2012 Tobias Berg CD/IN

This 2012 Tobias Berg is a classical guitar with a cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides, built in Germany as his guitar #84, with a carved headstock.

Guitar #84, with a Carved Headstock

Being light in weight, his guitars are very comfortable and fun to play; they are incredibly balanced, with a beautiful, liquid quality to the tone. His cedar-top guitars have fantastic clarity, but still a spectacular amount of added richness, derived from stacked but controlled overtones. Materials on this guitar are top-quality as always, and Tobias decorated it with an elegantly carved headstock - a very tasteful touch to an already exquisite instrument.

His New Double-Sided Method

This particular guitar (#84) features his new double-sided construction method, which Tobias had been perfecting in his own guitars for some time - we were very pleased with several that passed through here that year (see our blog post for the full story). For tone, the double sides give the guitar a deeper, almost "cathedral-like" presence, a quality we had only heard before in modern Friederich guitars.

Photos taken during this guitar's construction

Tobias Berg: From Sweden to Germany

Tobias Berg was born in 1972 in Helsingborg, Sweden, and grew up in the fishing village of Viken. After building his first classical guitar in 1995, he set out to learn the art and craft of guitar making, with courses and diplomas in Canada, England and the USA and time spent with top luthiers including Robert Ruck and Jeffrey Elliott. In 1998 he settled in Germany, where he worked for six years at Lakewood Guitars before earning the German master title (Meister) in Mittenwald in 2004 and opening his own workshop. Today he works in Kirchhain-Anzefahr, in Hesse.

Light, Compact Guitars with Double Sides

Tobias builds traditional, lightweight guitars with a slightly compact body, in the spirit of the Spanish makers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and since 2011 he has built them with double sides - a practice known from Madrid builders and from Daniel Friederich, whom he holds in very high esteem. His headstock, rosette and bridge designs reflect a fondness for traditional Japanese architecture. GSI has been working with Tobias since 2005, when he sent us his 20th guitar; in 2026 he built his 50th guitar for us.