Nylon String Gypsy Jazz Guitars?

[Tricky Fish]

I’ve recently become aware of nylon string gypsy jazz guitars:

Gitane DG-560 Nylon String - DjangoBooks.com

I never knew such guitars existed and I’m interested to learn more. They sound very different to the traditional gypsy jazz steel string guitars, but might be fun for a mainly classical player that wants to dabble in jazz.

Does anyone have any experience with these guitars?

[Woody Sound]

That's awesome, but I'm STILL looking for a nylon something with a narrower neck AND narrower bridge spacing: for faster picking.

[Matt Milton]

Thomann do a dirt cheap one that I'd be interested to hear. Suspect they've just given it a certain look and called it 'gypsy jazz'.

Thomann Gypsy Nylon CE – Thomann UK

[gitman]

I‘ve tried some over the years and although some were very nicely built and extremely playable I didn’t really get the feeling that their tone was any „better“ or more inspiring than that of a similarly set up „normal“ Nylonstring guitar. They were certainly not as loud or cutting as a regular Gypsy guitar ! The bridge is usually the same so you get similar attack, sustain and dynamics as with a good classical or crossover model. IMHO it‘s more or less a gimmick.

[Tricky Fish]

I’m still curious about this.

I don’t know what bracing is used in this guitar, but it seems to have Something of a gypsy jazz / selmer tone (or perhaps its playing techique):

I like the idea of having a dedicated nylon string jazz guitar instead of using my flamenco guitar. And from what i’ve seen on youtube, i seem to like these gypsy jazz nylon strings over nylon archtops.

I will keep looking into this and i’m keen to hear other thoughts on this.

[ronjazz]

I use flamenco guitars for jazz, they are the best, even had one converted to a 7-string, but the "gypsy" style looks intriguing.

[geese_com]

Raphael Fays makes a non-GJ style nylon string guitar sounds pretty great.

Sandro Lorier also uses a non-GJ style nylon string guitar. Rocky Gresset and Sebatien Giniaux have played Dupont nylon string GJ guitars and sound pretty good on them.

[gitman]

I have no doubt that these are all fine guitars but to me, the point of playing a Selmer-Style guitar is to have a loud and punchy
instrument , either for playing rhythm (grande bouche) or lead (petite bouche) in an acoustic band. The Nylon variants with their
fixed/classical style bridges that I played simply did not nearly produce the volume level that their steelstring counterparts (with a floating bridge)
were/are capable of. So that point does not get a check. Re depth of tone, sustain and dynamic spectrum they did score higher but
again, a good flamenco or crossover nylonstring does that just as well. The players that use nylonstring guitars very often if not exclusively for their
music such as Gene Bertoncini, Duck Baker, Romero Lubambo, Ralph Towner, Paul Meyers, Al Dimeola, Kevin Seddiki, Earl Klugh,
- the list is long - pretty much all of them stick to the more or less classical design of that type of guitar and IMHO the reason is simply this,
that a bigger soundbox doesn't really augment the tonal quality of the instrument except maybe in terms of bass and therefor a slight increase in
volume. They don't project better nor do the bigger guitars gain anything in depth and evenness of tone, sweetness, balance, sustain, what have you....
I'm not saying it can't be done but to my knowledge no luthier has yet cracked the code - I'm also not opposed to trying out new design ideas, quite the contrary,
I'm all for pushing the envelope further but I think the "Gypsy" approach just does not "do it" for me andI ask myself what the point is in making a guitar look
like a Selmer but not getting it to sound like one....

[geese_com]

Wasn't the original Maccaferri model that evolved into the Selmer-Maccaferri guitars we now associate with gypsy jazz originally a nylon/gut string guitar?

[Tricky Fish]

Thanks for all the great feedback.

There is much for me to think about here, particularly given my interest in jazz is primarily chord-melody, which is well suited to my classical. In addition, my flamenco offers a great percussive nylon string tone.

.... but i seem to have that un-ignorable “itch” I get when I “need” to buy a new guitar.

Wasn't the original Maccaferri model that evolved into the Selmer-Maccaferri guitars we now associate with gypsy jazz originally a nylon/gut string guitar?

Yes i have read this from multiple sources. The clip below is an interesting watch re the history of these guitars: