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I put a K&K transducer pair in mine. Perfect reproduction through a Radial DI. Gets used most gigs. You will pick up the chords and scales fast.. and the guitar chords but upside down trick is a lifesaver if lost.
Try a few to get a feel for the necks which are narrow. My number one mando has a slightly wider nut which is nice. I use mine with stainless steel flatwounds which give a nice, solid, woody tone.
Cheers,
cam f
Much more fun:
Blueridge Tenor guitar
Fender Mandostrat
I think the main joy of playing a mandolin is the tuning being in 5ths, and the higher register - the mandostrat delivers those. It's true that the 12-string effect is missing, but with just 4 strings, much more control is possible when playing with skin and nails rather than a plectrum
The tenor guitar is somewhere in between, I'd recommend everyone try one.
For anyone wanting to compose songs with a different feel, I can't recommend enough the purchase of a 4-string instrument tuned in 5ths
intro to Tenor guitar from one of my favourite classical players, he used to play Bach on a tenor banjo
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog
- One of the recommended strings would snap whilst tuning up for the first time, with no nut or bridge issues causing it - it was simply very tight
- It sounded shrill and harsh
My luthier has made some £5k level acoustics from scratch, and knows his stuff, and recommended tuning with the recommended string sets, but 2 semitones down. This way it's got less of that piercing sound you get from strumming a mandolin, and more of a guitar tonality.I tried out the Martin ones in Denmark St (this was in 2011). There was one over 1k that I liked, and a cheaper one that had laminate sides or something. I bought a Blueridge BR60T, I think about £450 back then, it played and sounded like the £1k+ Martin.
I found my old emials on this so can tell you my report to my luthier back in 2011:
Tenor now tuned to CGDA, lots of fun. Strangely, at 32(C), 22, 14, 10(A), the A is very very tight.
The one on it snapped, and I put another on, feels odd having the top 2 so much tighter
The standard CGDA set was 50% tighter than usual on the top 2 strings, which would often break during putting a new one on. I replaced both with 0.001 thinner gauges, and it plays much better now
I'd say even a budget one is good if you're looking to a) get the overall experience b) want to try it and c) have fun trying something new.
I had one and loved it for a while. I didn't stick with it because I realised that to get anywhere near good you had to apply yourself. But it was easy to enough to learn the major and minor chords and take it from there.
They can be bloody loud.
BTW, for an idea of how great they can be outside the rather more typical folkie-type contexts, check out some of the stuff Vivaldi wrote for the mandolin.