Sounds of my handcrafted classical guitars – Kenneth E. Whisler, Luthier & Performer

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013

My album is available now!

Sacred melodies freely arranged for solo classical guitar. I’ve had this idea brewing in my head for decades. The ideas started flowing to manuscript and to my fingers about 2 years ago. Last September, my son, Joey, and I took a pair of Neumann KM184’s, an RME Fireface UC, and a laptop running Reaper into St. James Catholic Church, a century old midtown parish in Kansas City, MO. After Joey METICULOUSLY positioned the microphones for optimum room and guitar sound, we recorded through the night over the course of 2 days. This album is the result of those 2 nights. There is no reverb or echo of any kind added to the recording. The reverberation that is heard on the recording comes entirely from the room itself and where Joe chose to place the microphones.

The album is available at CDBaby, iTunes, and Amazon.

On Amazon:

Adoration (mp3 download)

June 12, 2009January 24, 2012

Jonah Corn

Wish I had that tone and feel when I was 15….. Jonah playing Whisler #27

March 5, 2009April 29, 2020

recordings and pics-Honduran rw/cedar

adelita

the-girl-with-the-flaxen-hair

December 21, 2008March 23, 2012

Joseph LoDuca

The award winning film composer and guitarist Joseph LoDuca records with one of my guitars. When Joe received a handcrafted classical guitar from me a little over a year ago, he took it to Angel Studios in London and recorded this for the movie, “The Edge of Love” starring Kierra Knightley:

joseph-loducafire-to-the-stars

He used the same guitar for cues in the TNT movie, “The Librarian: the Curse of the Judas Chalice”. Here are a couple of excerpts:

simones-story-excerpt

sunrise-excerpt

Please pay Joe a visit at http://www.loducamusic.com

December 13, 2008January 24, 2012

1st recordings made with classical guitar #4

The 1st recordings from the original website:

Want an idea of what one of my guitars sounds like? Help yourself to any or all of the free music selections here. I took one of my guitars, just prior to it’s sale, into a friend of a friend’s recording studio, asked him to turn off any and all dsp’s and eq’s, set all tonal controls “flat”, and then I proceeded to play live into a pair of condenser mics, the mixing console acting only as a preamp into an ADAT. While cutting out the riff raff and mixing down to a cd, the engineer begged me to let him add a touch of reverb. I conceded, as it was quite dry. But other than that, this is as honest of a recording as one can get.

note from Ken: the following recordings were made with guitar #4, a cedar top braced with an open 5 brace fan using sitka spruce, SE Asian rosewood was used for the back and sides. Shortly after the recording, a ban was imposed on the export of rosewood from that region, and only recently has it been made made available again. Of course the price has increased considerably!

The first 4 tracks are from Oscar Chilesotti’s “Six Lute Pieces of the Renaissance”. Tracks 5 and 6 are by the baroque guitarist Ludovico Roncalli. Tracks 7-11 are 4 studies from Matteo Carcassi’s famous collection of 25 Estudios. Tracks 12 and 13 from Segovia’s (in)famous collection of 20 Sor studies. And 14 and 15 are a couple of Romantic era chestnuts from Francesco Tarrega. Enjoy!