Otto Vowinkel is a household name in the classical guitar world; a renowned luthier with customers all over the world. A guitar maker with great attention to detail and a strong preference for traditionally built guitars.
His instruments are physically light, incredibly easy to play, ultra-responsive and very powerful. His guitars have outstanding tonal qualities, evenness in sound colour and a perfect intonation.
His concert guitars are completely French polished with shellac finish. The unique rosette design features herringbone in the purfling surrounding the mosaic, which is the motif found in the flag for the city of Amsterdam. The headstock is carved after the facade of his workshop.
In addition to the traditional, classical model, Otto Vowinkel builds baritone guitars (fifth bass), cutaway’s, seven-string and flamenco guitars. His study models are hand-built under his supervision in Spain.
Otto Vowinkel uses Canadian cedar or European spruce for the top and different types of rosewood for the back and sides. He also uses, with very good results, coco bolo, maple and Spanish cypress (flamenco guitars).
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Niels Eikelboom performs Dutch guitar music
This is Niels Eikelboom. After he came to Amsterdam to compare his cedar guitar with a spruce top I wrote this post. Back then he concluded both types of wood have their own strengths and qualities. He decided to keep the cedar and to add the spruce top to his collection. He has continued doing…
Continue Reading Niels Eikelboom performs Dutch guitar music
Otto Tolonen
https://youtube.com/shorts/2GzVTqxYYZc?si=pNUq5xMCXP0A_RWV This is Otto Tolonen, the famous Finnish guitarist. We met in 2021 when he performed in our series Meesters op de Gitaar at Het Concertgebouw. Last week, he dropped by my workshop while visiting Amsterdam. I had just finished a spruce-top concert guitar for the Grand Salon de Guitare in Canada. I had put…
Neck and neck
A guitar is built piece by piece. But that doesn’t apply to the preparation. That can be compared to the so-called mise en place in the kitchen. Mise en place (French for “putting in place”) is the name of the preparation process in which all ingredients are cut, chopped, measured, and set out, so that…