Malarino Luthier
I am a guitar maker. I´m very passionate about reading, learning, researching, designing and building guitars. I specialize in classical, flamenco, and archtop ones. I am not an artist, I am technician who produces fine tools for the finest artists. I continually strive to improve my craft in order to offer musicians a sophisticated guitar which strengthens their capabilities, and inspires and motivates them to express themselves.
The constant curiosity, self-improvement, and strengthening of knowledge make up the bases for the passion I feel for my job. The most important tool that I have is my library and my patience is the greatest virtue that I have been able to develop. To be truthful, making guitars is not a job for me. Like a game, I enjoy it in any sense, and in all aspects, guitar making is my whole life!
Making guitars professionally encompasses such matters that drove me to commit myself and to be deeply rooted in studying everything that has been written about (and I could got get): physical acoustics, wood technology, music and – particularly- guitar history, a little Chemistry, tool and jigs designing, basic principles of electricity and electronics, and a huge amount of hand skills such as: carving, engraving, inlaying, sharpening, and finishing among others. Finally, I was fortunate to learn while teaching and teach while learning. On the other hand, the only part of the tasks that I cannot enjoy are the accounting, administrative and commercial practices. So Therefore, I found someone better than me!
Over the years, this work has made me someone even more patient, responsible, non-conformist, obsessive, punctilious, meticulous, perfectionist, measured, tenacious, creative, curious attentive, and a professional always open to new experiences and willing to learn new things. But above all, guitar making has made me a better and happier person every day.
Classical
Guitars
My guitars are build in traditional style,
but with my own design.
My guitars are strong but lightly-built, carefully honed playability and aesthetics, and luxuriously designed, including gold and silver deeply hand chiseled jewelry.
Although Buenos Aires is a big city full of guitar players and guitar makers, it does not have a tradition of guitar making as occurs in Granada or Madrid, in Spain. For this reason, we have developed our own way, based on the greatest guitar makers in history. In my case, I have designed my bracing and guitars taking concepts of Antonio de Torres, José and Manuel Ramírez, Ignacio Fleta, Robert Bouchet, Daniel Friederich, Richard Schneider, Thomas Humprey, among others. By interpreting the great masters, and combining my acoustics studies and learning from my own mistakes, I developed an expertise that allows me to create an effective bracing pattern for my soundboards.
About sound
I produce traditional instruments with contemporary thinking, which are strong but non not heavily built. They are designed with luxurious aesthetics, carefully honed playability, and are equally receptive and responsive to the expressive pursuit of the musicians.
I am always searching for a sound which has genuine charm, with effective sound projection and great balance and versatility across the wide musical spectrum of musical colors. Since every piece of wood is unique, I try to maximize what it can offer for guitar attributes. I have always believed that quality comes before quantity, especially in sound. Although I know that volume is a desired attribute, I strive for a well-balanced guitar with notes that achieve a deep bass, a warm mid-range, and clear, singing trebles. I focus the power of sound by increasing the possibilities of dynamic range, and not on the full volume per se.
Flamenco
Guitars
My flamenco guitars are like the gypsies from “Río de la Plata”, traditionally built with their own design.
There are many coincidences between flamenco and tango, such as social exclusion and certain heartbreaking sonority. Therefore, despite the fact that flamenco music is not highly popular in Argentina, I can clearly understand the needs of the flamenco musician and thus offer a comfortable, agile and prompt responsive guitar, with outstanding playability.
I always use spruce on the soundboard and I prefer cypress over rosewood, although I sometimes use it. I only break tradition with a luxurious aesthetic design, including gold and silver deeply hand chiseled jewelry.
About sound
Unlike my classical guitars, I prioritize volume before balance.
I consider my flamenco guitars powerful, with a general tone which has a very short attack time and quick decay. I work hard to get a strong, brilliant sound, with great presence of high harmonics in the treble, high volume in the middle frequencies and almost no deep bass. It´s a characteristically percussive sound, austere and dry but with great projection and clear sense of the quality of flamenco timbre.
Archtop
Guitars
The influence of Italian-North American craftsmen like John D’Angelico, Jimmy D’Aquisto, John Monteleone and Bob Benedetto, among others.
Their archtop guitars captured my admiration when I was young. Later, the need (and encouragement) of Argentine Jazz guitarist, Daniel Corzo, motivated me to start building archtops.
My expertise in designing classical guitars helped me to understand and control the acoustic functions of the archtop, and also create the meticulous aesthetics that includes sophisticated jewelry chiseled by hand in gold and silver, ebony bridge and tailpiece, wood binding (not plastic), abalone or mother pearl inlays, and delicate hand carved soundboards.
About sound
The acoustic sound of my archtop guitars offers warmth and fatness, well-balanced in all dynamic ranges.
With full, woody and deep basses, excellent round middle frequencies, and warm and smooth trebles that provide evenness. They have a punchiness that provides good definition in all notes in any frequency range.
We are paying tribute to the great guitars makers around the world.
We have started with Torres and Friederich models. The first one is based on the most traditional Spanish guitar maker, Antonio de Torres Jurado. And the other is based on Bouchet´s disciple who became the most important French guitar builder of the twentieth century, Daniel Friederich.
These guitars are made by a highly qualified team of three Luthiers. Julio Malarino usually makes the soundboards and directs the entire process controlling the quality of each task and each piece. Gabriel Keilty is responsible for the assembly process and fine details, and Martín Bortolín prepares pieces and deals with polishing.
We rely on the designs of the great builders respecting every detail, and although we are not dedicating ourselves to replicas, the plans of the instruments were made after exhaustive research and documentation.
About sound
Torres
We do our best to get as close to the original Torres sound as possible, in addition to easy action and comfortable playability. This model achieves a tone full of old-world charm, a dry, woody, textured quality of sound to every note, with an excellent balance of firm, round bass and clear, warm and singing treble. These Torres model guitars provide the definition of the original Spanish sound and the soul of the old tone.
Friederich
The Friederich model has a responsive and powerful sound, balanced when playing at all dynamic ranges. We pay particular attention to the decay and overall sustain of the sound. The sustain on these guitars is quite impressive and the decay is very linear and predictable. These guitars sound very consistent with a distinctive silky and velvety tone with deep basses and rich trebles.