Giannini – Fernando Temporão’s collection (part two)

Fernando is a competent luthier and a great expert and enthusiast of the instruments of his land.

«- Giannini Gemini – 1968 – The Gemini project was released late 1967/early 1968 and, in my opinion, is the best solid-body guitar ever built by Giannini.

The guitar dimensions are absolutely the same as a Fender Jazzmaster, but Giannini used soap bar 3 pickups and some metal plates, creating a mix between Jazzmaster and Jaguar models.

Perfect construction, one-piece cedar body, Peroba-do-campo necks and Brazilian rosewood fingerboards.

– Giannini Mirage – 1970 – In 1970 Giannini released the Mirage line, basses and guitars, all semi-hollow instruments.

Those beautiful instruments are, obviously, inspired by the Rickenbacker guitars, and used single-coil pickups and bolt-on necks.

Very good guitars that, just like the Apollos, used a jaguar-type tremolo. Great tone, great necks.

– Giannini Diamond Stereo – 1971 – In the early 70s, Giannini started to use Japanese hardware in almost all basses and guitars, because the Brazilian industry was unable to supply all the high demand from Giannini.

Tuners, pickups, tremolos, knobs, bridges and etc were pretty much the same ones that we find on Japan-made guitars from that period. And the Giannini Diamond was the first guitar – released in 1971 – using that imported hardware.

The Diamond project is a high-quality stereo hollow body guitar with 2 P90 pickups and set neck.

The guitar was made with a laminate Cedar Body, with a 3-piece (cedar-rosewood-cedar) neck and Brazilian rosewood fingerboard.

They were sold in two versions, the standard one (no tremolo) and the one equipped with Tremolo.

– Giannini SG – Tremolo Lux – 1977 – During the ’70s, Giannini built SG guitars that, in my opinion, were better than Gibson’s original ones from the same period.

This Brazilian version wasn’t an exact copy, because Giannini always used 25.5″ scales and Gibson, 24.75″. But the high quality of construction (one-piece mahogany bodies, 3 piece cedar necks, Brazilian rosewood fingerboards with Pearloid inlays) of those SG guitars, combined with very good japan made hardware (those guitars used alnico 2 Maxon pickups, fantastic tone!) make them, in my opinion, the best SG’s from that 70s period.

Much better than the Japanese ones, impossible to compare, and as good or better than the American original ones.

Giannini sold 3 SG models: Standard, Bigsby Tremolo and Tremolo Lux (this one here).

– Giannini Electric Craviola – 1978 – The Acoustic Craviolas were released as an original patented Giannini guitar in 1969 and they were fastly chosen by a huge number of artists as their main instrument.

The Craviolas have a unique visual and were chosen by people like Elvis Presley, Tom Petty, Andy Summers, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Jose Feliciano, Bill Winters and many others.

In the late 70s, Giannini decided to create an electric Craviola guitar, and the result was absolutely wonderful.

Those electric Craviolas were the most expensive guitars of the Giannini catalog at the time and were equipped with two fantastic Ibanez Super 70 humbuckers, with split-coil switches for both pickups.

That guitar is, in my opinion, one of the best (and better looking) guitars ever built by Giannini».

… but how does it sound?

Click the button and listen to the sound of Fernando’s 1977 Electric Craviola.

We greet and thank our friend Fernando for this interesting virtual tour of Brazilian instruments, with the hope of being able to meet soon in person and have the pleasure of a nice conversation and to be able to see these splendid guitars live!

Article by: Fernando Temporão (Rio de Janeiro – Brasil)
Facebook
YouTube
Instagram

The article continues from the first part.