Small Guitar With Full Sound

The customer for this small nylon string guitar came all the way from Switzerland. His wish was to find a suitable guitar for his petite physique and small hands. I gave him several smaller guitars to try out, but it wasn't until I gave him a guitar that I had built for my then 6-year-old daughter that he felt really comfortable. This small classical guitar had a scale length of 555 mm, which we took as a basis for our further planning.

The body should of course be built in such a way that a full sound could unfold. Our customer chose our model Alegra for the form. I advised against a golpeador in order to allow the top, which was additionally reduced in size by the cutaway, to vibrate as much as possible.

With a scale length of 555 mm you cannot simply reduce the body shape one-to-one. Larger adjustments are necessary to avoid loss of sound. For this purpose we have on one hand made the body slightly narrower than the large "template" and on the other hand changed the depth of it. In the lower bout the body is just as deep as on a large Alegra, but towards the upper bout the depth decreases more than usual. This creates a back with a strong longitudinal arching, which ensures that the bass responds quickly and is carried far. Without these measures, a guitar of this size would be too heavy on the treble and correspondingly unbalanced in sound.

Neck / Strings / Machine Heads

The neck width of 54 mm was desired to be relatively wide compared to the body. When the customer wanted to pick up the guitar, it turned out that there was a desire to create a little more space for the high E-string. Since we adjust the saddle and bridge inlay individually to each guitar anyway, it was no problem for us to still implement this wish and to produce a new saddle and bridge inlay with a larger space for the high E-string. However, the photos were taken before this adjustment, i.e. with evenly distributed notches.

We have chosen Savarez Prodige 540 AS strings. This is a string set that was developed especially for guitars with a short scale length. The machine heads are from Schaller with buttons in mother-of-pearl look.

Optics

The classic woods Rosewood for back and sides and Engelmann Spruce for the top are always a beautiful look.  Combined with the reddish rosette with abalone inlays and the green purfling, this little beauty shines with discreet charm. Its appearance is underlined by the pretty waist and the graceful cutaway. The icing on the cake is the fingerboard with the typical STOLL extension at the soundhole.

Sound and Playability

With Rosewood we have chosen one of the best woods to support the smaller body in its sound development. It has a pronounced low-middle section with a tight assertiveness and impresses with a powerful rounded tone.

We have set the string action a little higher for this nylon string guitar in order to suit the dynamic playing of our customer.

Original customer statement: I'm blown away. The tone of the instrument is great! Very differentiated and clear. My compliments.