7 Questions with D’Arcy Blake, D’Arcy Guitars

A story that connects Vancouver BC, Bosnia, and New York together – via a couple of Blake brothers, through artistry and Jazz? Do go on…

Custom commissions aside, what is perhaps your ideal archtop luthiery recipe for body, neck, and board? 

All of my favorite sounding guitars I’ve made have been using this really great Bosnian maple that I’ve sourced, as well as Italian spruce. All of my necks use American hard maple. I prefer hard maple because it’s just so stiff, and I think in terms of the transfer of vibration from all the parts of the guitar, the more rigid it is, the more direct the sound. 

I generally think of the guitars that I make as jazz guitars. I know archtops can be used in all kinds of applications, but being from the New York tradition of archtop making,and from a family of jazz lovers and musicians, the jazz sound is really what appeals to me about archtops. I find that the stiff American hard maple and the European maples and spruces, particularly those from Bosnia and Italy, have produced my favorite sounding instruments.

Tell us about one of the more surprising feature requests a customer has made… that you actually incorporated! 

Recently, I’ve started building my 16-inch archtops with an angled neck joint. That was originally requested by my brother, David Blake, who is one of my artists as well. He’s a great New York jazz musician. I had made him a 16-inch archtop several years ago that he’s been playing, but I wanted to make him a new artist model, because I’m always looking for ways to make a better sounding and feeling instrument. When I asked him what he would like, he told me he’d like to be able to access the frets all the way up to the end of the fretboard, which is sometimes hard to do when the heel gets in the way.

So I made a curved neck joint and sculpted heel that allowed him further access. And executing that is very difficult to do, because it isn’t just a template. But the result is a super comfortable neck and heel joint that really lets the player get right up there to the top. At the last Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival, in fact, when the great guitarist Ted Ludwig did a brief interview on his top 5 luthiers, he was super impressed with that feature and asked if I would employ it on all of my models. It’ll be an option moving forward; some people prefer a much more traditional archtop design, and I want to be able to provide that as well.

Your brother David is a professional player, for whom you make a signature version of your Figure Zero. Clearly that’s a great partnership, but what are some of the less expected byproducts of a working relationship with family? 

I’ve always lamented the fact that I haven’t been a stellar musician. My interests have always been really diverse. So, although we both started playing music around the same age when we were probably 7 or 8, he was the one that really stuck with it and excelled. I always regretted that I had never become as good at playing the guitar as I’d wanted to be, and although I got to hang out on the periphery of the jazz scene, I always felt kind of like I didn’t belong there.

But then when I started making jazz guitars, a really wonderful new world opened up to me, because all of a sudden, I’d become part of the New York Jazz guitar scene. And it started with a friend of mine, Pablo Valle, who used to be the go-to repair guy in town and jazz musician, who’d send guys my way. So now, my brother and I, we’re kind of like two sides of a coin in the jazz scene. And that was a turn in life that I never expected; to participate in it, albeit in this unique way.

Another thing about working with my brother that people might not expect is that we actually started this company together in 2020. The way it began was, we had both gone home to Vancouver, BC at the start of the pandemic, and I’d got it in my head that I wanted to build an archtop guitar. And David helped me research the beginnings of that project, and we actually wound up building two archtops together – which were hilarious, looking back at them! But even along the way he has helped me so much – both in terms of promoting my instruments, turning other members of the jazz scene on to me, and also he got a bit of guitar building experience himself from my first project. So, whenever I need an extra hand, if I’m slammed with deadlines, he’s fully capable of coming in and assisting. So I kind of view the entire thing as a family business.

How do you view and treat the relationship between the acoustic and the electric in your designs; translating the acoustical properties through magnetic pickups, which may or may not convey the same set of sonic values through an amp?

Well, I tend to build all of my guitars with the same acoustic voicing process, knowing that they are hollow body, acoustic instruments in their fundamental nature. With that being said, I tend to make about 50/50 guitars with floating pickups and mounted pickups. And on the ones with mounted pickups, I know that a pickup mounted to the top of the soundboard will affect the final tone of the instrument both acoustically and through an amplifier. But I treat them the same throughout the building process.

My vision as a guitar builder has always been the most inspired by the musicians I’ve loved to listen to. First and foremost being my twin brother, Dave, of course. But, you know, Jim Hall, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, the list could go on forever! But these players that inspired me to want to build in the first place are all electric players. And I know that the majority of my clients are going to be playing through an amplifier, either on stage, in the studio, or just practicing at home. So I do also view these as electric guitars. And to also be acoustic guitars, if that makes sense. I guess, in the background of my mind, I don’t really differentiate between the two. I think how it’s going to wind up sounding once being amplified is most likely going to be the primary function of the guitar, so I do consider that. And that includes things like figuring out the fundamental frequencies of the instrument and voicing plates, so that it’s less likely to produce feedback when amplified, etc. 

As a follow up, how do you view the role of the amplifier in that signal chain?

It really comes down to the players’ preference to begin with. I don’t believe that it’s my place to produce a guitar for a client that will sound the way I want it to once amplified, as much as it is to produce one that will sound the way they want it to. My worst nightmare as a builder is for a player to get one of my guitars and say, I can’t get this guitar to sound the way I want it to. Thankfully, that’s never happened to me before, although I can’t help it if it does. But yeah, I do firmly believe that the guitar shouldn’t be something that you have to fight against when you’re amplifying it.

If you could sit at a table with any notable musicians and/or luthiers throughout history, who might be at that table? 

Well, definitely Hendrix, that requires no thought. I would love to hang out with Stradivari and really find out what that secret sauce of his was! You know, there are all kinds of conspiracy theories about what made his instruments sound so great, but I tend to think the magic is in the builder. But it’d be nice to confirm with him, you know? And of course, Jimmy D’Aquisto. I’ve had the tremendously great fortune to work with a lot of people who have personally known Jimmy and have shared with me some great stories about him. 

But, you know, in a much lighter and maybe more accessible way, I think I live in such an amazing era for guitar makers, because of the ease of ability to communicate with one another through social media and because of these great guitar shows. So I’ve actually had the chance to hang out plenty with some of my favorite builders and musicians, like Danny Koentopp, D’Ambrosio, Tyler Wells, Maegan Wells, and all these other folks – I get to hang out with them at events like the Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival.

What is the primary thing you wish all prospective buyers knew or understood better before beginning the ordering process? 

The greatest pleasure for me as a builder is working with clients who love my art, and who understand and accept that there is a fair degree of artistry but also chance to the building process. I’ve had the very good fortune of working with great clients who have encouraged me to be fully engaged in the process and who’re able to conceive of the guitar as a total creation, with specific preferences. Those are the designs that are most rewarding to work on, and I’d love for potential clients to know that I, and other builders like me, love to be able to create that kind of inspired outcome and enjoy that experience while building. 

Learn more about D’Arcy and his work: https://www.darcyguitars.com/