Gypsy guitars surprisingly good for old school blues

VicBulbon · September 5

I guess this is probably not a huge surprise for most of you, but having played around with a real gypsy guitar for a few days now, I got to try those scrappy finger style blues you'd typically play on a parlor or resonator, and damn, it sounds pretty amazing. The twang is not quite there, but honestly, it reminds me a bit of a good resonator guitar. Slides also sound great on it, although my guitar is set a little too low for real good slide playing. Do any of you play old time folk or blues on your gj guitars?

Willie · September 6

A friend of mine recently played some blues solo on my Altamira M01f and was highly enthusiastic about the rich sound and the dynamic response of the instrument.

Can't resist to ad that he sold his Dupont Nomade because he was totally disappointed by the sound.

Buco · September 6

The first Ivanovski guitar that I saw on YT was built for a guy in Chicago who actually used it to play traditional Irish music.

https://youtu.be/YqN0fYDJK8Y?si=PEwLbR3kiRk8VhcA

Bill (eventually we connected and became friends) loved the sound that a guitar gives you based on the Selmer template. Well, Busato in your case but it's still in the same family. And it was without a cutout which Bill asked for.

These guitars can be a one trick pony, especially when they're super nasally sounding, or overly dry with very little to no overtones. But all of Risto's guitars I tried were usually very well balanced, save for one D hole that has strong midrange. So they're really versatile.

paulmcevoy75 · September 6

A lot of the guitars that the early blues guys played (other than Martins and Gibsons) were ladder braced, same as Selmers. I think they have similar heritage...the catalog guitars coming out of factories in Chicago were made by Italian luthiers in great number.

I think so anyway. Could be wrong about the luthiers.

But it's a way to build a decent guitar pretty quick.