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Not if you collect from Paris.
It's obviously a super beautiful guitar and there's a ton of thought put in. I think it's a good thing all around, it makes it reasonable for individual luthiers to raise their prices to something that makes it at least moderately worthwhile to build instruments. I was looking at the prices Barault is charging and it's kind of depressing. I don't get it tbh.
Some stuff is a little silly to me. Examining jigs made of solid wood that are 80 years old...I don't know what sort of good information that's giving you. Solid wood isn't particularly stable. Ultimately it seems like they're making a Selmer inspired instrument that has much of the appearance of a Selmer. It would be cool if they released all their info but that seems unlikely.
That said, there's clearly a ton of CNC in the process, it's sort of funny to me that they're using Fusion 360 for design, that's what I use and it's pretty common in guitar making. It's all pretty well thought out but it's clearly a very modern build method. For people who are looking for Gepetto's work shop with a bunch of gnomes working things by hand out of chisels, it's not that...they are not really constructed in the traditional way. They ultimately seem like a modern update of a Selmer, which I think is what they are saying through the lines more or less.
It's a bit odd, I didn't see them mention or really confirm that they have a pliage in the top, I am not sure, does every original Selmer have the pliage?
Not that it matters ultimately, I don't think that makes any difference. It's just the whole story about going back in time and examining all these traditional methods is a little harder to take when they are cutting everything out on CNC. But it will make a more precise guitar.
In regards to the glue they are using, I think the word on the street is that glue has no real effect on sound whatsoever. I think it might have some effect on durability, different glues may creep in different ways, but ultimately I think stuff like that is not effecting anything.
It's cool though. I hope that the Rick Beato video does come out at some point also and there's some renewed interest in Selmers as a whole. I hope they sell like hotcakes.
In doing the research for this project, Stefan had access to numerous letters from Henri Selmer and the original Maccaferri plans. Apparently the key reason Maccaferri was asked to leave is that he was spending too much time snooping around the reed making section of the Selmer factory. They didn’t take kindly to this corporate espionage and decided to sever their relationship with him. Not a surprise Maccaferri later got into the reed making business.
I think the reason these guitars look so nice and are so well thought out is that at $15k for a run of 60, they have the budget to do a lot of really thoughtful work and research. At 4k for one at a time, you might be struggling to get guitars out the door and make it somehow worthwhile. That's what someone told me.
so “snooping around the reed section of the factory” ISN’T euphemism in this context?
Minor quibble, but as a writer myself I know how silly one can look if something goes wrong. Their proofreader missed the line "and continues to shape the ladscape of contemporary Gypsy jazz." in the Angelo Debarre biography. Nit-picking sure, and of course the original text would have been written in French and then translated but at that end of the market Selmer need to be 100% perfect.
However, and much as I welcome the return of the brand it is confusing to claim on the one hand they have gone to so much trouble to examine how the originals were made and then make so many changes to the new version which apart from the changes that up to ninety years of age may have wrought on an old guitar must make for a difference in sound.
I do wonder though if this could be a toe in the water trial to see if there is a potential market for a new cheaper Selmer. If a smart marketing person there has just realised there are a lot of luthiers and factories making and selling copies and forums such as this continue to show how much interest there is in the originals then it would be not such a great leap of faith to say that a new affordable range with the Selmer name would sell better than all the others put together.
A final thought though, given there have been claims in the past from Barault and others that they have made faithful copies has anyone ever thought to play one of the original Selmers (hopefully one of the better ones) and a Barault (or other 'replica') with an expert listener who is blindfolded? One has to wonder how much of this search for 'the sound' is imaginary and how much do we hear what we want to hear?
I think it's sort of not letting the truth get in the way of a good story. They want them to be both be exactly the same as original Selmers and yet an updated modern guitar. Kinda can't do both at the same time. But they look pretty great, either way.
'ladscape' perhaps true back then, but today many females are playing as well (thanks to DEI)
I don't remember seeing Angelo featured in any of the lad mags when I was living in the UK. 🤷♂️
Here's an answer to the glue question. At least some Titebond involved per this screenshot. Which, great, it's good stuff and luthiers seem to reverse/undo it all the time without issue...and they would know best, because they do the work.
Sound-wise for all this, and in my meager experience, it seems like for these instruments there's a threshold of quality/sound you need to reach after which it's entirely taste, preference, and tiny details that are raindrops in the ocean when joined with someone's fingers. (That dryness, percusivité, and volume as they noted in the video. The favino honky bark. The Selmery snap. The VOLUME. The stuff we know and love.)
As we've been saying, the great news is that the threshold is pretty low for decent instruments. Lots of instruments sold on this forum and this website $1500 and up are pro-grade and well within the operating window, with many on records we like by players we like. They just must be lightly built enough to sound right — a big challenge for mass production.
But the other great news is that if you do want go beyond the threshold and ball out, you can go nuts on aesthetics, woods that require passports, fancy tuners (AJL!), wild bindings and rosettes (La Manna!), signature heels (Gaffeiro!), or the actual Selmer name (SELMER), you can match your personality. Or if you truly need a certain woody vintage sound you can try to find that. Obviously, it's hard to fake age, even with older wood and gamma-ray torrefaction in the science oven.
Django's rough recording quality has made that window for what works pretty wide. It sounds good, but it also illustrates that the "tone quest" is for fun and just another way to love this music culture, not for any need real. When I listen to Fapy and Stochelo I hear a brighter metallic sound and a woody, almost nylon sound. Night and day. And which I prefer depends on the day.
The role of Selmer here, I think, is to just reclaim and honor their legacy, make some great guitars with their capable, modern company with continuity with the past — the old molds worked fine then and still work now it seems. As they wrote, their forgotten instruments were behind Europe's most important contribution to jazz. Django didn't play a Mark IV or whatever. I hope someone buys them, but I feel like in this enthusiast corner the feeling is "good for you, guys!" and no one will buy. But that's why they're making them to order I guess.