The Finnish luthier Markku Henneken is well on his to making a name for himself in Germany with his jazz guitars. The Royale Deluxe is his top model in a complete series of archtops - of which the basic model, the Karelia Standard, has already been presented here.

Reaching into the tailor-made fitted case for the first time, I was a little surprised : green — very green! — and what's more, beer-bottle green. But on a second look there's something beautiful about the way the color of the finish harmonises with the shimmering abalone inlays. Then the second surprise on taking it out of the fitted case: in spite of its size, the guitar is as light as a feather and for that reason very pleasant to move around. Its measurements are well within the normal bounds, with a maximum width of 43 cm, depth of 8.6 cm, shoulder width of 31 cm and a narrow waist of 25 cm.

Next I take a look at the tonewoods and see a finely grained, two-piece spruce top with small irregularities in the structure of the wood. The sides are made of figured maple, as is the back, though the latter has two strips of maple with perpendicular grain fitted in the middle, seperated by three strips of mahogany. The sides are fitted with a plastic binding, which has an ivory-like pattern with two fine black stripes and is also used for binding the fretboard and the headstock. The binding for the f-holes has only one black strip and is rather narrower. The tailpiece is fixed to a kind of strap button in ebony, which looks very stable and also rather smart, reminsicent of the way the tailpiece is attached on a cello. Immediately below the fitting for the tailpiece is socket for the cable jack, which is also the attachment point for a strap.

The neck is of maple, four pieces cemented together in the grain, with fine strips of rosewood in between. The headstock is veneered on both sides with ebony, which matches well with the ebony fretboard and the bridge and nut, also of ebony. The tailpiece and the covering for the neck adjustment screws are also made of this black African wood, nicely rounding off the overall green-black impression. The abalone inlays mentioned before in the tailpiece and fretboard are in the form of stylized flowers, while the manufacturer's signature and logo are in simpler mother-of-pearl. 

The electronics in this special model are rather unusual and need explanation. For shows and demonstrations, this Royale Deluxe was fitted with two pickups. In addition to the Kent Armstrong "floating" pickup at the neck, there is also a piezo pickup in the bridge. The two pots in the upper side are not the usual volume and tone controls, but rather the volume controls for each pickup.

The test instrument was fitted with a set of D'Angelico Flatwound Light (.011 to .052) which sounded too matt acoustically for my taste and for that reason they didn't really appeal to me amplified either. I liked the tone of the instrument much better with polished .012 strings or unpolished .011 strings, though that's probably a matter of taste in the end. The acoustic tone is astoundingly loud, although it sounds more filigrain and translucent than powerful.
Amplified, there are two different pickups available as mentioned above, each of which can be controlled with its own volume control. So you don't switch between the two pickups, but rather you blend them together. For this purpose I would have preferred other volume knobs with an optical position marker. As it is, you have to turn the control all the way up or down to find out where it is at the moment — and then you've already changed it.

The piezoceramic pickup in the bridge sounds astoundingly full and is almost lounder than the floating pickup, which produces the usual slightly nasal jazz sound. Full volume can only be reached by turning both volume controls up; if one or the other is turned down to for tonal reasons, some volume is lost at the same time. Here, I'd prefer a different electrical circuit that made it possible to switch between the two pickups or to use both together.

I didn't particularly like the playability of the Royale Deluxe at first because of the high action, but it became much better after some addjustments. In that way I was able to convince myself that the neck adjustment screws and adjustment wheels work perfectly. I liked the playability best with the unpolished .011 strings. l would have liked to be able to set the bridge even lower, so that I could start at the lowest point, where buzzing begins, and then slowly work upwards. As it was, I always had the feeling that I'd prefer the action to be a little lower.

With the Royale Deluxe, Markku Henneken has created a quality guitar with high-grade tonewoods and lavish decoration, in impeccable workmanship. Improvements in the action and electronics are to be recommended, however, and these would certainly be no problem after suitable consultations with the luthier. The price can be considered good value for money, taking into account the large amount of work involved and the excellent fitted case included in the price.