Austrian guitarist Thomas Leeb first began to play Lowden guitars in the mid nineties while working closely with his good friend and mentor Eric Roche. Thomas has been playing Lowden guitars since then and it gave George great pleasure to design the Thomas Leeb Signature model. This guitar has been designed to give a deep, not overly heavy, but free bass response and yet with very full ‘fat’ trebles right up the neck.
The figured Walnut back and sides, Sitka Spruce soundboard and custom Thomas Leeb Walnut scratchplate combine with our ‘O’ soundbox geometry to make a superbly responsive guitar which is essential for Thomas to able to give full expression to his multi dimensional music compositions.
We believe that Thomas is one of the worlds most innovative and musical players of today and are particularly proud that he plays our guitars – not to mention helping us to demonstrate their capabilities! And so it is especially fitting that we have collaborated with him in the design of this signature model. Thomas’ playing varies from highly percussive passages to the very lyrical and melodic, therefore his signature model had to be capable of responding to the wide variety of playing styles that he uses. He chose our larger ‘O’ body size for the complexity and bass response and Figured Walnut with a Sitka Spruce top for the extra definition and clarity that he needs. The specially designed ‘scratch plate’ is helpful for creating the ‘snare drum’ type sounds which Thomas needs for certain pieces.