Bedell Guitars has announced its new Bahia series of acoustic guitars.
More than a half-century ago, several Brazilian rosewood logs shipped from NE Brazil to a small company producing church ornaments just outside of Madrid, Spain, where they rested peacefully in a warehouse.
As the generations passed and the business focus changed, the logs were cut into tonewood sets for guitars and the company became known as Madinter, one of the premier tonewood suppliers to the world's exclusive guitar builders.
Year by year, over more than five decades, the tonewood sets aged, cured by the ideal Spanish climate. The sap crystalized, the stress in the wood relaxed, the cellulose matured between the annual growth fiber, nature took its natural course of turning tone wood into incredible music wood. Just as pre-war guitars are known for their extraordinary sound as the tonewoods age, the Brazilian rosewood of Madinter cured naturally.
Bedell Guitars don't take Brazilian rosewood for granted. The new Bedell Bahia dreadnought, orchestra and parlor models are paired with Sitka spruce that was salvaged from the forest floor near Craig, Alaska. Bedell Guitars never uses wood from clear-cut trees. The soundboards are over 400 years old, growing slowly as they compete for sun, water and freedom. The result is tight growth rings that give the tops of our instruments previously unheard power and clarity.
Marrying nature cured Brazilian rosewood with multi-century old Alaskan Sitka spruce to create the most responsive and beautiful sounding acoustic guitars requires more than luck. There are thousands of miles between Brazil and Alaska. Mother Nature did not see her destiny as creating a musical marriage between these extraordinary trees.
This is a job left to Bedell Guitars. The tops and backs of each Bahia guitar are hand tuned to maximize the sound, feel and power. This is done by carving away wood on each of the tone bars of each Bedell Bahia to a selected frequency. Different from most guitars, when you tap on the top of a Bedell Bahia you will notice that the frequencies are the same anywhere on the top you tap. This results in efficient energy transfer of the music to the back wood, which is also hand tuned to maximize its efficiency in responding.
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The Bedell Bahia offers the finest music wood nature has created, hand-crafted into the finest guitars technology has enabled.
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