MIJ Gypsy Jazz Guitars

elropo

Are there any companies / luthiers building gypsy jazz guitars in Japan? In previous decades their quality was very, very good. I know the majority of Asian guitars come from China & Korea and their quality is now very good as well. I just never see or hear anything about Japanese manoiche guitars.

MichaelHorowitz

There are currently no Gypsy guitars made in Japan that I know of. However, CSL and later Ibanez did produce the MAC10 models in the 70/80s which were of excellent quality:


http://shoppingcart.djangobooks.com/Ite ... ccaferri-2


http://shoppingcart.djangobooks.com/Cat ... lt-guitars

M

Bob Holo

The original Sagas were made in Japan. These were not the Saga Gitanes or Ciganos. I'm not even sure it was the same company. The logo was different and these guitars pre-dated the launch of the current Gitane brand by a couple of decades. There was a mini-revival of GJ back in the 70's and I believe they were made then.

basque

hi, i have à japanese "petite bouche" manouche guitar, make in 70' 80' and the brand is gypsy, simple but really good quality guitar, i never see information about it on internet, maybe here?

whitneyguitars

Hey Elropo,

Atsushi Takano over at AT Guitars is a friend of mine building fine instruments in Japan:

http://www.atguitars.com/

His website is in Japanese but you can check out his instagram feed as well - great guy: https://www.instagram.com/atguitars/

Hope that helps.

-Mike

MichaelHorowitz

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/99623#Comment_99623

We have a great sounding AT guitar here right now:

https://www.djangobooks.com/Item/at-petite-bouche

dennis

Atsushi has a guitar in his workshop that is easily in the top 3 GJ guitars I've ever played!!! I'm trying to get him to sell it to me haha

dennis

Well. I’m in Japan now, and I went ahead and bought it!!! It’s really one of the best instruments I ever tried. I haven’t tried the one at Djangobooks, but I highly urge people to give it a chance.

Tomas

What do you think about Stringphonic FV guitar? I found a video from Dennis and the sound is very specific. Or is it? From video it sounds similar to Favino I tried. I was really in to it. Mabye my friend Luthier can do something like this but I dont know the difference in construction. Another FV copies dont seem that similar to me. Or I will save money for stringphonic.

dennis

It sounded like an actual Favino to my ears, but to be honest. I am not a huge fan of Favino type guitars so I'm not the best guy to ask. I've tried lots of actual Favinos (dad, son, copies).

If you like those kinds of guitars, then it's definitely quite close to the real deal and Japanese craftsmanship is serious business.

I always recommend people try instruments when possible though. Even within the same model of instruments, some are better than others. Each instrument is unique.

I just bought myself an upright piano. Two piano technicians said it was the best one they tried, the pianist who recorded on the Duved album loved it so much. I went and tried a whole bunch of pianos of the same exact model Yamaha U3, with Christiaan van Hemert , and we specifically chose this one. We tried at least 4 of the exact same model. Mine stood out. It's the same with guitars. I've tried so many Saga Gitanes DG-255 over the years, some were good, some were so-so, and some were amazing.

Tomas

I dont have many chances to try this guitars on my own.For example in czech there is no shop with even one gj guitar. But just in my city are three luthiers who make this kind of guitars. Most known is Vit Cach guitars. And I have guitar from his student. But they do just selmer style guitars. Not favino. And I have to order it. So I cant try it before like in shop.