Lowden fans - need your opinion

ToneControl

GRBaldwin said:

LittleBlue said:

Played the Avalon A7. Was a beautiful instrument. Definitely keeping an eye out now. 

Glad you enjoyed it. Avalon, Ireland’s best kept secret as they say.

How did you find the Redwood stood up to your heavy strumming? I would say Spruce all the way for that sort of stuff due to Redwood getting a little compressed when pushed. It’s still a lovely tonewood though and does work well with Walnut.

Yes, Redwood and cedar can be driven easier than harder spruces with fingerpicking.
Stiffer Adirondack has a lot of range with plectrum strumming, but harder to fingerpick. However some spruce tops are very sensitive with fingerpicking, so not all are the same - depends on the wood and the luthier's design.

Anyway, some people like cleaner electric rhythm playing, some like dirtier. Spruce will be crisper, redwood less so. Having said that, one of my redwoods sounds like there is some kind of harmonic exciter in play when fingerpicking

ToneControl

brucegill said:

Hi Graeme

I've only owned 2 Avalons but played a number of them a while back when I was looking. Absolutely lovely guitars for sure. I'm not knocking them - but I have always gravitated to the Lowdens personally. I've owned 4 Lowdens now, just the one at the moment. And 100% understand the overly busy harmonic side you mention. I have found though, string choice is a big part of this, and adapting to the instrument - I cant sit and bang on a Lowden like I can on a D18 for instance. 

I guess to me, when you say focused, I think more about the mids being focused, like how a S  vs a F vs a a Dread would change that mid focus. 

Back to strings, I really struggled when the Lowden's were all strung with Elixirs in the shops to work out what I liked and what I didn't. Everything sounds over the top and brand new. 

My Avalon D300 Americana loses all those Lowdenesque overtones, and does work better for some pieces. It took me a while to realise that having those harmonics turned up to 11 didn't work for all music