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Old 12-12-2009, 03:42 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Chugiak, Alaska
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Christens View Post
I was going through the Elderly catalog (always a dangerous thing to do.....) and came across a Gold Tone Six String Mandolin. I had never heard of this type of instrument, but apparently it uses a mandolin body with six single guitar type strings, but is tuned an octave above a guitar. The idea is that you get sort of a mandolin tone, but no learning curve switching from guitar.

Anybody try one of these? Sounds as if it might be fun to add to your tool kit for an occasional song without learning a whole new instrument.
Oh, yeah. Gibson made them for a while a few years ago, and I played a couple of those, and I've also tried one Gold Tone version.

I was playing mandolin before I ever started on guitar, so clearly I'm not an unbiased source. But the ones I tried seemed like a "worst of both worlds" sort of hybrid.

They function well enough, and I can see where they might be useful for guitarists with home studios who want to layer on a bright-sounding mandolin sound when multi-tracking, but they didn't strike me as particularly useful or practical instruments for everyday use.

Instead, they struck me as the sort of instrument that you'd work up three or four songs on in an initial burst of enthusiasm before the novelty wore off, but then mostly leave alone after that.

Again, I get my high string needs taken care of by the mandolins I have here, so I'm not impartial. I would be interested to hear from anyone who's made one of these high octave guitar neck mandolins a viable part of their musical arsenal.


Wade Hampton Miller
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