WET SPANISH THUMB

# The Story

A Spanish guitar made by Vendoma (handcrafted in Argentina) that holds a very, very special place in my heart, as it was the instrument I studied with throughout my 8 years of formal music education. The first “good instrument” I was able to buy with my very first job, over 15 years ago.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was teaching one-on-one guitar lessons in my backyard to comply with local lockdown and social distancing regulations. One afternoon, right after finishing my last class, my girlfriend and I went to the supermarket to pick up some food. It was a beautiful, warm summer-like afternoon—technically spring. I left everything as it was in the yard: guitar, chairs, music stand, sheet music, technique books, and so on.

While we were inside the supermarket, out of nowhere, a torrential downpour broke out. One of those classic summer storms—copious, loud, extremely heavy rain that makes everything come back to life. It took me a few minutes to connect that sudden storm with all my gear left outside.

I left my girlfriend to finish up the shopping and ran back home about a kilometer through the rain, completely soaked, dodging umbrellas, pedestrians, and cars.

Even knowing the guitar was likely being ruined, an odd sense of joy washed over me for some strange reason: that fresh rain on a hot afternoon, running like a kid without caring about getting drenched, people feeling relieved by the cool down, and that wonderful smell of a city getting soaked.

When I finally made it home, the guitar was not only drenched on the outside, but the inside of the body was completely flooded. I removed the strings, called a luthier friend, and set out to dry it. It spent a full month wrapped in rice and paper towels. I changed the paper wads almost every day to draw the moisture out gradually. The key was not drying it too fast, which could have been even more destructive than the water itself.

Right around Christmas, I removed the final paper wads and restretched a fresh set of strings. I had been waiting for that moment for over a month. I had no idea how it had survived, how it would sound, or if it was ruined forever.

It turned out incredibly well, emerging with a significantly warmer tone and smoother, rolled-off highs—almost as if it had a natural high-shelf filter. A guitar whose sound I absolutely love when played softly with the thumb (almost no fingernail) in a downward stroke. And that is the exact motivation behind this sample library.

This virtual instrument was not built to emulate a traditional Spanish acoustic guitar. It is more my personal interpretation of the feeling of playing this specific instrument with a soft thumb technique.

Designed for melodic phrasing rather than dense harmonic chordal work, or for delicate accompaniment using harmonic thirds and sixths (which naturally sit so well on the fretboard). I sampled only the E and A notes across the fretboard—the notes that resonate best across the entire body due to the open bass strings—and captured them across two dynamic layers: *piano* and *mezzo-forte*, explicitly preserving its warm, rounded, and intimate character. Recorded in stereo.

I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it, and that it finds a home in your music.

* Microphones: Line Audio CM4
* Preamps: RME
* Audio Interface: RME

Recorded and programmed with immense love and care on a beautiful summer afternoon in Madrid, my beloved new home.

Lean Sabino

IG: @leansabino