Guitarras Castillo

Fine flamenco guitars

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We're often asked to explain the differences between the many woods available to construct a Castillo guitar. The soundboards are made from either spruce or cedar. Salvador uses mostly Canadian and European spruce to make his soundboards. Generally speaking, Spruce is brighter and takes longer to "open up". Cedar is more mellow in tone and sounds great from the first day. After being played, spruce gives you a much larger range of tonal color than cedar. Although oversimplified, the chart below represents our available woods used for the back and sides and the spectrum of their characteristics.
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Below are recording of the same selections (some classical, flamenco and a scale) with three different spruce top guitars. The back and sides are made from Mexican Cypress, Palo Escrito and Brazilian Rosewood.
Mexican Cypress blanca (2010)
Palo Escrito negra (2010)
Brazilian rosewood negra (2005)
Recorded with an Octava MK-012-01 condenser mic 16" away from soundboard between the soundhole and 12th fret and an Apogee mic pre. No E.Q. or effects.

The results are very telling and do much better than any words or charts could convey.