A celebration of the Mexican requinto romántico, the classical guitar’s bright-sounding, smaller-scale cousin and the tool of choice for influential trío romantico shredders.
I was recently in Mexico on business, traveling through a few states. While I was there, I was thinking of Premier Guitar and this article I was going to write. I have so many instruments in my head that I want to share with you, and I thought, “Why not start with one from Mexico?”
But which one? There are so many instruments that come from Mexico, and part of what I am striving for is to help educate people on not only the instruments, but the genres, too. Oftentimes, Americans hear music sung in Spanish over a guitar, and they just assume it is all mariachi. That would be similar to someone visiting the United States and assuming everything they hear was either rock or hip-hop. Fortunately, most guitar players have a deeper understanding of the rhythmic patterns of various genres, and can recognize the stylistic differences.
With that in mind, let’s discuss the stringed instrument used in one of the most romantic genres of Mexico: the requinto romántico, which was the first style of guitar I ever built at age 12. Even the name tells you it’s romantic. While the term “requinto” is used to describe instruments from Spain, Portugal, and other Hispanic and Latin countries, the 6-string requinto romántico originated in Mexico and was made popular by trío romántico ensembles like Los Panchos. Like other tríos románticos, Los Panchos were known for three-part vocal harmonies and featured two nylon-string classical guitars accompanied by a requinto romántico. You can hear a whole spectrum of rhythmic styles within the trío romántico genre, like vals (waltz), pasillo (Colombian and 19th-century styles), bolero (from east Cuba), and Mexican ranchera. Los Panchos in particular featured the great Alfredo “El Güero” Gil, who was born in Teziutlan, Puebla, not far from the Veracruz border and the great city of Xalapa.
Requintos have smaller bodies than regular classical guitars, and their tuning is unique, too: A2–D3–G3–C4–E4–A4, one fourth higher than the standard classical. The shorter scale, ranging between 530 mm and 540 mm, facilitates the higher tuning without warping the top or neck, or causing worry about strings breaking. Traditionally, requintos have between 19 and 22 frets, and, like classicals, the 12th fret is located where the fretboard meets the body of the guitar. Their tops are typically made of spruce or cedar, while the bodies implement mahogany, cedar, Palo Escrito, or East Indian rosewood. Some older models made by my family were made with Brazilian rosewood. (My grandfather, Porfirio “Pilo” Delgado, is even credited with making the first cutaway requinto romántico.) Requintos have historically been strung with either nylon or gut strings—made from lengths of animal intestine—and wound bass strings. So, playing a requinto romántico is like playing a classical guitar with a capo on the fifth fret, but you still have the full scale and a brighter tone thanks to the body design.
“Oftentimes, Americans hear music sung in Spanish over a guitar, and just assume it is all mariachi.”
Originally, requinto románticos were built with a smaller body—not quite as small as a baroque guitar body, nor quite as long as a parlor guitar body. Today, the body size is shorter in length than a classical, but the width is often comparable, with some bodies ranging up to five inches in depth. In 1991, the Korean-owned, American-based manufacturer Tacoma came out with a steel-string version of the requinto romántico, claiming it to be the first of its kind. This is like claiming the ukulele to be a complete original, not recognizing the Portuguese machete that precipitated its creation. Plus, early on, string-maker El Cometa had a steel-string option for players who played requinto románticos.
“Sabor a Mí” by Mexican composer and singer Álvaro Carrillo, “Historia de un Amor” by Panamanian songwriter Carlos Eleta Almarán, and “Bésame Mucho,” a bolero song written in 1932 by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez, are just a few of the more popular trío romantico songs. If you’re a fan of great guitar playing, I encourage you to go down the rabbit hole and listen to some of these artists. With no effects pedals and no distortion to hide behind, these players are true.… Wait, what’s the Spanish word for “shredders?”
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Read the the review online, in its entirety, for free -- click here.
Read the the review online, in its entirety, for free -- click here.
The new Japan-crafted Takamine P3MC is a fine example of how a stage-centric, amplification-oriented acoustic can be forward looking while retaining a lot of vintage-style sound and construction virtues.
In the four-plus decades that Takamine has sold guitars in the United States, the company has won scores of professional devotees—particularly among performers who face the challenge of amplifying acoustics on big stages. Bruce Springsteen and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher—both of whom have, in their respective seasons, vied for biggest-band-in-the-world honors—used Takamines to solve the problem of making acoustics sound great in stadiums. And while the art of acoustic amplification has opened up a lot of new and different avenues to great acoustic guitar sound in the last decade or so, there is little arguing or challenging Takamine’s knack for building great-sounding acoustic-electrics that are virtually bulletproof and, at times, exquisitely and masterfully built.
With its tapered headstock, venetian cutaway, and rather substantial preamp interface, the very reasonably priced new PM3C is an unmistakable sprout from the Takamine family tree—it’s stage-ready and built for reliable plug-and-play service. Crafted in Japan, this cedar-and-sapele flattop is a reminder how well built and playable Takamines are by any standard. It’s also a fine example of how a stage-centric, amplification-oriented acoustic can be forward looking while retaining a lot of vintage-style sound and construction virtues.
Mellow and Modern
Depending on which side of the “vintage
is king” divide you’re on, you’ll either find
the P3MC’s design refreshing or a little too
new-world. What isn’t up for debate is how
well it’s put together. The only irregularities
I could find anywhere were some very small
spots of excess glue around the kerfing and
neck block, and pearloid plastic plugs just
adjacent to the saddle that failed to sit flush
and were cut a bit rough.
Though cedar’s sonic qualities are the best reason to use it for top wood on an acoustic, few woods are as subtly handsome. The P3MC’s satin finish reveals a lovely, straight grain, feels silky smooth, and gives the guitar the modest-but-solid aura of rural high craft. It’s one of those guitars where a pickguard would upset the visual balance, and you won't find one here. However, that might be a practical addition here, given how the finish showed pick scratches below the soundhole after a few days of use. The only real adornments are a dark hardwood marquetry rosette and very pretty black, white, and wood binding.
The bridge is classically Takamine—a fine piece of wood design that functionally deviates from tradition while imparting a modern woodwork sensibility. It’s also home to Takamine’s split-bone saddle, which improves intonation and facilitates more accurate and specific intonation and action adjustments over the life of the guitar.
Player’s Playground
A lot of guitarists came through
the house while our test P3MC
was around, and few failed to be struck by
how good the Takamine felt in hand. The
mahogany neck has a fairly substantial C
profile that seems to reduce hand fatigue
over the course of a long rehearsal. More
notably, the action is low and fast. It’s rare
to encounter an acoustic with action this
low that isn’t plagued by fret buzz. And
it adds up to a flattop that’s conducive
to fleet-fingered pull-offs, hammer-ons,
and legato work—even if its 1 5/8" nut is
slightly less than ideal for fingerstyle—and
it makes complex chords virtually effortless.
If there’s any drawback to the low action, it’s that it makes digging in for big blues bends a little more challenging—especially for those with bigger, fatter fingers. That’s remedied easily enough with a little neck relief, however, and finding an acoustic that leaves you more concerned with action that’s too low rather than the opposite is a not a bad problem to have.
Cedar might be one of the most unsung tonewoods, and its virtues shine bright here. In delicate fingerstyle settings, it’s simultaneously warm and responsive to a light touch, and it exhibits a cool combination of snappy, concise decay and warm afterglow that’s a perfect middle ground between mahogany and spruce.
Aggressive strumming of the P3MC highlights the strong midrange presence derived from the marriage of cedar and the compact orchestra-sized body. Those same attributes, however, mean a certain lack of low-end thump and sustain that might put off players accustomed to the low-end potential of, say, a spruce-and-rosewood dreadnought.
Ratings
Pros:
Warm, concise tones. Fast action and exceptional
playability. Quality design and construction. Versatile preamp.
Cons:
Preamp control panel is quite large.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,149
Takamine
takamine.com
The upside of this tone equation is that it can be ideal for strummers who tend to operate in a rock-oriented band where a bassist and drummer provide most of the low-frequency punch. And it’s a great match for the CT4B II preamp and proprietary Palathetic pickup system (which uses individual piezo transducers for each string). Running through a Fishman Loudbox amp and a Mackie PA, the P3MC had a sweet, jangly midrange that was rarely colored by any nasty piezo artifacts—even at high volume and under heavy pick attack. The preamp is not only forgiving, it’s highly tunable. And the 3-band EQ is both responsive and flexible, with a cut/boost capacity of 5 dB in either direction—which makes it a lot easier to tailor for varied performance environments. The very cool tuner is great for a couple of reasons—you can change your reference pitch from A440 to dial up alternate tunings or to, say, play in tune with an eccentrically tuned piano or pitch-shifted backing track. More streamlined preamps are out there, but few can leave you feeling quite as well equipped for any performance environment as the CT4B II.
The Verdict
Takamine has always appealed to players
with more modern performance concerns.
Its smart, well-executed designs have made
it one of the vanguards of amplified acoustic
guitars, always keeping the company a
relevant presence in a fast-changing and
competitive amplified acoustic market. And
the P3MC excels at all the things that have
made Takamine popular in that corner of
the guitar cosmos. But it’s also a reminder
of how thoughtfully and well built the
company’s guitars can be.
Workmanship on our P3MC was exceptional, and even the very minor imperfections seemed more like the product of a human touch rather than a CNC rig gone awry. The playability, meanwhile, is something no machine can deliver on its own, and this guitar is among the sweetest-feeling flattops we’ve seen over the last year. At less than $1,200 bucks, it inhabits a pretty crowded field of very good flattops. But with tones this distinct and playability this good, the P3MC stands apart from the pack.
Watch our video demo: