edwinson consort noir, my last purchase

[guitarchie]

Hi folks,

this year I bought my ultimatively last guitar (not my last order) - my new wonderful breathtaking consort noir with that unbelievable warm and powerful voice. It's a prefiguration for his new kind of guitarbuilding with some innovations and surely as a prototype some risks.
Therefore that I can compare with his old brown ebony I honestly have to say everything was successfully every fear was redundant. I had the impression not only the sound is quite quite better I thought it must be another luthier although I still like this brown ebony.


You can hear it on
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=685935

thank you again Steve

guitarchie

[redcrow]

Beautiful guitar!! But then Steve doesn't build guitars that are not gorgeous both visually and musically. Having just received my beautiful Ariel EPCv from him, I can say that with some authority. It was a great pleasure getting to know Steve as the build progressed.

I'm glad you're pleased with the instrument, but most of the rest of your message is unintelligible. I suspect English isn't your native language

[s2y]

Amazing! 12345

[theEdwinson]

Hallo, mein gut freund Reinhold!

I have been so busy building two new show guitars to take to B.I.G. this fall, that I forgot to make a post here, showing your Consort Noir and other projects I'm working on. Thank you for taking care of that for me!

The "old Brown Ebony" guitar that Reinhold is referring to is one of my very early guitars- I recall had made under ten guitars when I built it. It is a Performance model, my biggest guitar, made with Argentine Brown Ebony back and sides, and (I think) an Alaskan Yellow Cedar or Engelmann top. I was using those top woods a lot in my early experience.

Reinhold remarked, after he recently received the Consort Noir, that the tone of the Consort makes him think these two Edwinson guitars he owns were made by two different luthiers. The Consort Noir has a strong Somogyi-esque vibe, optimized for fingerstyle playing, while the Brown Ebony Performance is a great strummer and flatpicker.
And YES, I am a different luthier than I was back in 2004. I believe it is important, as a one-man guitar maker, to continually evolve my designs, continue learning and experimenting, and discover new ways to approach world-class tone production. I've spent twenty five years now, chasing after that Holy Grail tone that has impelled my deep dive into lutherie.
A quarter century! It doesn't seem that long...

The Consort Noir was an experimental build, as you can see by its appearance; the Redwood top is very unusual, with annular lines, fully two cm apart. It had all the right properties, but I worried it might come out sounding like wet cardboard.

Quite the opposite occurred, however. It sounds amazingly fluent, from the lowest to the highest notes. There's a rich, satisfying fullness, and some very colorful overtones, pretty much the whole tonal palette I strive for. I built this guitar two years ago, but shelved it halfway through the lacquer finishing, because I was ambivalent about some of my design choices...But Reinhold convinced me to complete the guitar, and send it to him. I'm soooo glad I did, because now we're both happy!

[theEdwinson]

Here are a few more photos of the Consort Noir:





The back and sides are quartersawn African Wenge; the soundboard is a very unusual specimen of Redwood, with extremely deep curl figure, and super-wide annular growth lines. It is quite stiff, and had "average" tap tone when I decided to build with it. I had no idea if I could build a successful guitar with it, but it turned out to be one of my best ever. I still have one more set of this Redwood, sequentially sawn from the same billet, which I acquired from Oregon Wild Woods, I think in 2012. I will not hesitate to build with it again. Can I catch lightning in a bottle TWICE with this stuff?

[jojobean39]

That is insane. Gorgeous.

[TomB'sox]

That is an amazing looking guitar. Well done Steve.

[guitarchie]

thank you so much for your kind comments.

to present a little bit the sounddevelopment of this wonderful "consort"
I uploaded a second file under:

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=685935

hope you enjoy it the same way I do

guitarchie