Gold tone mandocello review and demo
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- Опубліковано 9 лис 2022
- Gold Tone Mandocello: amzn.to/3DYFokC
Patreon: patreon.com/rwcarrbluegrass
The guitar store I run just got in a new gold tone mandocello… and I obviously had to do a mandocello demo and review. It took me a little to figure out how to play the mandocello and definitely had a time trying to figure out how to read cello music but it came together. This instrument is tuned similar to a mandolin but it’s an octave and a fifth lower. I start by playing a the Bach prelude from cello suite 1. I’ll post the tabs and sheet music to that on my patreon for both mandolin and mandocello. Enjoy!
6:30 That's a pretty epic Jazz Tone.
4:05 It's a floating pickup so the top is free to vibrate. Eastman makes Archtop Acoustic-Electric Guitars w/ this feature too.
Actually a Floating Humbucker doesn't look out of place because this is pretty common w/ Archtop Guitars.
Excellent demo, great that you played different sounds via pickups and mic.
The mandocello & the baritone guitar make a good duo.
nice playing.
Nice strumming.
With 2 Pickups, you have even more versatility.
It's modeled after a Gibson Archtop Electric Guitar
Very cool instrument! I have a suspicion that the pickup issues in the mandolin family have less to do with the pickups themselves, and more so are a result of brass wound strings. It looks like all of its courses are wound.
When I've used brass wound or monel wound strings on my electric instruments when I have steel wound on them at the same time(experiments, they can't be stopped) I end up with that same dull inarticulate resonance that the humbucker only setting gave here in your demonstration.
My gut is telling me that flatwounds would bring out the vibrancy in the humbucker, but one'd lose some acoustic richness. And probably have to use a flatwound "bass" string to have the girth needed for C strings. I suspect a typical roundwound electric string would have too small of a core to wrap ratio, and thus give off harmonics that sound more like an "electric guitar" than a mandocello or mandolin, if used on one of those.
Also, I've been subscribed to your channel for a while, and was just now like, "Dekalb, IL. . . Ax in Hand!" I live just down the road in Rochelle, IL, and got some cables and strings from there not long ago. Side note, that ancient beat up lute that was there, in the bass room at the time, is just so awesome. What a relic!
Anyways, it's great to see a mandocello being appreciated!
That’s crazy! I lived in Rochelle for most my life. I’m obviously still in the area lol
I had the same suspicion about flat wound strings… I have a Collings a style mando that I put some thomastik infield flatwounds on before a string of musicals (I really had no other choice but to use a pickup)
The sound is a bit better but still needs a whole lot of eq😩.
@@rwcarrmandolin What a small world!
As they say, great minds fink alike(okay, they don't say that, but I do!).
Thanks for letting me know that flatwounds do make a difference in the right direction. Sounds like a good challenge, to get a proper mando tone from a magnetic pickup. Gonna have to think on this a bit.
I bought one of the very first ones produced by Gold Tone (they had gold hardware, not chrome). It needed new steel strings (the bronze were wretched), a new bone nut (instead of that crap half bone/fret thing), and a complete setup from the word go. It had NO acoustic volume, which sucked. They sold it as an acoustic instrument, and it wasn't. It was electric, period. The piezo unit sounded harsh, without fullness. The neck pickup was fine, but it really needed to be paired with something trebly and sweet. I spent over $150 improving it on top of buying the darn thing, and I was very disappointed. I could not deal with the narrowness of the string spacing and sold it 3 weeks later.
Thomastik makes Precision Flatwound strings you can use on this to save the frets from scratches. The pickup makes recording easer.
I’ve used the thomastiks on my mandolin and I love them.
@@rwcarrmandolin Thomastik Flatwound Mandocello strings will respond to the Pickup super well too. They give a pretty epic Jazz tone when plugged into the amp.
@@rwcarrmandolin I have those strings on my Mandolin too, it says in German "Precision Mandolin Strings". They're Flatwound strings designed like Violin Strings, in that they have a Wound 2nd String & a Slightly Lower tension for ease of playability. The Flatwound design will save the frets from scratches.
@@RockStarOscarStern634 where exactly do you find those? I've looked around the internet, but I never see any flats for the mandocello.
@@NeededGR13F JustStrings has those (the 10 String set is called Lute strings), StringsByMail, and Lord of the Strings.
I would love to hear some bluegrass on that thing!
So, I play a four-string guitar tuned to open G (GDGB) with a lot of slide, I started way back on an 8-string ukulele and loved the sound of the double string courses. Of course I’m wondering how feasible it would be to use different strings on this and tune it to open G.
Any thoughts on that?
Same!
I recommend learning 5th tuning IMO. It'll greatly help your melody playing, and open up your world to other instruments such as the mandolin, 4 string banjo, tenor guitar and Irish Bouzouki
I like it acoustically but the pups are not good at all.
The neck pickup sounds great very jazzy, the transducer sounds awful as they all do, but it can be managed with good EQ.
Transducer sounds horrid…..clickity clackity….. interesting instrument….i dont know about dropping 1200 on it.
Yeah transducers never sound good no matter what price point IMO it’s mostly just the nature of that type of pickup, but with like a 70/30 humbucker to transducer ratio it adds the brightness and attack that the humbucker lacks
They never sound good man, plus he could’ve dialed in the settings for the piezo better