Hi, I’m looking for a nylon string “classical” guitar. Mellow, resonant, good harmonics & ideally I’d like it to have a build-in pickup. I’m interested in trying narrow-necked guitars too.
I’ve checked a couple of shops here in Taipei, a Yamaha, and an Acoustic guitar shop, and while they have acoustic steel-stringed guitars aplenty, they don’t have much nylon strings guitars.
Does anyone know of a guitar shop where they might have a greater variety of brands and options?
I’m OK if they only have classical guitars.
I’m looking for something under 15000 ntd
Thanks!
I heard there is a shop called Torres guitar in Shilin, no idea what the hours are like due to the pandemic.
I will tell you however, when it comes to classical guitar, you get what you pay for.
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Yeah… I know.
Thanks for tip though! It looks like a very nice place, worth a look.
And yeah, about the price, I got interested at models in the style of Yamaha NCX and NTX, but I tried their NCX1 (~15000ntd) and its acoustic (non amp) sound was quite shallow and rather disappointing.
Their next one NCX3 sounds quite better but goes double up to ~34000ntd.
I’m looking for something like what I had back in Europe, where I managed to find a pretty decent acoustic sound on a nylon guitar with pickup for around 400 euros (~13000 ntd).
Maybe I’m looking for something that doesn’t exist in my price range, or in Taipei.
I guess If I go for pure classical guitar (without a pickup) I might be able to get a better sound on a more reasonable price.
You can have piezo pickup installed fairly cheaply if you need a pickup.
Do you know the brand of guitar you found for 400 euros? It might shed some light.
15k isn’t a lot for nylon string guitars… Yamaha is basically mostly student instrument though. They might have some nicer student instrument but if you have discriminating taste, then your only option is keep playing the various guitars you can find at the price range and see what you are happy with. Don’t expect solid top, or even good quality solid top at the price range you are after. They are made with randomly sawn spruce or whatever that have crazy runout, random grain, etc. and weren’t really made with any attention to any of its details apart from cosmetic (mainly it’s so people will buy them). It’s harder to make a good nylon string guitar than a good steel string guitar because there are just much less energy to work with. Cheaper student guitars (less than 10k) don’t even have good cosmetics. They’re used for lessons then thrown in the trash not long after.
People pay big money, over 8000USD on good nylon guitars, and they do all kinds of crazy things like double top in order to get the best stiffness to weight ratio possible. That store I showed you will likely have things like that.
If you were looking for steel string guitars I would have recommended Baby Taylor or something of that nature at the price range you are looking for. Taylor makes decent student instruments in the Baby line (Big baby, Academy 12, etc.)
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It was a Juan Salvador with solid top but thinner body, I remember it was made in Bulgaria and searching google I think it’s a brand from Kremona.
I cannot find the exact model (maybe they discontinued) but I it looks very similar to the Kremona Rondo TL series.
It costed me just over 400 euros and in the shop, before buying, the sound surprised me! It was not loud, because of it being thinner, but it was surprisingly full sound. And with the pickup it performed very nicely as for performing/recording.
I have had many classical guitars, but now I’m looking for something a bit hybrid like what I had: nylon definitely, but smaller if possible (more portable) and as good sound as I can get.
After playing some of the Yamahas the other day, at least I want a solid top.
yeah I think that’s what I’m hoping to do. I can pay a bit more if I’m happy with a guitar. That’s why I was asking for shops where they might have quite some variety (and hopefully variety within my budget haha).
Thanks for the tips and your time.
There are various music shops that are bigger, like Fantasy Music 奇想樂器 but fact is of all the stores I have been to in Taiwan, their selection of classical guitars have been rather thin… my guess is they’re mostly selling to people with more money than sense, and I’m guessing classical guitarist is not among them. There is also SLS music in Ximen which seems to sell more classical instruments (I saw violins and stuff there).
Edit: I’m kinda considering building classical guitars… mainly because classical guitarists are more focused on sound than cosmetics (steel string guitars seems to be evaluated on its cosmetics than its sound).
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I ended up finding what I wanted at a store called Guitar to go in Daan
https://goo.gl/maps/2dY9Sc1Mk13icKYi7
They have quite a lot of range of prices for acoustic and classical guitars, as well as smaller and ukeleles.
They also sell and install pickups (they have some small workshop space), and they were very attentive, explicative and honest.
I ended up getting more of a travel-sized nylon guitar from aNueNue there.
I had already checked them before and I was pleasently surprised by their acoustic (non-amp) sound and price. Also even their cheapest pickup (from aNueNue) is a pretty decent mic+contact pickup!
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