Post by Dar SheltonDid somebody say "Lowden" ?......
I had a Taylor. Now I have a Lowden that's a little hard to play . It
has in intensely beautiful sound (especially with those Newtone strings)
and I am a stubborn s.o.b. so we're making progress. Someday (but maybe
not) I'll have another nice guitar (so many great brands to choose
from) and if so I'm going to get one that's really easy to play . But
hey, I almost gave up on the Lowden in frustration. Boy am I glad I
kept after it and began to tame the thing,
hot DAMN !.
Problem I have with my current big Lowden, and the last one too, is that
the strings move so much physically the action would need to be really
high to avoid them clattering around on the frets. Every month or so I
de-shim it, try lighter strings, and play gently - the sound is
wonderful. Then I go to a session and someone complains that they simply
can not hear my guitar - everyone else is playing pick strummed
Washburn, cheap Koreans, Seagulls etc and the volume is MANY times what
a bare-finger played Lowden O-12 can achieve. So I get out a pick and
strum, and of course, it ends up as a rattlefest - little audible except
strings hitting frets. Then I put the shims back in, raise the action to
3mm-4mm instead of 1.9-2.9, put back 12-52 strings, and find I've lost a
lot of flexibility and ease of playing.
Yet put me in a concert situation - solo gig, small PA or no PA and
quiet room - and the Lowden is wonderful. The clarity, accuracy and the
tone of the instrument blow anything away and when not drowned out by
three loudly strummed (and slightly out of tune!) fellow session
songsters, it's perfect. In sessions, I find myself constantly wanting
to retune because my accurately and finely tuned guitar immediately
sounds out of tune when played alongside inaccurately and 'variously'
tuned instruments, which are simply not as sensitive to their mistuning.
The Lowden sound is so pure that tiny errors in tuning, whether against
itself or other instruments, sound awful.
It continues to be a problem for me. If I can really only play this
guitar well as a solo instrument, in a quiet audience situation or with
a mic/pickup being used, then I do not really need the large O body. In
fact I could use a very small instrument with the right qualities - I
don't need the 650mm scale either. I'm playing a couple of instruments
with 612mm and 540mm scales at the moment, and the speed and ease of the
540mm scale amazes me. Admittedly it's tuned up to GDGCDG, it's nylon
strung and it has only got a 43mm nut width, but this is a half-size
solid wood classical - smaller than a parlour guitar. It is amazingly
loud and clear if strummed hard yet very subtle if played fingerstyle.
If a small body like this can work for nylon string, and have a balanced
an good tone, it must be possible to make a steel string which can do
the same. It might need 14-58 strings for standard tuning. But why not?
David