To learn more about their overall creative vision and very unique approach, we recently interviewed our friends Matthew Rice and Matthias Roux over at Casimi Guitars in Cape Town, South Africa to discuss a range of topics including their design, voicing, building style, inspiration, and more. Please see below for the complete chat. Enjoy!
LW: It’s easy to say your guitars stand quite apart from the already distinctive crowd of modern guitars. What brought you to your particular aesthetic?
M&M: Thank you, it’s nice to think we have some originality in our approach. There are several reasons why we do things a little differently. Firstly, our whole aesthetic was developed in relative isolation from the mainstream of modern guitar design. It all started off as a fantasy of mine in a sketchbook one afternoon back in about 2003 (while I should probably have been doing something else). In those days I was pursuing a career as a musician and I had a day job working for a music instrument shop in Cape Town as their in-house guitar tech. I had a lot of instruments pass through my hands, pretty much the full gamut from the good through the bad to the ugly. One thought that kept plaguing me was what a wasted design opportunity the guitar often was. It’s got all the essential ingredients of a great design, but so often there is something missing or something that could have been done with more care and attention to detail. As a musician, artist, and jewelry designer, these aesthetic disappointments drove me to explore the guitar as a design question, which I did as a series of sketches and doodles in my lunch breaks and as a way of twiddling my thumbs. These drawings were an exploration of the form of the guitar from a sculptural perspective and were in line with my design philosophy as a whole.
I have always been fascinated with how the laws of physics produce lines and vectors which are inherently beautiful. How the natural world constantly produces designs which are breathtaking in their perfection and how these governing principles give rise to forms which are perfectly suited to their function. Elegant, alive, athletic, dynamic, efficient, and authentic. Expressing a kind of divine essence. I aspired to reach for this same lofty ideal in all my work. (“Beauty is truth and truth is beauty. That is all we know and all we need to know,” as Blake put it.) Years later I had the opportunity to build my own guitar with my longtime best friend Matthias Roux who was working for Maingard Guitars at the time. He and Colin Rock (another luthier at Maingard Guitars) decided to offer a guitar building course in the evenings. I jumped at the opportunity and brought along all my rather unorthodox sketches. We went through them together, weeding out the implausible ideas from the more realistic ones and after some hours we had a concept. That guitar was built as my personal instrument with no thought of marketing it to anyone else at all. It was simply my dream guitar, built with great love and a lot of help from two good friends. However, it became obvious that we were onto something special. The combination of my design fantasies and Matthias’s experience in building (at that point he had completed in the region of about 250 builds for Maingard) worked like a magic recipe. That same guitar became the prototype C2S and formed the basis for all our work as Casimi Guitars.
LW: Who are some of your favourite guitar players? Have you built instruments for any of them?
M&M: Well, for both of us, favourites make a very long and diverse list. On the acoustic side, Michael Hedges, Mike Dawes, John Gom, Pierre Bensusan, Michael Watts, Derek Gripper, Guy Buttery, Habib Koité, John Mclaughlin, Andy Mckee…the list goes on and on (We did in fact build a guitar for Guy Buttery very early on). On the electric side, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmore, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Tom Morello, Ali Farka Touré, John Mayer, Jimmy Hendrix of course…so many! And we discover more all the time. Matthias has a strong background in Flamenco and therefore also followed players such as Paco de Lucia and Vincente Amigo. Between the two of us, I would say the spectrum is best described as immense and spans players and genres from Flamenco through Metal, Jazz, Ambient, Rock, African, Folk, Blues and many more.
LW: You utilize several design features that we haven’t seen before, your bridge setup for one. Can you walk us through your process in designing some of your more arcane features?
M&M: Yes, indeed! If we take the bridge as a good example, my starting point in designing that was the same as for everything else. To remove everything non essential and to try to make it beautiful along the way. Specifically with the bridge, I wanted to get rid of bridge pins. Personally I can’t stand the things! Any gigging guitarist knows that awkward silence when you have to replace a string mid show. Once you’ve run out of stories and you’re still using your pocket knife to dig out that little pin that just won’t quit.. by the time you’ve got the new string on and are tuned up, half the audience is either asleep or sneaking out the door…Not great. So I wanted a pinless bridge, but one that still retained the advantages of having the strings attached under the bridge plate. Ordinarily a pin-less system means the string is only attached to the bridge. One big advantage of the pinned bridge is that the string goes through the sound board and pulls from underneath the bridge plate. This means it’s not pulling your bridge off, but is pulling from underneath your bridge. This also gives a better break angle and therefore energy transfer to the soundboard. In order to rid ourselves of pins, we needed a system that would allow us to insert the string and keep it in place using its own tension. This we achieved with a kind of modified keyhole design, but then we needed to cover the key holes so as to maintain proper air pressure inside the soundbox. We went round the garden several times with this. All manner of mechanisms were explored from sliding drawers to swivelling lids until we hit on the idea of using magnets to hold down a cap that would cover our keyhole system. The aesthetic of the bridge is also largely functional. Yes, its shape is supposed to please the eye, but it derives from several functional considerations. Firstly we wanted the back of the bridge to reflect the curve of the tail of the guitar. Something we always see with classical guitars is that, over time, the square bridge pulling on the rounded tail results in some rather unhappy looking corrugations between the bridge and lower soundboard. By making the back of the bridge rounded (parallel to the tail), we have spread the stress out more evenly across the lower portion of the soundboard resulting in a more even pressure load. This is a good thing for structural longevity, but arguably also for tonal transfer from string through bridge to soundboard and braces. The hollows are there to facilitate easy finger access to the magnetic bridge cap and they also cut down on weight and bring the bridge within the 30 to 34g ideal weight for our recipe.
The same thinking went into the hollow headstock. It’s really a traditional slotted headstock with the non essential middle spar removed. Since its reinforced from the inside with carbon fibre rods and is sandwiched between two hardwood veneers back and front, it’s well strong enough to remove the extra material in the middle. The machine heads are simply a set of Gotoh 510s fitted sideways. This also, was partially an attempt to create easier access for restringing, but we liked the elegant quirkiness of the look.
LW: Please describe your goals in voicing an instrument. How did you first find your voice, and how do you continue to experiment?
M&M: To put itin a nutshell, one of the first builds to carry the Casimi name was an African Blackwood and Engelman spruce C2S. This guitar was built using a traditional Martin X brace and two tone bars just like what we were used to from Maingard. There were one or two modifications that had taken place since the prototype, but essentially it was one of those magical instruments that just bursts with life, tone, power projection, and all the qualities one is looking for and it’s hard to nail down exactly why. It was a monster straight off the bench. It was built as a shop guitar and for exhibition, so it hung around our workshop for two or three years and we really got to know it. It was really quite close to the voice we were always chasing, and it has been the voice of that guitar that we tried to emulate thereafter. Eventually we decided to experiment by adding a soundport and were able to notice the immediate way in which it tidied up the basses and brought the secondary harmonics into a happier alignment. In around 2014 we decided to experiment with some other bracing patterns. There were some crazy moments with U turns at the last moment. Matthias had an idea he wanted to do using a kind of fan bracing on a steel stringed guitar. I turned around one day and found him putting that top through the drum sander to remove them all after he’d spent a few days carefully shaping and listening. After extensive research and much hard thinking we decided to try a lattice brace pattern. An amazing friend of ours who was an industrial designer helped us to research and develop the jigs and patterns necessary to achieve this. Once we had built a guitar with this new system, we noticed immediately how it brought out the midrange of the instrument. This was the missing piece we had been looking for! Most guitars with the Martin pattern seem to have a kind of scoop in the mids. The lattice really seemed to do a little of the opposite. Suddenly we were hearing thick creamy mids, and it was amazing what an emotional quality came through in the chords. I suspect it has something to do with bringing the voice of the guitar closer to the tonal range of a human voice, so it conveyed this human emotional quality much more. Since then, we have used the lattice as our exclusive bracing pattern. It slowly evolved from build to build and we kept track of these minor adjustments along the way so as to track what differences they made. We’ve managed to reach a tone we like, but there is always more to learn and improve. It’s a constant process.
LW: Where do you think your building style will take you in the next five years?
M&M: That’s an interesting question. Much of the challenge at present is to find ways of making more of these crazy guitars more quickly without compromising quality. Simply put, a Casimi takes two experienced luthiers around 2.5 months to produce. We’d like to be in a position to be putting out about ten per year and I think that’s possible in around two to five years. So there probably won’t be any radical changes in aesthetic or tone during that period. Most of the evolution will occur behind the scenes, refining our production.
LW: Any interesting facts about your technique or shop arrangement that you’d like to share?
M&M: It’s a pretty standard setup. I guess that might be the most interesting part about it. I think some people look at our work and think it was produced in a very high tech dust free lab, but it’s really just a simple old workshop. We like things to be efficient and clean, but we also like our workspace to be a little bit homely and friendly.
LW: Working as a team also sets you apart from many one person operations. What is your working dynamic in the shop?
M&M: We’ve been best friends, since we were little kids so we know each other extremely well. It’s a pretty seamless partnership. We’ve both got our niches and processes that we have gravitated towards, so it dovetails very nicely. The most obvious advantage is that we have our various areas of expertise. It just so happens that these are perfectly aligned and two brains are better than one. It also spreads the workload somewhat. Of course there’s also the moral support and camaraderie that makes it all the more fun!
LW: What do you each enjoy doing outside of building instruments?
M&M: The work doesn’t really ever stop but,Matthias loves playing guitars, and cooking, and soccer with his son Surena. I divide my spare time between family, Systema (Russian Martial Arts), music, and art.
LW: If you had not become guitar makers, where do you think life would have led you?
Matthias: Possibly Cheffing, but he’s always been pretty single minded. He went straight out of high school into an apprenticeship at Maingard Guitars and never looked back. That’s an interesting question for me though…I could have seen myself as a musician, artist, industrial and jewellery designer, pilot, actor, film maker, screenwriter, martial arts instructor or journalist. Pretty wide spectrum, really.
LW: What music are you listening to right now?
M&M: For both of us, I guess all the artists listed already. Currently in my most listened list are Roger Waters, Amused to Death, Sona Jobarteh, The Police, Derek Gripper, Nils Petter Molvaer, Arvo Pärt and Massive Attack, and we are both constantly whistling Michael Watt’s tunes.
LW: Okay, heaven forbid the shop is burning down. You can grab only one tool as you get out of there. What is the tool?
M&M: The first thing that comes to mind is our precious wood stash!And ourall our templates!..and Japanese chisels…and our Lee Nielsen Planes…Are you sure we can only grab one?
What better endorsement for a guitar than Martin Simpson’s own two hands? We’ve got a 2009 Sobell New World model formerly owned by the man himself, with some gorgeous dark African Blackwood back and sides and German Spruce on top. The fretboard features a slightly wider nut (1.78 inches) for easy fretting, and the setup is butter smooth and easy. A Highlander pickup for a gorgeous amplified tone, and then there’s a hardcore Calton flight case to keep the New World safe between home and stage.
The voice has opened up sweetly since 2009, with liquid trebles and a round, warm midrange response that’s a real pleasure to play around with in DADGAD and beyond. You can really even take this Sobell down to C# territory without the bass response waxing floppy. You’ve got enough projection to flatpick your way through a session without getting lost in the crowd, and when you’re playing solo compositions later on a delicate touch will still bring out a clear and dynamic tone.
Hands down, this Sobell New World is firing on all cylinders.
Other keywords: lutherie, luthier, stefan sober, fingerstyle, fingerpicking, maple
In typical fashion, Jordan McConnell has built another lifetime instrument with this 16 Inch model from 2016. This is a unique one with Indian Rosewood back and sides, so for all of you international buyers this one’s an actual option! Moonspruce on top, as well as Jordan’s trademark carved bridge, here rendered with figured Rosewood, as well as a geometric motif at the rosette and headstock veneer featuring Rosewood and Satinwood, as well as Abalone.
Very Cool and unique Fender Custom Shop Esquire here that we are selling for renowned Nashville songwriter Darrell Scott. Loaded with one Tim Shaw designed single coil pickup. While this guitar may only have one pickup, it is certainly not lacking in tonal variety with its three way “Router”. And to top it all off this ultra light weight pine body allows for ease of play. This Esquire is a C.W. Fleming “Directors Choice”, so you know this build is of the highest quality.
https://cdn.dreamguitars.com/2023/07/2018-fender-esquire-cf1024-1.jpg20001500Logan Wellshttps://cdn.dreamguitars.com/2021/06/dreamguitars-logo.pngLogan Wells2023-07-04 21:06:062023-08-11 12:28:552018 Fender Esquire, Pine Body
It’s humbling to see such consistency in a builder’s work, with exquisite voicing for fingerstyle playing that focuses on note clarity and definition. This is Mark’s Sequoia body shape with a generous 16 inch lower bout, and here he’s upgraded it with a body wedge and arm bevel for ergonomics, a soundport in the upper bout, and a multiscale setup that’s perfect for everything from C tunings to Standard (26.25-25.25”). The Brazilian Rosewood back and sides come from our own secret stash, and Mark used a creamy European Spruce top to match.
Preston Thompson D-BA 45, serial number ‘Dream #1.’ It would be an understatement to say that we are proud of how this collaboration with Preston Thompson Guitars went. Using wood from our stash, this flatpicking beast turned out so well. It is as sonorous and resonant as it is good looking, and it’s frankly just fun to play. This is one of those ‘gets lost for hours’ playing type of guitars. 45 styling throughout, so it’s a sharply dressed thrill-seeker, as it were. Ease of play, a little wider spacing at the saddle for ample access to all the flatpicking, cross-picking, and fingerpicking—that’s a lot of picking, which is exactly what this thing is designed for: LOTS OF PICKING.
We’ve landed a powerhouse with this 2015 Placencia OM from Michael Bashkin in Cocobolo and German Spruce—from headstock to tailblock there’s miles of gorgeous real estate, and some rich tones hidden just beneath the surface. Bashkin paired his compass point rosette with amber side dots/position markers, and bound the body in elegant black Ebony for a subtle delineation between the creamy German Spruce and chocolate-rich Cocobolo.
Tonally, this Placencia has a crisp, focused bass response; tight and snappy, cuts well. Projection is impressive (and that’s not the soundport fooling our ears), and you can dig in a bit with a pick without topping out the sound. Try that on other OMs, we dare you. That said, this guitar is voiced primarily for fingerstyle, and we found it really slurped up dropped tunings. Built in 2015, this Bashkin looks nearly new: a great opportunity to get one for yourself to personalize with your own voice!
Other keywords: cocobolo rosewood, rosewood, michael bashkin, luthier on luthier, colorado, finger style, flatpicking, orchestra model
This is the definition of a dream guitar, an heirloom instrument, a lifetime player. Wayne Henderson made sure this 45-style Dreadnought shade top was the best of the best, and he more than succeeded. Premium Brazilian Rosewood back and sides with green flecking in the right light (super rare), Red Spruce on top, and the aforementioned 45-style Abalone appointment package from headstock to endgraft.
Other keywords: lutherie, wayne henderson, dreadnaught, allen shadd, will saylor, d-45, 45 style
D-45 Deluxe from Wayne Henderson, built in 2008 with Brazilian Rosewood and Red Spruce, plus additional tree of life vine inlays along the fingerboard. Extensive 45-style pearl work throughout, gold Waverly tuners, well preserved and sure to be the centerpiece of your collection.
Other keywords: henderson dreadnought, allen shadd, will saylor
If you are a follower of Wayne Henderson guitars you know that they are all rare, wonderful, and highly sought after. What we have here is the rarest of Hendersons, a D-45 Deluxe Tree Of Life in Brazilian Rosewood and Red Spruce which comes to us from 2016. You are certain to gasp and drool over this one, we certainly have been. Wayne makes precious few of this model of guitar, the sheer amount of time, material and skill that goes into building such a guitar is impressive, and certainly limits the opportunity to make many of them. This is the true collector’s dream guitar! While this guitar certainly has the looks, that isn’t the only trick in its bag. The Henderson tonal pedigree is in full show here, big open basses, barking mids, and smooth trebles. This is the definition of a once in a lifetime guitar, don’t miss out!
Looking for a small guitar that packs a wallop and is just downright fun? Check out this 2019 P12 from Froggy Bottom. Koa back and sides with Adirondack Spruce top and a 12-fret neck, short scale center, and a lively string energy that works great for blues with its drier attack, but also has great clarity and woody crunchiness for strumming and some light flatpicking work if you are looking for a different flavor to accompany someone. Throw a K&K Pure Mini into the mix instant amplification!
Other keywords: lutherie, michael millard, p2103, adriondack
Keystone Guitars crafted us this wonderful Jujube model featuring Brazilian Rosewood plus Sinker Cedar. Snakewood appointments throughout, plus a custom and stunningly executed inlay design along the fingerboard and headplate, makes for a striking aesthetic–and these qualities of beauty are echoed in the voice as well. Great punch, clarity, and power, all at the same time coming from a small-bodied design. Frankly, we don’t know how Keisuke pulls it off.
Other keywords: lutherie, luthier, guitarbuilding, custom guitar, brazilain
Power and purr in equal measure. Lance McCollum really knew how to build ‘em. This Grand Auditorium comes to us from 1999, and that’s given it plenty of time to open up. And up, and up! Lots of power and projection under the hood, but notes have a smooth definition to them that makes the voice so sweet. Brazilian Rosewood back and sides pair up with European Spruce on top with a long scale setup at 25 3/4” to add extra pow! to those bass strings. Our repair gurus have just dressed the frets, and it plays like grass-fed butter. It’ll take equally well to both fingertips and picks to boot. There’s even an L.R. Baggs Lyric pickup system to carry it straight up to the stage.
Other keywords: mccollum guitars, lr bags, fingerstyle, ameritage, mountain song guitars, ga, brazilain, 122
Yet another example of Gage Halland’s mastery, this time equipped with Brazilian Rosewood and German Spruce. An instrument that one would happily get lost in, truly magic in the form of a guitar. This 2022 D-H from Halland sports a lambs tongue arm bevel, which provides elegance as well as comfort. A Modified Dreadnought that thrives in both realms of fingerstyle play and hard-driven flatpicking. Whatever you ask of this instrument it will respond with beauty. Expansive, powerful, crystal clear along with heaps of headroom. One session leaves you wanting more and more of this guitar. This guitar speaks for itself.
To borrow an overused expression, this guitar is an inspiration. Leo Buendia is one of our all-time favorite builders, one who we’ve been very fortunate to work with for a number of years now–and no surprise, his instruments continue to humble and delight us every time. This is the first time we’ve had one of his slim 00 models, and we pray that it is not the last. Excellent dynamic range, gorgeously appointed, and outfitted with some of the finest materials on the scene. Brazilian Rosewood back and sides with dramatic figuring and coloration, here paired with Swiss Moonspruce on top and a series of flawlessly executed chip carvings at the rosette, endgraft, and headplate. It’s a fearsome amount of work for just one of these carvings, let alone three. The entire instrument is finished in matte, and makes the grain of the wood pop. Additional features include custom Rodgers tuners with reconstituted malachite buttons, a first for us, offset position markers in Leo’s “stick” style, and even a Brazilian Rosewood bridge. This heirloom instrument was built in 2021, and is essentially new.
Kevin Caton brings a fresh eye to the modern flattop scene with his Sullivan model and its combination arm bevel-soundport design. This is our latest guitar from Kevin, decked out with Madagascar Rosewood back and sides and Italian Spruce on top plus that über unique arm bevel and a cutaway. A geometric motif sets off the rosette and headstock; elsewhere the quality of the woods speak for themselves. All wrapped up in a Visesnut flight case.
Other keywords: lutherie, caton guitars, 71, fingerstyle, contemporary, 2023
T.J. Thompson is revered for his repair and restoration work–and then there are his actual builds. A more comprehensive grasp of what a flattop can and should sound like, we haven’t seen. This 2008 OM-30 is nothing short of seraphic. Brazilian Rosewood back and sides with Adirondack Spruce top, 30-style appointments, V neck profile plus bar frets, even banjo-style tuners at the headstock.
Other keywords: lutherie, tj thompson, brazilain, adriondack, fingerstyle, orchestra model
Laurent Brondel’s The 18 is a powerhouse guitar inspired by, and in some ways surpassing, the classic prewar Martin OM. This one features Honduran Mahogany back and sides, Red Spruce top, and a few modern features like a carbon fiber reinforced neck and EVO frets. A dark shade top finish immediately grabs the eye, but is almost forgotten once you actually put fingers to strings–the voice is quick and lively, goes from 0 to 100 in a flash, and is just downright fun. Looking for a modern take on a prewar classic? Brondel’s The 18 will do nicely!
Other keywords: fingerpicking, 18-style, 18 style, 230407, pre-war
https://cdn.dreamguitars.com/2023/06/2023-brondel-the-18-honduran-mahogany-adirondack-spruce-230407-1.jpg20001500Integritivehttps://cdn.dreamguitars.com/2021/06/dreamguitars-logo.pngIntegritive2023-07-04 18:57:052024-01-05 00:00:11Brand New Brondel “The 18,” Honduran Mahogany/Adirondack Spruce
Premium 1957 Fender Strat, anyone? This beauty is well preserved, plays without effort, and sounds absurdly good. V neck profile for your left thumb to anchor on, original pickups and electronics, components, the works. Two-tone sunburst, white pickguard, some sweet fingerboard marks to prove its paid its dues. An heirloom offering that’s sure to be the centerpiece of your collection.
Other keywords: leo fender, 023851, 2 tone, sun burst, ohsc, duane simpson
Brand new and already so wide awake: our latest Quantum model from California-based luthier Steve Porter. Elevated fingerboard, twin soundports, side dot at the seventh fret; Indian Rosewood body with Carpathian Spruce top; ultra thin french polish finish throughout. Gold Sloane tuners; 650mm scale. The top features intricate lattice bracing, best viewed from those aforementioned soundports that flank the heel.
Other keywords: millennium classical, raised fingerboard, sound port, david stevenson, fingerstyle, classical music, loaded top
New York by way of Armenia luthier Manouk Papazian was well known for not only his classicals, but also his lutes and cellos, even violins. It takes a special builder to be able to coax good tone out of so many different shapes. This Classical comes to us from 1970 and is in great playing shape, featuring Brazilian Rosewood back and sides plus Spruce top and a 650mm scale.
Other keywords: andy jurik, fingerstyle, nylon string, brazilain,
