# Octaves, Zouks, Citterns, Tenors and Electrics > Four, Five and Eight-String Electrics >  5-string solid body electric--advice?

## Flattpicker

I've been itching to get a 5-string solid body electric mando for ages and am considering the Gold Tone GOLD TONE GME-5.  Does anyone have experience with this model?  Or alternatives to consider? Am trying to keep it around 4 bills.
Thanks!

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## ricomando

try getting a used one . some people never get the hang of a 5 string and might be willing to sell

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## mandocrucian

Just do a conversion on a 17"-19" scale mini Strat (or other solidbody shape) guitar. Just remove the lowest (bass) string and bridge saddle (if individual saddles for each string), and maybe the tuner to eliminate rattle.  That's *all* you need to do except to restring it with gauges suitable for the tuning you want .  *An electric 5-string mando is just a small electric guitar with a different tuning.*

mini-strat conversion on bench (right), was originally a 19" scale, but was shortened to 17".

Niles H

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## David Lewis

A five string solid body mandolin is not a mini guitar except you might get some structural similarities. 

The playing style is different. The role is different. Don't think you can take your guitar technique or acoustic mando technique and adapt. 

My advice is find a five string JBovier. I have a four string and it's marvellous and a but cheaper than your budget.

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## mandocrucian

> A five string solid body mandolin is not a mini guitar


*Yes it is.*  A five string solid body mandolin is *not* an acoustic mandolin except you might get some tuning similarities.

When Albert Collins capoes up the neck at the 9th fret of his Tele....he's playing an electric mando (in open minor tuning). When Richard Thompson played on my Fender 4-string....it was ALL electric guitar technique and vocab, and it sounded fantastic.

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## darrylicshon

5 strings are fun , i agree buy a used one, or convert a mini guitar. i have a mini flying V that i left 6 strings but tune it like  a mandolin

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## RBMB

Watch for used Fender 5 strings.   They are out there and show up in the classifieds.   I found mine at the philadelphia guitar show.

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## Jon Hall

I recently bought a new GME-5. I'm satisfied with it. I'm spending some time in the woodshed with it before I ever take it to band practice. I'm playing it through a Peavy 15w Viper amp while in the woodshed but I'm going to buy a Roland 40w Cube to perform with this summer. As far as the discussion about a soild body mando being a small electric guitar, I agree with Niles. From what I can tell it's contribution to the music is identical to a solid body electric guitar.

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## zedmando

> A five string solid body mandolin is not a mini guitar except you might get some structural similarities. 
> 
> The playing style is different. The role is different. Don't think you can take your guitar technique or acoustic mando technique and adapt. 
> 
> My advice is find a five string JBovier. I have a four string and it's marvellous and a but cheaper than your budget.





> *Yes it is.*  A five string solid body mandolin is *not* an acoustic mandolin except you might get some tuning similarities.
> 
> When Albert Collins capoes up the neck at the 9th fret of his Tele....he's playing an electric mando (in open minor tuning). When Richard Thompson played on my Fender 4-string....it was ALL electric guitar technique and vocab, and it sounded fantastic.


This seems to be a difference of structure & role--but I'd have to agree that a 5 string solidbody mandolin is rather like a mini guitar--with a different tuning.
One might play it differently (or not) but the structure is pretty much the same.

My 8 string/4 course solidbody Mandobird is structurally very similar to a mini guitar--perhaps with a smaller neck, but I choose to learn how to play it as a mandolin as opposed to a mini guitar--but I could do that and even use a guitar tuning, but I wanted to learn mandolin.

It's like the time on a guitar forum someone posted that a 12 string is a completely different instrument--no it's a very similar instrument--but there are differences in how it's normally played.

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## Flattpicker

Niles, so you lopped off the bottom 2" of the neck and drilled new screw holes?

How is the intonation--I would think that would be tricky to get just right...?

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## mandocrucian

> Niles, so you lopped off the bottom 2" of the neck and drilled new screw holes?
> 
>  How is the intonation--I would think that would be tricky to get just right...?


One year when I was teaching at Augusta I asked Wayne Henderson to help modify it. He (reluctantly) scooped the end of the fingerboard, put in fatter/higher fretwire for the 2nd (not the 0th fret) and put in a nut behind the zero-th fret. He also switched a neck position marker (or two) so it would have the same 3-5-7-10-12 locations as a mando (which I was so used to seeing).  I have a capo putting downward tension on the strings behind the nut.  

Intonates fine, though more extreme bending pitches a minor 3rd or major 3rd (maybe even a 4th on the low strings) can knock the particular string out of tune. The heavier the strings, the better the tone (the SRV rule), so I stopped using the slinkier gauges. Would rather have to work harder on the bending ad keep a fat tone.

I don't really refer to this an "electric mandolin" or "electric mandola"  except perhaps on a recording credit. At home I (and my wife) either call it "the 5-string" or the "wolf guitar". The latter is due to the custom paint job (my portrait and a couple of wolves) I had done back in the early 80s as a mojo enhancer.

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## delsbrother

Someone once wrote a book about those things.. Wish it was still in print.  :Whistling:

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Dave Greenspoon

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## Flattpicker

Due to range considerations, I'd lean towards an actual 5-string mandolin/mandola over the conversion.  But the idea of a quickie conversion of the 3/4 strat (22.5") to a tenor guitar is intriguing and I intend to pursue this.  Many thanks to all, esp. Niles H., for so much useful info.

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## mandroid

and NB ..  the 5ths dont have to be  CGDAE or GDAEB ..  AEBF#C#  is an option too, etc.

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## mandocrucian

I use GDAEA   (octave down from mando)

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## mandroid

those 2 A's an Octave apart?

I strung my P5  Pentaula Heavy* and use a GDAEB, the strings when bought were lighter  and  the 

AEBF#C#  was the tuning then.. 
*  60..    etc. it's actually a  pretty short scale

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## mandocrucian

> those 2 A's an Octave apart?


Yeah, prefer the 4th interval on top instead having a high B.  Works better not tuning it as high from the string gauge/breakage standpoint.  Also, gives you some different doublestop bending positions.

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## Perry

Definitely a mini guitar in a different tuning. Many of the things great about an acoustic mandolin are not available on an electric mandolin. For example the driving rhythmic percussive chop.

So if you are a mandolin player you get to play electric guitar without learning how to play the guitar!

Of course the tuning in fifths does have it's own sound and idiosyncrasies....generally I find an electric guitar to be much more flexible. I just happen to play much of my repertoire on mandolin though I have transferred quite a bit to guitar in recent years.

And a big plus about electric mandolin is that just like in the acoustic world an electric mando plays nicely with a guitar in the band.

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## Flattpicker

I'm not looking for versatility--basically wanting something for your basic Tiny Moore/Paul Glasse sort of thing, so CGDAE is preferred.  I have electric  guitars for extended low end.  But I am enjoying all the different comments and suggestions.

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## mandroid

Fan fret would be a bonus , say 16" on the C. 13 7/8" on the E ..

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## lenf12

I recently sold a Mann SEM-5 (more $$$ used than a Gold Tone GME-5 new) because it was too similar to electric guitar and I wanted more of a mandolin sound with double course strings. I think that's the main difference between 5 string and 8 string electric mandolins. They sound totally different whereas a 5 string electric mandolin can sound surprisingly similar to a 6 string electric guitar. They are different tools for different sounds and they're all good, just not the same.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

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## Flattpicker

Yes, I have an old Japanese Kentucky all-solid woods with K&K pickups.  I've used it as 8-string and as 4-string.  I've heard a good bit of Bob Wills (Tiny Moore/Johnny Gimble) and Paul Glasse, and the single string sound which is surprisingly similar to 6 string electric guitar is exactly what I'm looking for.  In a CGDAE tuning.

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## Verne Andru

> Fan fret would be a bonus , say 16" on the C. 13 7/8" on the E ..


I tried a tenor with fanned frets and found it very, very difficult to finger most basic chords. IMHO the concept works well for bass guitar, but not so well for instruments tuned in 5ths.

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## Magnus Geijer

So what kind of string gauges are you guys using on the five-strings? I've just started working on a 18" GDAEB job.

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## David Lewis

What I love about the five string is that it has a greater range than a six string guitar. I should get a five.

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## Soundfarmer Pete

Might be worth a look .... In Brazil, a 5 string emando is a Guitarra Baiana (Bahaian Guitar) ....a mini electric guitar!!!!!


At current rates, $136.00 so very inexpensive  :Disbelief: ....and it has a purpose made 5 string humbucker rather than a guitar pickup  :Smile: 
NFI.

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## delsbrother

We discussed _Guitarra Baiana_ previously on the Cafe, to the point where one of us was thinking about importing them and reselling them on the US market as emandos. I don't know whatever became of that.

I have heard horror stories about doing business with makers IN Brazil, especially when it came to acoustic instruments (even before CITES). I have no idea if those problems also affected electric instrument makers. I was joking with my family about picking up several instruments when I go down to see the Olympics in Rio, but now I'm too chicken to do it (for more reasons than having instruments seized in customs).

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## BlueMountain

Wanting a five string electric mandolin and being on a budget, I bought a cool-looking little Chinese 8 string electric mandolin that looked a bit like a Rickenbacker. I found a five string Telecaster-style tailpiece with screw-adjusted intonation. (Perfect intonation for all strings!) I replaced the pickup with a high quality jazz guitar pickup. I replaced the cheap pots with StewMac's high end pots. I shes lied the cavities with copper and made sure that the bridge was grounded. I dressed the frets and made sure they were perfect. I made and installed a new bone five string nut. I string it up with half a set of flatwound electric Mandola strings from eMando and an extra .010 E string. I used all the tuners on the right and only the last D tuner on the left side (for the C string) as the extra length on the C string is a help. 

I'm very pleased with the result, and I've been playing it in my band off and on for a couple years. We play only swing. I've learned that I get the Jazz guitar sound I want only be playing without a pick. Wes Montgomery style. Using a pick destroys the sound. If I want to use a pick, I'll use an acoustic mandolin. Also, with an acoustic, I play sharp, slashing chords and a lot of rhythmic dampened chords. With the electric, I have to play chords very gently, often in an arpeggio style. The old-fashioned thump of an old f-hole hollow body jazz guitar won't work. 

Single string soloing is very nice. The C string tension is a little less than perfect, but it's close, and I only now and then use that string for a solo. The big thing for me is having the C string for chords. I play entirely three-finger chords all over the neck without open strings, so the chords are all moveable. About half a dozen finger positions let me play any chord in The Real Book, and I can play in any key without problem. Once you know this half dozen shapes, it's just a matter of knowing where to put them on the fretboard. The huge difference is that with an eight string mandolin a lot of chords become two finger chords on the G and D strings in order to keep the same pattern I'd play elsewhere. With the C string available, I can move from a three string D7 to a three string G7 simply by moving the pattern over a fret. I rarely play a chord that includes the E string, as I like the lower sound for chords with swing, in general.

Unlike an electric guitar, with an electric five string mandolin with a 14" scale, it's harder to bend strings, and vibrato doesn't work well, and the sustain is less. Apart from that, I like the Jazz guitar tone I'm getting. Apart from getting a bit more tension for the C string, I don't really see the reason in going to Mandola scale length. I also love the extremely low mandolin action, so much better than with a guitar, and the light weight.

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DavidKOS

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## DavidKOS

> What I love about the five string is that it has a greater range than a six string guitar. I should get a five.


Not to be picky, but a 6 string guitar tuned EADGBE has a wider range than a 5 string mandolin tuned CGDAE.

Adjusting for octaves, the guitar can go a 6th lower than the mandolin. Same upper range, so the guitar has a wider range.

Not by much, though!

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## Jon Hall

I've said before, that I thought an electric, solid body, four or five string mandolin has essentially the same musical contribution as an electric guitar: however, since the mandolin is tuned in fifths, it isn't played like a guitar. Some rifts are actually easier played on a mandolin than a guitar; an example of which would be a blues shuffle(6th and flatted 7th) played against the root and 5th.

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## Explorer

> Not to be picky, but a 6 string guitar tuned EADGBE has a wider range than a 5 string mandolin tuned CGDAE.
> 
> Adjusting for octaves, the guitar can go a 6th lower than the mandolin. Same upper range, so the guitar has a wider range.
> 
> Not by much, though!


Having done a conversion on more than one instrument from 6-string standard-tuning intervals to 5-string fifths tuning, the 5-string instruments all had more range in fifths tuning. The top string remains the same, and the lowest string is tuned two whole notes below the 6-string standard tuning.

How do those two added full steps wind up being less range?

Looking at the Gold Tone GME-5 which started this topic, it has 18 frets, so it goes from C3 to Bb6, which is a range of four octaves minus a half-step. A 19-fret Telecaster goes from E2 to B5, a three octaves and a fifth. 

One could limit the number of frets which a 5-string e-mando is allowed to have, of course. A given e-mando could only be compared to, say, a standard-tuned guitar with five more frets than the proposed maximum on the 5-string e-mando, giving the guitar an additional half-step of range.

----

To make it easier to visualize...

I do sometimes run across old Celloblasters, the 5-string fifths-tuned electric guitars. They also have two whole steps more range (open strings from C2 to E4) than 6-string standard-tuned guitars (open strings from E2 to E4) with the same number of frets.

*A 5-string fifths-tuned instrument will always have two more whole steps of range than a standard-tuned 6-string guitar with the same number of frets.*

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## Woyvel

I string my Steinberger convertible to have the best of both worlds of bari guitar/mandocello growl and octave mandolin in 5 strings CGDAE.  The C is below the guitar's low E, giving a bit more range.  For added measure, it has 24 frets.

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