The lowdown on Lowden

George Lowden, who has been designing and creating acoustic guitars in Northern Ireland since 1974, is a true connoisseur of timber. He travels the world in search of the highest-quality specimens, from Alpine spruce and African blackwood to sinker redwood, a rare and expensive kind of wood that has been buried in the silt of Californian rivers.

“I have at my disposal the same tools, the same wood as other guitar-makers, but the key thing for me is, how do I use that wood?” says Lowden. “Every model has different specifications. How thick do I make the soundboards, how high do I make the struts, how do I get the balance between structural integrity and tonal responsiveness?”

Walking into the Lowden workshop in Downpatrick, Co Down, the first thing you notice is the sharp, spicy scent of cut timber. On one shelf, ebony finger-boards are slowly drying out, a process that takes many months. Close by, a stack of mahogany neck-blocks are undergoing a similar evolution.

The mood in the workshop, with each craftsperson at their own station, is one of quiet but intense concentration. Building each instrument takes between six and eight weeks, and they sell for thousands of pounds, but such is the global renown of the Lowden name, the company is currently back-ordered for a year.

It all began in 1973, when the young George Lowden decided to teach himself to make a guitar. “I just got stuck in, really. It was foolhardy, I didn’t know what to do. All I had was my own mistakes and a little book by an English guitar-maker, I wasn’t conditioned to follow a certain design route, I wasn’t copying anyone else, and I tried things with little chance of working. I was paddling my own canoe, for better or worse. But that helped me learn how to design guitars from scratch.”

Since making that first model, which he sold for £60, Lowden has established a series of Irish instruments, distinctive in both sound and appearance.

As the granddaddy of Northern Irish guitarmakers George Lowden has a long list of famous customers, including Eric Clapton, and Richard Thompson.





http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/m...irish-guitarmakers-behind-the-stars-1.2769324

A dealer I frequent had a couple of high end Lowdens a while back, they were incredible acoustics.