Daniel Roye Concert guitar 1980

Presented here is a Daniel Roye guitar, built in 1980.

Recently refretted and a neck / body angle correction.

This guitar is in a very good shape with no cracks or

whatsoever. Scale is 650 mm while the topnut is 

54 mm. Daniel Roye continued with building violins

and is quite successful with it. He learned the craft

from Nicolaas van der Waals among others. Own

frequency from the body is a G so 98 Herz.

Price: 1800 Euro's including original case.

What immediately is remarkable is the way Roye shaped 

the head. In fact the way a violin builder is supposed to

do. I can't find immediate advantages of it. The topnut

has been redressed after the fret job.

On par with the quality of a concert guitar the tuners should be

of pristine quality. And I can confirm that: They are! Clinched

with the axe holders to the base plate and very smoothly working. 

The lyre motif is there as has been made popular by the Spanish 

Barcelona based Fustero company but I think them to come

from Germany. And indeed they are: Daniel Roye confirmed

this: They are from "Sommer", a small workshop in Buben-

reuth. With this link you are able to find out more about

them:

http://www.music-strings.de/index.php?k=64&lang=eng

The body that has been built up with fine grained spruce

and beautiful figured Brasilian rosewood for back and

sides. Also the purfling has been done in rosewood.

The dull looking spots are simply reflections though 

there are some playing marks under the strings. 

Nothing serious but the guitars' top has been 

refinished with French polish but with the playing

marks still visible under it. Nothing serious but

it has to be mentioned to my opinion.

A surprisingly low bridge that hasn't been altered

by someone. The idea must have been that a lighter

bridge let's the top vibrate more freely. Moreover

the bridgebone is closer to the actual soundboard.

A newly made bridgebone adjusted for convenient

playability and stringsavers to get an even better

angle over the bridgebone though it was in fact 

not necessary.

The guitar from the back. Beautiful woods used here!

The back in all its' beauty. It almost looks as if the

back exists out of only one piece of wood. The 

seam is hardly detectable. The reflections are,

sorry for that....

A strange picture for classical guitar players I

suspect. The back of the head has been closed

with a layer of wood.

This picture is showing the recently placed new frets.

A 1980 guitar with a whole life in front of itself! And

with its' comfortable shaped neck it is an easy to play

guitar. As for sound: Not a very loud instrument but

it has a really nice low end and a good balance 

between the lower and upper registers.

In fact the Amsterdam Guitar Trio played most of their music 

on Daniel Roye's guitars so the sound can be judged there. 

Search for the Vivaldi: The four Seasons The Amsterdam 

guitar Trio. Soundwise I think the sound on this video is bit 

thin when I compare it with my guitar. But the idea in how 

a guitar should sound is changing over time. Also in the 

recording world as the digital era was just starting in 1980.

A more recent recording on YouTube has been made by

Alex Timmerman with a Manuel Maria Ponce piece.

In every detail it is becoming clear that the luthier

did his best to produce a beautiful instrument. I will

try to contact him and maybe I will get some more

information around several details.