to afford a real, luthier-built one, I'll buy the $300 one, thank you, and build my own "real" one later.

I'm not going to buy this Thomann guitar because I know I have the skills to build my own and I enjoy the building process, but for others who have no interest in building their own and are also poor, go for it and ignore the sneers of the well-heeled!  

Comment by Tonyyyy on February 3, 2011 at 0:48

I like the strange turns this thread has taken.

 

Chris - yes we do often forget how fortunate we are to have access to (often) a variety of good instruments.   The strange low tension double-string world of lutes and early guitars is wonderful - it puts in context the very different sound of the classical guitar .

Playing music on the 'wrong' instrument is enjoyable too , and I guess in earlier times they did it all the time.

 

How many instruments do we need though. Need as opposed to want. I can see ten plucked instruments in my living room ( i think a couple of ukes may be in hiding) They mostly do get played. But  better to focus on a couple and do them justice.

 

Valerie's points are excellent and it is good to be reminded that we live on a finite world. Perhaps a much bigger issue than a relatively few baroque guitars is maybe the huge number of guitars (I seem to remember millions though do I get things wrong) sold every year, bought and then just not played. Christmas is a terrible thing.  All those trees and labour and transport energy....

I do quite like to rescue neglected instruments, make them more playable and pass them on to new owners. But it is sad to think of all those guitars bought and than not played.

 

But to get back to the original topic - the baroque guitar review. Many thanks, Rob.

There seems to be a very big gap between this and the cheapest hand-made instrument. There was a previous thread http://earlyguitar.ning.com/forum/topics/thomann-baroque-guitar-uk . Hans Kockelmans played very well on one and thought it quite good (I think he changed the strings)

Comment by Chris Despopoulos on February 2, 2011 at 23:39

Well, I would urge you to relax about that point...  There's nothing more degenerate about some people specializing on ancient music than there is about others specializing on that JAZZ, or atonal, or (ghasp!) rock, industrial, country western, or even polkas (play an accordion, go to jail - it's the law).  You can run the risk of inbreeding I suppose, but there's nothing inherent in the early music scene that makes inbreeding more likely than say, politics, finance, restaurant work, radial tires, or microwave ovens.  It's wonderful to play early music on a modern instrument.  It's also wonderful to play early music on a period instrument.  And (you can guess where I'm going with this) it's wonderful to play modern music on period instruments. 

 

On the other hand, it would be degenerate to take for granted the extrordinary good fortune one has if one ever gets to play on any instrument of quality.  Or to take for granted the good fortune of having the spare time to persue these pleasures. 

Comment by Chris Despopoulos on February 1, 2011 at 23:45

They comply with all applicable laws...  Well, if the applicable laws allow exploitation, that isn't much help.  But they seem to go a step further, and they claim to have a "quality, environmental and social accountability program".  So the value of that is a measure of their overall integrity.  At some point you have to trust people...  Innocent until proven guilty and all that American jazz (as opposed to Napoleonic law).

 

They're definitely not going to share their secrets of how they can pass these instruments around at that price.  So I doubt much more information will be forthcoming.    I think I would go for it.  In fact, if I was in need of an instrument, I would be very tempted to try one.  If the materials are decent, what more do you want for the price?

Comment by Rob MacKillop on February 1, 2011 at 21:49

Well I got one response from the owner, but he completely misunderstood me and told me about the Japanese jazz guitar I bought! However, his assistant seems more on the ball, and sent me the following, but I doubt if it will satisfy Val and the many of us who were hoping for something more concrete. I will, however, persist with my enquiries to them.

 

Dear Mr. MacKillop,
 
we are completely aware of our responsibility for our products and our responsibility for the workers of our producers / manufacturers. All products have to fulfill the criteria of our internal "quality, environmental and social accountability program". Our production facilities are checked with reference to the demanded criteria.
 
Only if all of the demands of our "quality, environmental and social accountability program" are fulfilled, the product can be added to our portfolio.
 
Moreover the products are being spot checked on a random basis. We collaborate and cooperate with certificated technical and chemical laboratories eg. TÜV, DEKRA or ASIG. We thus completely comply with the prescribed standards, regulations and laws (e.g. REACh, ElektroG, LVD, EMC, EN71, EuP, etc.)
 
The affordable prices of our own brands are not the result of the use of cheap materials or low income wages, but are to a large extent the consequence of our distribution system.
 
Thank you very much for your interest in our products.
 
 
Yours cordially-
 
Christian Boltze
 
 
Product- / Purchase Manager
Stringed-Instruments
 
 
Musikhaus Thomann e.K.
Treppendorf 30

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