Met a very nice man today.

[leschirons]

I spent a very pleasant 20 minutes talking to Christophe Leduc today. What a nice guy (and what superb basses) He knew that I was not pro and still had the time to talk about his passion for building beautiful basses and guitars. He sold one to Marcus Miller recently (Abe Laboriel has five now) Nothing was too much trouble, including letting a ham fisted amateur pick up, and try his handywork. Seriously playable.

I told him what I currently play and he was full of praise for the maker rather than the often heard "well, they're okay but..."

Made a great day even better. Just need to win the lottery now to get one of his 6 string headless basses.

[essexbasscat]

Sounds like time well spent. Shame some luthiers don't loom very large outside of their own country. Any chance of some piccys please ?

[leschirons]

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='1007152' date='Oct 31 2010, 12:32 PM']Sounds like time well spent. Shame some luthiers don't loom very large outside of their own country. Any chance of some piccys please ?[/quote]

You're right, there are so many great luthiers here and in the UK that don't get the recognition they deserve.

I met a few people there complaining about some of the 2,000 - 3,000 euro prices but speaking to some of these small builders who are doing it as a living, they are only making 6 - 8 instruments a year with hundreds of hours work going into each one.

I'll get a couple of pics from a friend who was with me. It was at the Festival des guitares et lutieres at Issoudun. I used all my phone battery up on videos of acoustic guitarists who made me want to give up.

In the meantime, here's a link to his site.

[url="http://ubass.free.fr/"]http://ubass.free.fr/[/url]

And one to the festival.

[url="http://www.issoudun-guitare.com/"]http://www.issoudun-guitare.com/[/url]