Ken Whisler, Luthier & Performer

custom build-Cheyne

28Jul

Categories: custom Comments: 0

Brazilian rosewood w/cedar top

22Oct

Categories: Guitars available now Comments: 0

On my bench right now. I inlaid the cedar top with sections of spalted maple. The Brazilian rosewood I am using for this one has some spectacular figuring. The pieces were very tight against my template, after moving the template around for hours I decided to not fight it, and borrowed an aesthetic the late Tom Humphrey used to do: insert a flame maple wedge. The bindings will also be flame maple to compliment.

In the finishing stage, and I would like to share my new neck joint. The way I am executing this joint, I can easily vary the amount of neck elevation to the customer’s preference.

This guitar is finished, looks and sounds phenomenal, and is for sale at Savage Classical Guitar.
finished front
finished back

Jonah Corn

12Jun

Categories: Neat stuff, Sounds of my handcrafted classical guitars Comments: 0

Wish I had that tone and feel when I was 15….. Jonah playing Whisler #27

“A Fantasie” by John Dowland

30Mar

Categories: Neat stuff Comments: 0

I recently stumbled on this while going through my files, and am making it available here. It is the famous Dowland Fantasie, I made my own transcription while in college. I used colored pens, and assigned each voice it’s own color, as a visual aid to help me hear the individual voices in a linear way, and finger it accordingly. Feel free to copy and distribute freely.

dowland_fantasie0001

1st recordings made with classical guitar #4

13Dec

Categories: Sounds of my handcrafted classical guitars Comments: 0

The 1st recordings from the original website:

Want an idea of what one of my guitars sounds like? Help yourself to any or all of the free music selections here. I took one of my guitars, just prior to it’s sale, into a friend of a friend’s recording studio, asked him to turn off any and all dsp’s and eq’s, set all tonal controls “flat”, and then I proceeded to play live into a pair of condenser mics, the mixing console acting only as a preamp into an ADAT. While cutting out the riff raff and mixing down to a cd, the engineer begged me to let him add a touch of reverb. I conceded, as it was quite dry. But other than that, this is as honest of a recording as one can get.

note from Ken: the following recordings were made with guitar #4, a cedar top braced with an open 5 brace fan using sitka spruce, SE Asian rosewood was used for the back and sides. Shortly after the recording, a ban was imposed on the export of rosewood from that region, and only recently has it been made made available again. Of course the price has increased considerably!

The first 4 tracks are from Oscar Chilesotti’s “Six Lute Pieces of the Renaissance”. Tracks 5 and 6 are by the baroque guitarist Ludovico Roncalli. Tracks 7-11 are 4 studies from Matteo Carcassi’s famous collection of 25 Estudios. Tracks 12 and 13 from Segovia’s (in)famous collection of 20 Sor studies. And 14 and 15 are a couple of Romantic era chestnuts from Francesco Tarrega. Enjoy!