ALBUS DRACO
hurdy gurdy builder

My workshop / caravan is parked in the countryside of Mareuil in Perigord.
I learned to build hurdy-gurdies with luthier Philippe Mousnier. Sharing a lot of his points of view I took some of his techniques as "felts keyboards" or the "moving wheel" (developed with Romain Baudoin).
In the lineage of what Philippe taught me I try to produce comfortable instruments, with a warm sound, defined and circumscribed if possible while avoiding some "noisy" sounds that are sometimes the pleasure of some instrumentalists.
In the same way I generally deal with the amplification of electric and electroacoustic hurdy gurdies in a rather radical way with the use of magnetic microphones (like on most guitars). The sound thus obtained with the hurdy gurdy is finally quite close to the natural sound. On the other hand, each microphone picks up its source independently, which limits the neighboring strings effect as much as possible, thus allowing the cleanest possible mixing.
Again, like Philippe Mousnier, I favor for my hurdy gurdy making the use of local woods (Périgord and bordering regions) of which I generally keep the natural aspect.
I'm also involved in the Périgurdy project.