C'mon, tell me about your nylon string guitars

[Pascal]

Hey Nylon Rock, what is that? Looks pretty nice. Also, you can go to Photobucket and upload you pics there. They have a Quick and easy resize function for message boards. Then copy the link and put it in the 'Insert image" icon on your reply screen where you post.

Not sure about the exact reference, but it is a Lowden S-series ('Jazz'). And it's beautiful.

I'd be curious to hear its acoustic tone compared to a traditional Spanish guitar...

[nylon rock]

This is my Custom Lowden S-35 Jazz Nylon String.

This guitar gave me troubles at every turn this past first year.

I have taken it back and forth to N. Ireland over the Atlantic a total of 3 times. When George Lowden hand-delivered it to me the second and last time, I was waiting for him in a hotel lobby across the way from the airport and he was running late in the rain. I didn't even have time to take him up on a cup of coffee offer from him. (I hadn't even stayed in that hotel the night before and yet the hotel management came over, after watching me waiting, and informed me that he had called and was running late.)

I had to have it set up in the States since it was giving me terrible buzzing at the nut, and then it thought it was a tree for a whole year. Finally, the constant tension of the strings have made it bow a little and it is coming into its own and I am starting to really like it. The Alpine spruce is starting to get a little hue to it, looking more like the spruce rosette.

It is upgraded from the S-25 series in that the best woods were used with all sorts of purfling as the first photo reveals. The guitar modifications from the norm are the Rodger's Tuners (brass L112), George's Custom rossette of thin abalone (I had asked for blue but it is somewhat green, a light green, but it depends on the viewing angle, so I like to think of it as Emerald, as in Emerald Isle), fingerboard markings alongside the fingerboard, which he may now use as standard since he learned something from my order, voicing for acoustic use rather than the normal electric acoustic version (it has no electronics and I asked that it not have an endpin hole drilled), and it has an Alpine Spruce top from his best, personal stash.

Still no dings, I am happy to report, and his poly something finish really protects the guitar from fingernail scratches. If you get a Lowden, you don't need a clear plastic pickguard, his finish solves that problem just fine.

The sound is not like a classical guitar. The depth of the guitar brings out the bass strings much more, so that the overtones work right up into the treble strings. Whereas a classical guitar can have sorrowful treble notes due to the shallower depth, this guitar tends to bring some of the bass overtones into the treble notes and it cannot have "lonely" treble lead riffs. So, it is difficult to get a sad sound out of it because the warmth of the bass overtones makes the guitar always sound too comfortable, too warm, for it to be sad and uncomfortable.

But, I keep playing it, I use a pick, and I'll be curious to see how it sounds when I put the next set of Labella Golden Superiors on it. Last time I put strings on, just before Thanksgiving, I was pleased with the richness of its sound.

When you order a custom guitar, you have a pre-conceived notion of what it will look like and sound like. After a year, you accept the guitar on its own terms and grow to love it for what it is, rather than dislike it for what you wanted it to be. That's what I went through this past year.

Still, when I open its case I get this really neat smell of newness from it, and it is safe and sound in its bulletproof Hiscox case inbetween playings. The rosette looks really beautiful from the angle that I view it when I play it, and I take for granted the beautiful woodwork that it has, and I seem to forget all the little things like split billet soundboard, so zero runout, for example.

It's a real gem of a guitar and I love watching it age so far. Boy, when it was brand new, with the wimpy strings it had on, and the horrible buzzing from the saddle, and it looking different from what I thought it should have looked like, and all the hassles of lugging it back and forth over the Atlantic, the incredible difficulties of trying to get the VAT refund...all of this combined to make me feel somewhat bitterly disappointed. But with a new year upon me, and the only difficulties being keeping it humidified in the winter and changing the strings, it is like a baby that is just beginning to speak its first words.

[riffmeister]

It's a real gem of a guitar and I love watching it age so far. Boy, when it was brand new, with the wimpy strings it had on, and the horrible buzzing from the saddle, and it looking different from what I thought it should have looked like, and all the hassles of lugging it back and forth over the Atlantic, the incredible difficulties of trying to get the VAT refund...all of this combined to make me feel somewhat bitterly disappointed. But with a new year upon me, and the only difficulties being keeping it humidified in the winter and changing the strings, it is like a baby that is just beginning to speak its first words.

 

 

I remember your trials and tribulations with that guitar......glad all has worked out well in the end!!

 

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