So, after some of this and some of that...and at the urging of my family and some friends, I've decided to go all in. At first I wasn't willing to go through a build so instead I called Kevin Ryan (my mom has a 2004 Mission) and had a few chats with him. We talked materials and money and in the end I bought a Nightingale he had in his shop that had been completed two months earlier.
It showed up at my door two days later and it was immediately clear that this man builds guitars at the highest level. Never heard a sound like that and I've played a few guitars...just heaven. But, Nightingales are big guitars and I'm a couch player. After about a week with it and a few more chats with the man we decided it'd be best to ship it back and have a guitar built. At that point I figured I may as well just do it right and Kevin had no problem with that.
The build is a Paradiso body, one size smaller than the Nightingale, and it's going to have all the Ryan goodies...the bevel, flutes, titanium pins etc. and it also has some very cool extras as well. The specs are as follows
Kevin Ryan Paradiso GC
Brazilian Rosewood/Cedar
Ebony binding
Black Pearl Ryan logo
Black Pearl sound board
Black Pearl "Diamonte" inlay pattern on fretboard
Brazilian Rosewood Rosette with Black Pearl purfling
Ryan Bevel
Ebony Flutes
Titanium pins
A4 Kerfing
Acoustic Honeycomb
EO Bracing
Ryan Signature black chrome Gotohs
Florentine cutaway
Top is getting the first Ryan "Moonburst" finish which is a miraculously subtle, dark brown to black burst inspired by Kevin's famous Moonglow redwood (my favorite top aesthetically, ever)
This is my dream guitar, and wouldn't you know it...Kevin started building it two weeks ago
And here is an example of two Nightingales with "Moonglow" redwood tops. In our chats I told Kevin how much I love the look of his "Moonglow" tops but Kevin only has a couple of them left and my favorite wood combo is Braz/Cedar. It was Kevin's idea to use a beautiful cedar top but to shade it using Moonglow Redwood as inspiration. I loved the idea and it'll be a first for Ryan Guitars!
