The Maccaferri Internal Resonator

[OC1]

I am looking on more info on the The Maccaferri Internal Resonator, it is sort of wooden box glued inside the guitar and works like a bassreflex. Some general info: www.lutherie.net/resonate.html
I would love to know more but there seems to be very little info. I also know of luthier (but not personally) that does make the internal resonator guitars so the craft is not lost. (and I don't think he purchased one of the few reminding Maccaferri and unglued it)
Was it described in more detail in some luthier books? (Plans etc?)

[Wade Hampton]

OC1, from what I understand the internal resonator in the original Selmer Maccaferri guitars was essentially a smaller-sized guitar body inside the main guitar body. It complicated construction of the guitars considerably, as you might imagine, and because of inconsistencies and quality control problems sometimes they resulted in buzzing and other tonal problems.

Selmer wanted to eliminate the internal resonator entirely, Mario Maccaferi (who'd designed the guitars) passionately disagreed, and the argument between the long-established Selmer musical instrument company and the genius musician and instrument designer that they'd brought in to design a guitar for them grew so rancorous that they ended their professional agreement and partnership over the issue of this internal resonator.

The guitars that Maccaferri designed looked like this:



Once Maccaferri was no longer associated with the firm, Selmer designed an entirely new instrument without the internal resonator (no surprise there!) that looked like this:



This later guitar design actually proved to be an improvement in several ways. While the great Django Reinhardt originally played a Selmer Maccaferri guitar:



as soon as Selmer came out with their Selmer Petit Bouche (small hole) guitar, Django switched over to it and never used a Selmer Maccaferri guitar again:



Now, you can do an online image search and find all sorts of Selmer Petit Bouche gypsy jazz guitars mislabeled as Selmer Maccaferri guitars. But that's in error: the only Selmer Maccaferris are the ones with the large D-shaped soundhole. Mario Maccaferri had nothing whatever to do with the later Petit Bouche model that Selmer came out with, and which proved to be the more successful of the two, both musically and in the marketplace.

Anyway, to answer your question about the tonal effects of the internal resonator, I can't speak from any personal experience on this because I've never had the opportunity to play a Selmer Maccaferri that still had the internal resonator in place. But what I've been told is that the internal resonator seems to add a bit of low end response and sustain to the sound.

I don't know if that's accurate, though, so hopefully someone with some hands-on experience with one can correct me if I'm wrong.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[OC1]

Thanks Wade, I got interested in the resonator after I read page of the Prochazka luthier who seems to occasionally make resonator nylon guitars.


His page:
http://prochazka.reklamnifotograf.cz/?kytara=gybsynylon

and another (very cool looking) and more like the Maccaferri original from your picture:



http://prochazka.reklamnifotograf.cz...gypsyresonator