Francesco De Gregorio – 2020 “Gomez Ramirez”

Description

Francesco de Gregorio ”Gomez Ramirez”

Craftsmanship has been among Francesco de Gregorio’s innate inclinations since he was a child. His grandfather could do virtually anything with his hands and Francesco liked to watch him build chairs or cast irons, knowing how to use his art of “make do” to create useful things for everyday life. When he was fifteen, he started learning to play the guitar and taught himself. At the age of eighteen, with the same passion, he moved to guitar building with an extraordinary passion.

Francesco’s idea of a great instrument follows the original path of the great masters of the modern guitar. He pursues a pure, never forced, sound: the sound that is easily produced by a light construction, with a respect for wood and for its natural fragility. When building his instruments, he looks for aesthetic beauty and suitable taste in different combinations.

This Gomez Ramirez copy is intriguing in many ways. The sound is sweet with a long clear sustain, quite neutral trebles paired with Spanish robust basses. The set of CITES-certified Brazilian rosewood used for the instrument is of the highest possible class and immediately stands out when looking at this beautiful guitar. Especially the pronounced grains with three-dimensional seeming patterns, for which the Rio rosewood is so famous, are particularly eye-catching. Francesco colored the top to recreate the vintage look you can find in old instruments by Gomez Ramirez and he did it in a splendid way. Playability is truly excellent, very easy to feel comfortable when playing phrases on the instrument. When he created his personal label, Francesco took inspiration from a redrawn version of the first edition of the famous Italian historical novel “I promessi sposi” (The Betrothed) written by Alessandro Manzonin in 1827. The first page starts with the description of the city of Lecco, therefore Francesco decided to use this label to celebrate his hometown and heritage.