I'm Ken Ratcliff and I'm the maker of Silverangel Mandolins. I've been building mandolins since 1981. I work in Eastern Ky in the heart of bluegrass music country. I was raised here and have this heritage of instrument building and playing in my blood. My mandolins are made by hand without the use of CNC machines which I feel frees the instrument from the possibility of repitition and allows the character and personality of each individual mandolin to come forth, and inhibits the chance of losing the intuition that each piece of wood holds, and each maker can detect what the wood is wanting to do and use his intuitive nature, which is what sets one maker apart from another. I use many different spruces for different voices, but have found that as long as it is carved correctly, it will have "that" sound. I use domestic curly maple, well seasoned, either two piece or one. These mandolins are known for their deep, woody sound, which I've strived for all these years. Through many years of experimentation, I have finally come to a final conclusive result, that is a consistent sound that many people prefer. The way I look at the mandolin is the fact that it is in itself a tiny band. Imagine a band without a treble instrument, the midrange instrument and the bass. You can have all the ingredients, but when one is missing, you don't really have a band, especially the bass. When the bass drops out, everyone says, what happenned? I feel the same way about a mandolin, or violin. Without the bottom end, you don't really have a complete instrument. This is my philosophy.