If you've played a new Lowden recently, you'll appreciate just why George Lowden is generally regarded as one of the finest luthiers and designers in the guitar world today.

Vintage Guitar.co.uk's Seamus Brady visits the master at work in his atelier workshop in Downpatrick, County Down

VGUK: I wanted to ask you about the new body shapes, or rather the change in body shapes…

GL: I forgot I changed those (laughs)

VGUK: Obviously there’s a change in the overall voice…

GL: There is, but I don’t think that’s primarily down to the shape. It’s the voicing of the bracing, but also the overall construction is slightly changed in some ways because I’ve had a chance here to make the construction jigs from the ground up.

VGUK: Looking at the models, the F model is more curvaceous

GL: That was just me looking at the shape and thinking that it was a bit thick around the waist… better ‘fix’ that one. A bit like myself, getting thicker around the waist. Call it a midlife crisis.

VGUK: Is the move to the curvier F shape an aesthetic thing?

GL: Purely aesthetic.

VGUK: and has that changed the voice of the instrument?

GL: I don’t think that it’s changed it significantly. It’s all the other things that have changed the voice: The construction methods that we use here; the jigs themselves; the attention to detail and the training – which is very important, particularly when you’re talking about things like bracing, the voicing and the hand carving of the bracing, thickness of the tops and the soundbox assembly and preparation and method of doing it. All of that has a large bearing on the sound of a guitar. So we use a different method here of preparing the sides ready for the top and the back to be glued on than at the other factory, for example.

All of the small things, when you add them all together throughout the process make a difference collectively.

Rosewood-bound 35 series fingerboards

VGUK: Something you have done is to change the scale length on the S models

GL: yes to 630mm

VGUK: Was that because people were asking for a shorter scale?

GL: Yes we did have some requests for that, but also I always felt that a 630 scale for a small bodied guitar was more in proportion and would be likely to lower the string tension slightly and help to create a slightly softer voicing on the S models.

I wasn’t 100% happy with the voicing on the S models that were being made between 1993-2003 because I felt it was a bit too ‘ragtimey’. What you’re always trying to avoid with small guitars is that harshness and boxy-type sound.
You want to try and create a softer, deeper warmer sound in a small guitar.

The very first prototype of the S model that I made which was for Nick Webb back in the early 90s had a beautifully soft voice. Very, very soft, very warm, very clear. But the ones that were made subsequently to that under licence had more of the ragtimey voice, but I always preferred the other voice. So this is an attempt to get closer to that.

VGUK: Have you been able to use the shorter scale length as a result of your return to the Dolphin-profile bracing, rather than the tall bracing?

GL: We could always have made that change at any point.

The thing is the elusive voice that I got on that prototype… I made that guitar myself and there are certain things that I did on it which are very difficult to achieve in a limited production environment… I’m getting closer to it: The feedback on these guitars has been very good.

They’re really nice. Different, but really lovely. Distinctive… you’ve got a new S, haven’t you?

VGUK: I should have one being shipped… (this one! Click here) although I did just receive the F35C…very nice walnut

GL: Beautiful walnut! Not just nice!

A Bridge Too Far

VGUK: Is that Black American Walnut?

GL: That’s Bastogne. There’s Claro walnut, American walnut and Bastone walnut. Bastone is a half between Claro and English or European walnut

VGUK: I can see where the word ‘Bastone’ derives from

GL: That was my thinking (laughs). But it’s beautiful. A phenomenal-looking wood.
Did you notice by the way that that guitar has a 43.5 mm top nut?

VGUK: Really?

GL: It has… it’s the usual width at the bridge, but more of an ‘American’ width at the nut. There’s a story behind that particular instrument: it was supposed to have a narrow neck, but when it was made, Daniel [Lowden] said “it’s got a standard neck on it” because he’d measured it at the 14th fret, rather than at the top nut. So rather than going to America, you were happy to get it (and we are! Just take a look). Then Daniel checked again and said “it does have a narrow neck!” so then I checked it and it does, but only at the top nut.

VGUK: But it doesn’t feel cramped…

GL: It doesn’t because it’s got the right spacing back here at the bridge, like a slightly narrow version of the SLE neck… The SLE is 45mm/60mm and our normal necks are 45mm/57mm

VGUK: It does work – it feels fantastic

GL: Oh yes, it’s a unique guitar. In fact that’s the way we’re going to do our 43.5mm necks from now on. They work better.
For the players that like the narrower, American-style neck, it gives them that little bit of extra room for the right hand.

GL: Some people don’t like too low a profile on the neck, so our standard necks are halfway between low profile and ‘traditional’. We do have a low profile neck, but we offer it as a custom option.

You don’t get heavy necks [on Lowden guitars] anymore - there are variations because they’re all hand-carved, but the tolerances are close.

VGUK: Years ago I had Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and the worst thing for that was playing really low profile necks because they don’t support your hand

GL: But people don’t like clumpy necks either: I think somewhere in between is right and I’m trying to achieve that.