Thanks for the replys, after some thought, and watching planxty, ive decided for either mandolin or bouzouki.
some of the ones ive been looking at.
http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/bigpic.php?ID=GR3112
http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/bigpic.php?ID=GR3124N
http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/bigpic.php?ID=GR3125
Bouzouki’s
http://www.hobgoblin.com/local/bigpic.php?ID=GR3512
are any of them any good or are they total crap ?
thanks.
I’m a regular visitor to Hobgoblin, and I’m afraid those all lean a bit towards the crap end of the spectrum. One of the mando’s you link costs £249 (I think). Well, IMHO you’d do better to wait a while and then get an Eastman or a JBovier in the £300 - £400 range. Or, if you really can’t wait (which I believe would be a mistake) even one of the solid wood Kentucky mandos.
Eastman, Bovier and Kentucky all do oval hole A styles, and I recently sold a much-loved Eastman 504 which I would recommend to anyone without hesitation.
I would also recommend a trip to The Acoustic Music Company in Brighton. Even if it takes all day to get there on the train, it would be the best time and money a beginning mando player in mainland Britain could spend. Trevor has a huge range for you to try.
Don’t be tempted to go with those Hobgoblin cheapies. You’ll regret it within 6 months, once you hear what a real mandolin should sound like. Resign yourself to saving up £365 for an Eastman 504 or a Bovier A4.
Check out TAMCO at http://www.theacousticmusicco.co.uk/ . No financial interest, just a two-time very satisfied customer.
I couldn’t agree more with buddhu. You can do much better than that for your money. The first one especially is an inadequate instrument.
A trip to a proper shop is priceless and the wisest thing you could do. It’s more than just seeing and playing instruments in your price range. Even more importantly a good shop will set up the instrument. There are lots of musical things that can be purchased in boxes from the Internet, but a mandolin is not one of them. They need a number of adjustments to make them their best. That alone is worth the effort to visit a shop.
That’s missing the final step:
I dont really want to pay more than £200 for a first mandolin, i know the tone and feal wound be the same as a £600 + mando. Can bluegrass mandolins be used for celtic music (for a begginer). So are kentucky mandolins any good ?
Also
http://www.theacousticmusicco.co.uk/erol.html#1721X0 the km-150 and km-174 and km-340.
and
http://www.eaglemusicshop.com/details1.asp/ProductID/1282/sid/145/ozark-om100-ast-solid-timber-hard-shell-case-mandolin.htm anygood or more crap ?
Edit : This mandolin will only be for self Entertainment and Family, Friends, jamming stuff.
Yes, Kentucky mandolins are a good bet for a beginning instrument. They’re a well known company in that price range. The most important thing in the beginning is to look for solid construction and playability. Make sure it stays in tune, plays in tune with itself, has a good action without buzzing, and is solidly built to last a while. You can’t expect a super tone in that price range, but the Kentucky mandolins are some of the better ones. They are usually very playable and will get you started. They tend to keep some of their re-sale value as well. More than the others you’ve listed.
You’ll find all manner of mandolins playing Celtic styles. If you stick with an archtop A style or a flat top mandolin, you’re more likely to find better quality in that price range than if you go after the fancy F style with all it’s carving and such. The simpler instruments often have the money put where it counts when buying a low-priced instrument.
Yup. The solid wood Kentucky mandos are reasonable starters. Not great, but at least they are real mandolins. The 380s gets fair reviews. Tim’s right about maybe going for A style rather than the F (scroll) styles. The scroll adds to the price, but the sound is pretty much identical between A and F, so A is most bang for yer buck.
Bluegrass mando’s are fine for Celtic and folk styles (Tim O’Brien and Simon Mayor both rip out some great ITM on A style archtop bluegrass axes). On the other hand, if you go for a flat top “Celtic” style mandolin, you’ll be stuffed if you ever want to knock out bluegrass tunes.
And don’t discount that possibility, there is a lot of crossover between the two genres. St Anne’s Reel, Blackberry Blossom etc etc. I’d probably not choose bluegrass for recreational listening, but some of those Monroe tunes are fun to play!
Just to emphasize one thing buddhu said: The SOLID WOOD Kentucky mandos are reasonable starters. The plywood ones are a bit more inconsistent, especially since they moved production to China a few years ago. I’ve got a Chinese-made KM140 here that was a pretty decent-sounding instrument for a year or so, till the top caved in.
Yes, let me clarify my statement as well. When I said solid construction, I meant solid WOOD construction, specifically a solid wood top. In the beginner’s price range the sides and back are often laminated, but look for a solid wood top for best value.
Question: the chief problem listed for mandolin in sessions
is insufficient volume. My impression is that the A style
archtop bluegrass mandolins project better. Does this
solve the problem?
Well, yes and no. The mandolin is a small, hence quiet stringed instrument. Sessions have, by and large, become a competition for volume. The whistler buys a loud Susato, the guitarist upgrades to a D28, the piper gets tennis elbow from squeezing so hard. Six bodhran players show up at once and the whole thing goes to hell. Eventually everyone will start using microphones anyway.
The chief driver for volume in a mandolin has less to do with the style than it does with the construction. Thin, well tuned soundboards properly matched with the right strings, picks, and techniques deliver volume. Unfortunately, the characteristics that make mandolins loud aren’t too often found in entry-level instruments.
OK, what mandolin in particular has the volume one needs?
Any recommendations?
There was a mandolin in a session in Bloomington I attended,
well played but hard to hear. The session wasn’t over the top
volume wise. Quite a good session. loudest instruments
were fiddles.
Also there are resonator mandolins. e.g. National makes some.
Not banjo/mandolins.
These are loud enough I assume.
Are they a good idea?
In very general terms, an arch top (A, F, or similar style) will be louder than a flat top of bowlback. Despite that, the large-bodied flat tops are very popular in sessions for their 'Celtic" sound. There actually is no official Celtic sound though. The mandolin is a relatively new arrival on the Celtic scene. Personally, I think a lot of people prefer them for their shape, which is kind of Celtic looking, in a Lord of the Rings kind of way. (You know what I mean.).
A high quality A style arch top with F-holes will be loud. An A style archtop with an oval hole will aslo have considerable punch, and retain much of the ‘Celtic’ charm. The same is true of F styles with either hole configuration, but the A style is the more affordable and more widely accepted look.
Setting aside resonators and banjolins for the moment, much depends on the maker and, to be honest, price tag of a quality arch top. It’s not that one brand is so much better as it is that making really well-balanced, responsive, and loud instruments is expensive. You can get lucky with moderately priced mandos if you have the opportunity to try a bunch. But most folks don’t have that advantage.
The real question becomes: “How much ya wanna spend?” If I were in the market for a loud mando that didn’t cost both arms and a leg, I’d forego the Celtic look and head for an A style with F-holes. Something in the Eastman line, or if there’s enough in the budget, a lower priced Collings or Weber.
As for resonators, they can have a very sweet tone and are real sound cannons, but they lack the sound that is favored in sessions. They’re more a specialty instrument that sound great on a tune or two, but they can easily be overdone.
I’ve yet to play a banjolin that would be welcome in a session. They’re loud as a foghorn, but very harsh. Imagine the tenor banjo player with a capo at the 12th fret, banging away.
Thanks. Helpful. If I may ask another question:
How do vintage Gibsons do?
Also any info on Big Muddy mandolins?
They’re made here in Missouri.
They seem to be very well and simply
made of good material. Look Celtic, too.
I once saw a 1920 Gibson with a flat top,
thin body, that was made for the Salvation
Army and widely distributed. The
Big Muddy looks like one of these,
roughly.
I can’t really speak to Gibsons, other than to say they’re are the oldest, most respected name in mandolins. But you already knew that. I’ve only played five or six Gibsons in my life, and well, I’m not a Gibson fan because their necks don’t fit my hand well. They are loud though. Be wary of those built in the seventies. That was known as Gibson’s Firewood Period. They made some of their worst mandolins then.
Big Muddy (used to be Mid-Missouri Mandolins) get high points for flat top designs, as do the old Flat Iron mandolins. Flat tops usually don’t have the brute force volume of an arch top, in my experience. The whole idea behind the arch top designs was to get the volume up by adapting violin technology, if I recall correctly.
Those old Gibson flat tops were sold on military bases all over the country. They were called the Army-Navy mandolin. You could buy them in the PX. The Salvation Army model may have been one of those. Very cool.
If you possibly can, try out several models in music stores. Bear this in mind too; the mandolin is a funny little critter. It can sound blasting loud to the player, but have no projection out to the audience, or it can sound weak from the player’s vantage point, but be a total sound cannon ten feet away. Wierd. I’ll bet the mandolinist in that session could hear himself perfectly well, and might have thought everyone else could hear him too. When you test mandolins, have the salesman or a friend play it to you so you can stand back and listen.
Unless you’re dead set on what claims to be the ‘Celtic’ look, Jim, I’d forget flat tops purely because they are relatively quiet.
Even Andy Irvine used to play Gibson archtops in Planxty, although they were oval holes.
If you want a loudish, full and sweet sound then I’d recommend something modelled on a Gibson A4 oval-hole mandolin - perhaps an Eastman 504 or a J Bovier A4. An F5-style scroll adds nothing to the sound of a mando, but adds a lot to the price.
If you want something to cut through and project at a gig, I’d go for an f-holed version modelled on the Gibson A5. They aren’t as bassy and mellow as the oval holed mandos, but they cut through better IMHO.
If you have the money to look at Gibsons then an A9 would be a good budget option. It’s an f-hole A model without cosmetic frills to inflate the price. Vintage Gibson A models, both oval hole and f hole, are very easily found, but the classic are pricey.
Bottom line is the Gibsons or their derivatives are probably the best bet for getting heard, but mandolin is simply not a loud instrument. Resonators and banjolins will be very unpopular at purist sessions. There is no standard mandolin that is loud enough to compete in a busy, loud session without a struggle. At least in bluegrass jams the other player are usually courteous enough to back off a bit on the volume to let tha mando player take a lead break…
I’d go with a Gibson or derivative A archtop, a set of J74 strings, and then learn to dig in and play hard with a pick of at least 1.5 - 2mm thickness. You’ll have as good a chance as any mando player of getting heard.
I’ve just written an article about starting mandolin and choosing what kind to get. It’s on my live music site. Click the link and see if it’s of any help.
Add to this statement that an A style with F holes will be louder to cut through, with an oval hole mellower but more ‘Celtic’, and that is probably the definitive answer.
Also, I like buddhu’s comment about the mandolin in the Bluegrass jam. To the Bluegrass purist, the mandolin is the original instrument. After all, Bill Monroe played it. To a lot of folks you can play Bluegrass on a bunch of instruments, but you’re not really a Bluegrass band without a mando. I’ve been to jams where any player who didn’t back off to let the mandolin through would be chastized severely.
That doesn’t happen in the Trad session though, and you often have to play hard just to keep up.
Grateful to you guys. Much to think about.
I bought a Big Muddy a couple of months ago
at Music Folks, our local very good folk music
instrument store. And occasionally I’ve picked it
up and plinked on it. And now it seems I can
play it. I guess 30 years of guitar help.
Getting rather interested…
Thanks again, Jim
OK, went to the local folk music store.
They have a wall full of mandolins.
I played A bodies.
Far and away the best I played was
a Collings MT2, for 3150 or so, with a HSC
Has F-holes and what strikes me
as a lovely sound. This seemed to me
head and shoulders above the webers,
EAstman’s, etc.
There was no other Collings mandolin there,
so I don’t know if cheaper Collings models do the
same thing.
I more or less trust these people, and they assure
me the Collings MT2 will hold up in sessions.
Also that it sounds better than less expensive models.
What do you’all think?
Also, do these hold up in value?
I’m able to justify these expenses by explaining to
The Boss that the money is more or less recoverable.
Advice, comments, etc.