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That's a nice looking mando,
Paul...F-Style...pricey too! As for the cheapy I am playing by Gold Tone,
it's the only single-string, 6-string Mandolin I could find on the market
without having one made. Gibson used to make one, but discontinued it. Relative
to how the traditional mandolin is tuned (in fifths), I suppose mine is tuned in
an "altered" way, as it is tuned exactly like a guitar out of the box.That is
why it was so easy for me to pickup and play. Heck, it's basically a
miniature jazz hollow-body guitar...except I tune it down to C rather than
starting at E. It loosens up the strings a bit. But I may try some altered
tunings, like tuning it in tri-tones. That ought to force me to play outside the
box. I need to buy some replacement strings for it, but I'm afraid I'll have to
just order the strings individually.
As for electrifying it, I had one of those McIntre
acoustic feather pickups installed in it....and the strap button that serves as
a jack....then I run it through an LA Bags acoustic preamp....it sound quite
good, although if I was willing to spend more money, I would have bought a
pickup that fits under the bridge....the feather pickup still picks up a bit of
external noise, which ends up being sort of interesting for the type of music I
am playing!
After a year, if I am still hot over this
6-string mandolin, I plan to have a luthier make me a custom version that is a
bit larger scale..like a 6-string tenor mandolin...maybe drop a few grand
or so on one. The fret size on this thing is just so hard to get used to.
It slows me down, which I guess I need to do anyway. :)
K-
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