This guitar is a tribute to Mario Maccaferri as a guitar maker. In the beginning he designed a classical guitar with a cut away and an internal chamber to improve the diffusion of the sound. It was only later, under market pressure, that he created the steel string model.
I really love the sound of nylon stings; the warm, rich tones of the classical guitar work for jazz, and I always had the idea of building one sooner or later. So when Edward Preston asked me to build a nylon string D-Hole, I thought my luck was in…
The idea was to integrate a classical bracing and soundboard preparation on to a Selmer-type body, but without the chamber. The neck is made narrower than a conventional classical guitar to help on those difficult jazz chords (but I have also made necks at the conventional size).
Sound sample of this guitar courtesy of Toby Clarke:
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