Kenny Hill is aware of guitars. Hill is a famend luthier, a composer of superb up to date music, and an achieved performer as effectively. The nylon-string devices made in restricted numbers in his Ben Lomond, California, workshop are within the elite stratosphere, expensive and beautiful. Incorporating trendy options like double tops, elevated fretboards, soundports, and True Temperament frets, these guitars are typically daring and articulate, with nice word separation, excellent dynamic vary, spot-on intonation, and unbelievable playability. 

Hill’s newest mannequin, the Companion, is a short-scale parlor-sized instrument that prices a fraction of the opposite guitars made within the California store. The Companion is designed to be a professional-quality journey instrument for a classical guitarist or a crossover guitar for the steel-string participant. It may be ordered with a wide range of tonewood combos, from the standard spruce and rosewood to all-maple, for a personalised instrument. 

Not way back, Hill visited my house within the Los Angeles space to indicate me a few freshly made Companions, one with a spruce soundboard and rosewood again and sides and the opposite constructed totally of rosewood. Each devices sounded nice—notably current and well-balanced. The spruce-topped model had a crisp tone, whereas its all-rosewood counterpart sounded darker and mysterious. Hill left the latter with me, and I actually loved attending to realize it. 

Easy Design and Glorious Execution

Match and end are exemplary on the handsomely austere Companion. There’s a Shaker-like simplicity to the design, from the skinny concentric strains of the rosette to the stark monolith of a maple tie block on the rosewood bridge. Except you depend the matching rosewood heel cap and headstock veneer, the guitar’s solely ornamentation is a slender band of maple separating the 2 again plates. All of those features actually spotlight the great thing about the woods, as does the peerlessly utilized satin lacquer end.

Time slips away while you play a guitar as well-built and charming because the Hill Companion.

The guitar’s Golden Age tuners should not simply enticing with their engraved brass plates and pearloid knobs, they work easily and maintain the pitch very effectively. And though the Companion doesn’t sport True Temperament frets as on the highest-end Hill fashions, the intonation is spot-on; chords each easy and sophisticated ring collectively superbly up and down the neck. 

The Companion feels very inviting to carry and play. Rosewood is considered being a heavy tonewood, however the guitar is gentle and well-balanced. Substantial however not chunky, the neck has a really comfy D-shaped profile with loads of shoulder. With a 620mm (24.41-inch) scale size fretboard and 48mm (1.89-inch) nut width, it’s additionally nice for a guitarist who has smaller arms, and the brief scale makes taking part in ordinarily tough finger stretches a breeze. Whereas the motion on the overview mannequin is just a little excessive for my style, there’s loads of room to decrease the saddle, and, not like most nylon-string guitars, the Companion has an adjustable truss rod for adjusting the neck reduction.

A Charming Voice

General, the Companion has a delightful, spherical tone with ample bass and plump trebles. There’s a three-dimensional high quality to the notes; the sound surrounds you and pulls you in—an impact possible enhanced by the soundports on the higher bouts. 

I attempted a spread of fingerstyle repertoire on the Companion, together with a few of my very own items, that are within the up to date classical/jazz vein; my woodshed tune of the month, the jazz commonplace “Blue Bossa”; a bunch of workout routines from Mauro Giuliani’s 120 Research for Proper Hand Improvement; and an association of the standard track “Shenandoah” that I’ve been engaged on. The guitar sounded equally lovely in all these completely different contexts, with nice readability and word separation.

After I performed some single-note strains with a flatpick, the Companion responded equally effectively. With this method, the guitar’s throaty midrange turns into obvious. I even felt a little bit of a David Rawlings/small archtop vibe once I dug in with the decide, displaying that the guitar has a flexible voice. 

Whereas I had good enjoyable taking part in the Companion round the home—its spherical, mysterious high quality was a pleasant match for my late-night modal meanderings—it will even be an amazing guitar to have within the studio. I might positively see the instrument’s bell-like chords and spherical lead strains making for an amazing solo recording, or sitting properly amongst different tracks. 

The Backside Line

Time slips away while you play a guitar as well-built and charming because the Hill Companion. With its compact physique, it’s equally fitted to the highway and the sofa. The guitar’s brief scale size and comparatively slender nut would really feel like house to a steel-string guitarist, and the instrument could be an amazing choice for discriminating gamers wanting so as to add the subtle sound of a nylon-string to their arsenals. A superb companion certainly!

Specs 

BODY Parlor measurement 12-fret; stable rosewood prime, again, and sides; fan bracing; twin soundports; rosewood bridge with maple tie block and compensated saddle; satin lacquer end

NECK 620mm-scale Spanish cedar; slotted headstock; ebony fretboard; 19 frets; 48mm compensated nut; Golden Age tuners

OTHER D’Addario EJ46 Professional-Arte strings; Córdoba softshell case

MADE IN USA

PRICE $2,500 direct

hillguitar.com