Renaissance Lute 8c LLD® Dowland

Quality, Refinement, and Tradition

Le Luth Doré® lutes, early guitars, and mandolins are designed in Paris by experienced European luthiers and handcrafted according to the highest standards of lutherie.

Each LLD® instrument embodies over forty years of cumulative experience among master luthiers, supported by twenty years of musical expertise from the internationally renowned lutenist Miguel Serdoura.

The tone, resonance, and beauty of our instruments depend directly on the quality of the woods used. That is why we carefully select each species and naturally age the wood to ensure optimal acoustic performance and exceptional longevity.

Every LLD® lute, early guitar, or mandolin is a true work of art: born from a rigorous selection of noble materials and brought to life by the passionate hands of our artisans until reaching perfection.

Made exclusively from selected solid woods and according to impeccable quality criteria, LLD® instruments meet the demands of the most discerning musicians seeking superior sound and an authentic musical experience.

All LLD® instruments come with an exclusive hard fiberglass case that is modern, elegant, and protective. Equipped with an integrated climate control system, it provides optimal safety against the hazards of transport, storage, and environmental variations

• Soundboard: Solid A-grade spruce, rigid and lightweight, selected for powerful fundamental tone and great clarity
• Body: Flamed maple, sanded and finished with thin orange-golden oil varnish
• Spacers: Ebony
• Neck, Bridge & Pegbox: Maple, sanded and finished black
• Pegs: Ebony
• Fingerboard & Frets on Soundboard: Ebony
• Fingerboard Radius: Slightly curved (approx. 2 mm)
• Frets: Sheep gut
• Nut: Natural cow bone
• Rosette: Laser-carved
• Strings: Aquila Nylgut®
• Case: Included LLD® FG-R hard case
• Straps: Two included LLD® L1 case straps

Wood Characteristics and Color

The soundbox of our LLD® Weiss 13-course Baroque lute is constructed from flamed maple. This wood is very dense and reflective, producing a strong, projecting, and sustained sound. Maple is renowned for its range of figured patterns, from curly or flame to birdseye or mottled, adding aesthetic beauty to an instrument.

The orange-golden hue of our thin oil varnish, finished matte and applied over the flamed maple, gives our LLD® lutes a tonal color very close to that of historical lute varnishes from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Sound Characteristics

Maple’s greatest sonic quality is its linearity—it is a wood with a very transparent and predictable sound. It reflects exactly what the instrument’s design and the player’s style bring to it.

Flamed maple is highly appreciated for its sound transparency, faithfully reflecting the qualities of the soundboard without overly coloring them. The flamed maple used on our LLD® lutes delivers a strong, clean, and well-projected sound.

Flamed Maple or Figured Sapelli?

Figured sapelli is a harder wood than flamed maple. Both tend to be direct, bright, and warm, but figured sapelli exhibits more prominent highs and deeper lows than flamed maple—this is the main sonic difference between the two woods.

Flamed maple has a very direct but warm sound and offers fewer harmonics or complexity than figured sapelli. What is initially heard with flamed maple is what remains—the sound projected by the lute at attack remains throughout the note’s decay. Flamed maple should be chosen based on its age to be fully appreciated.

Figured sapelli provides a slightly less direct sound than maple, with stronger harmonics and generally adds more complexity to the lute’s tone.

The Soundboard

Spruce is the most commonly used wood for the soundboard of European lute family instruments. LLD® uses only premium-grade solid spruce soundboards of excellent quality for its lutes.

The soundboard greatly influences the lute’s tone, though the soundbox also plays a key role. It affects the instrument’s responsiveness, sustain, and part of its harmonic color and fundamental tonal quality of each note.

Considering the differences between flamed maple (which emphasizes fundamental tones) and figured sapelli (which emphasizes harmonics), we have selected two different spruces to find the right balance.

The fine-grained spruce used by LLD® with flamed maple lutes is a high-quality lutherie wood, very rigid and relatively light. It produces wide dynamics and a strong fundamental sound.

The more open-grained spruce used by LLD® with figured sapelli lutes is also a high-quality lutherie wood but with slightly less rigidity and lighter weight. It yields stronger harmonics and somewhat muffled fundamentals.

Instrument Setup

Before shipment, each LLD® lute is carefully inspected in Paris by a professional luthier trained at the conservatory and, if necessary, adjusted by a Parisian luthier specializing in the construction, restoration, and repair of quality professional historic and modern lutes.

Our instruments are precisely crafted; they are then fine-tuned to ensure the correct table scooping as well as the proper nut and bridge height to optimize string action.

History of the Lute

The lute is probably the most widespread type of string instrument in the world. In Europe, it enjoyed great popularity from the 15th to the 18th century, playing a key role both in court music and popular music. It is frequently depicted in artworks from the Middle Ages, as well as the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was the quintessential plucked string instrument of these eras.

Originating in the Middle East under the Arabic name ʿūd, it was introduced to Europe in the 13th century. The European lute is distinguished by its rounded pear-shaped body, a neck with a pegbox angled backward, and strings attached to a glued bridge on the soundboard. It features a circular sound hole adorned with a finely carved wooden rosette.

The earliest European lutes followed the model of Arabic instruments, with four strings played using a plectrum cut from a feather shaft. Around the mid-14th century, the strings were grouped in pairs called courses, tuned in unison or, for the basses, in octaves. By the late 15th century, the plectrum was abandoned in favor of finger plucking, and movable gut frets were added to the fingerboard. The instrument then adopted a fifth course. The introduction of frets was a decisive advance, enabling more precise polyphonic playing and better intonation.

The Renaissance Lute

In the 16th century, the classic form of the Renaissance lute emerged, with six courses (the highest course consisting of a single string) tuned to G–C–F–A–D–G, covering a range from G² to C⁴. Subsequently, additional courses were added, increasing the total beyond six.

Among the most renowned luthiers of this era were Laux Maler, Hans Frei, Vendelio Venere, Moeses, and Magno Tieffenbrucker.

As the instrument evolved, a more codified playing technique appeared alongside a specific notation system: tablature. This system represented the courses as horizontal lines and notes by letters or numbers indicating which fret to press and which string to pluck, integrating rhythmic information.

The Archlute, Chitarrone, and Theorbo

At the start of the 17th century, the seven-course lute was modified by adding extra bass strings, giving rise to instruments with eight, nine, or ten courses. This extension required a longer neck and an additional pegbox to accommodate the new strings, called diapasons. These advanced instruments became known as archlute, chitarrone, and theorbo.

The Baroque Lute

Shortly after 1600, French lutenists introduced changes to the instrument’s tuning, leading to decades of experimentation. Around 1650, a new tuning known today as the D minor tuning became standard. The number of courses increased further in the 18th century, reaching up to thirteen.

The first six courses formed a D minor triad (A²–D³–F³–A³–D⁴–A⁴), followed by five to seven additional courses extending down to low A. These D minor lutes, now called Baroque lutes, exist in versions with eleven, twelve, or thirteen courses, depending on the repertoire.

Modern lutenists tune their lutes, vihuelas, archlutes, and theorbos at various reference pitches, generally between 392 Hz and 470 Hz, depending on the instrument type, repertoire, and ensemble practices. Historically, no standard pitch was fixed.

Today, the usual tunings are:

– Renaissance lute at 440 Hz

– Baroque lute at 415 Hz