Fingerstyle Lowden build suggestions.

[Malcolm Kindnes]

Hi Rirrid, he is English but lives in Australia, he worked with Stefan Sobell for years, he is a nice guy and easy to talk to. Here is a link to Nigel Forsters guitars being played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTwq...ForsterGuitars

[Rirrid]

Originally Posted by Malcolm Kindnes

Hi Rirrid, he is English but lives in Australia, he worked with Stefan Sobell for years, he is a nice guy and easy to talk to. Here is a link to Nigel Forsters guitars being played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTwq...ForsterGuitars

I spent an hour and looked through all his vids and models last night. Whilst I like the tone it they just feel a little too botique for me right now. Very unusual and intriguing though, particularly his warped or rounded soundboards which are "said" to bend the laws of typical tone wood characteristics. Like I said earlier his claims and methods really deserve a thread on it's own or is there already one here?

So anyway I did email Lowden guitars yesterday with the same criteria as I posted here (The best part of a copy paste)and I'll wait to hear from them and go from there I think..... It's either that or snatching up one of the handful of Pierre Bensusans that are currently listed on Reverb when My savings catch up to the asking price in a month or two. This is how much I really appreciated playing the 60/45 neck. I don't even have chubby fingers lol...

I do appreciate the input though so thanks ��

[massimo]

I've had an O25 and an S25 (cedar/rosewood) for almost 30 years now (I actually gave the S to my friend/bandmate a few years ago). They are wonderful guitars.
With time I have grown favouring wider necks, and must say that 2 3/16 saddle is oddly narrow for my tastes. I know they do wider "fingerstyle fingerboards", 60mm wide at saddle. Good. I recently contemplated ordering a custom F35. When one orders (and pays for) a custom made guitar one really wants all aspects to fit. My ideal fingerstyle guitar is 12 fret, 1 13/16 or 1 7/8 nut and 2 3/8 saddle, and short scale, with a cutaway to overcome 12 fret limitations. I have 2 very good guitars like that. Oddly Lowden will not pair 12 fret/fingerstyle neck configuration with short scale. I write "oddly" because that configuration screams short scale in my opinion: believe me, that is a fingerstylist's dream instrument. Nope, I had to give up.

[Rick Jones]

I can't help but find the neck width thing funny.

To be clear, I'm not being negative towards anyone at all here, because it's utterly brilliant that we live in a time when there's so much choice for players, and so many amazing instruments that finding the perfect one to make the best music with.

But I have nine and a half inch wrists, puffy and essentially short 'sausage fingers' that are double the width of about anyone else's I know (and I was a semi-professional strength athlete and powerlifting coach) and can pinch grip smooth sided 45lbs plates or 30lbs slabs of marble together and carry them around all day...

... but I've never found a guitar nut width to be 'too slim'. Mandolin, a few times, maybe. Guitar, nope! Lowden, absolutely never. I'm a pretty 'busy' player, too. And I play fiddle in an events band for part of my living.

I think we can adapt to anything, within reason, and sometimes the amount of choice stops us trying to... we just can't do something then decide there's a piece of gear that can fix it for us, and on ad infinitum. I know I've done it with things outside of music (like lifting shoes) myself.

Hand pics for reference, the top one with an Avalon L32 (Lowden O equivalent) with a 44mm nut:

[Rirrid]

So I just put a deposit down on a new Lowden.

F-50 African Blackwood / Sinker Redwood

Bevel - Black ebony

45-60 Fingerboard spacing.

Eta. Up to 18 months.

Thanks all for the advice.

[musicman1951]

Excellent choice. Enjoy every note (when it finally gets there).