# Music by Genre > Orchestral, Classical, Italian, Medieval, Renaissance >  Eastman Bowlback Feedback?

## David Miller

Greetings!

I am taking delivery later this week of an Eastman Bowlback mandolin. I have been combing the Cafe boards for information and feedback on this particular instrument, and it seems like there was flurry of activity a couple years ago, but not much written more recently. Has anyone had any more recent experiences with these? Any suggestions for strings? Setup? Pros / Cons? What I have heard is generally very positive, but especially here in the states, these seem to show up very few and far in-between.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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## Jim Garber

I would contact Buzz Gravelle, the classical player who actually demoed one a few years back. Mandobuzz is his MC screen name. 

Personally, I have not seen one in person. Only a small handfuls of dealers had them. I would imagine them to be of decent quality. Hopefully you have some approval time for the one you got. Is it the one that was in the classifieds?

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## vkioulaphides

They sure _look_ healthy and well-built... There was one, in fact, in the Classifieds a little while ago, and at an (IMHO) quite deeply discounted price— although it could not of course have been all that old, or heavily used. Don't know the story behind it...

Perhaps, David, _you_ should give _us_ your feedback, once you get this instrument! As you say, the American "bowlback-retail sector" is, ah... ~slim~

As for strings, I have no doubt that a robust, modern instrument _can_ be strung with a broad variety of strings, even heavier ones, if need be. The choice may very well boil down to your own _taste_. I would simply suspect that flat-wounds would give it more of a "German accent", whereas chirpy bronze round-wounds a more "Italian" one. But I'm only guessing...

Cheers, and congratulations! Say... you'll soon have some Scarlatti quartet-music to play on your new baby!  :Wink: 

Victor

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## demotlj

I have an Eastman Bowlback that I've been playing for about two years now and I love it.  I used to use Dogal Calace (RW 92) strings and they were pretty good but I switched to soft Thomastik Infield strings because I like the mellower tone.  (The latter are about twice the price but I don't play enough to go through strings too fast.)  I have played the mandolin in our church with a duet and a trio on occasion and though we miked the instruments, the miking wasn't absolutely necessary because my mandolin seemed to produce plenty of sound.

I've been very happy with it.  I love the tone and the action and it seems to be a good instrument for someone like me who likes to play classical and renaissance music but isn't at the level where I can justify the huge dollars required for a handcrafted mandolin.  

Laurie

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## RichM

I owned an Eastman bowlback for a while. It was extremely well-made and a high quality instrument. I'm no expert on the bowlback style, so I can't compare it to other quality bowlbacks; however, I have a couple of inexpensive early-20th century American bowlbacks, and the Eastman was leagues beyone them in terms of build quality, tone, and playability. I will say that when I did get around to selling it, I took a pretty significant hit on price (I bought it new). I will agree that you don't often see them for sale in the US; I keep a pretty close eye on the mandolin market, and I've seen perhaps ten come up for sale in the last few years.

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## David Miller

Well, I am about 5 hours away from delivery on this instrument. It sounds like there is some interest from folks here on the forum to get some feedback from ME on the instrument, so I will plan on doing just that. This is my first bowl back, so I wont have much of a point of comparison to start with, though I am going to be sitting in on a rehearsal of the Providence Mandolin Orchestra next week (where maybe I can get some other players' feedback who ARE bowl back players). I also do have the ability to do high quality audio recordings, so I may take a shot at that as well. (Victor, I am working on a couple of your solo pieces right now, so I might use one of those as a test, if you have no objections). Needless to say, I am very excited for the UPS truck's arrival to happen today!

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## vkioulaphides

> Victor, I am working on a couple of your solo pieces right now, so I might use one of those as a test, if you have no objections.


Oh, I NEVER have objections to such things, David!  :Smile:  Go for it!  :Mandosmiley: 

And _do_ share your feedback on the Eastman with the online mando-community here at the Café.

Cheers,

Victor

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## JeffD

I have a small stable of American made bowlbacks of the turn of the last century. I have had my eye on an Eastman for awhile. 

My main complaint is that the 100 year old instruments are tempermental. It seems at any given time two of the three are 100% playable, and the third is having a few intonation issues or wont stay in tune. The problem is the tempermental one is a different one each time. They all react differently to temperature and humidity changes, and I have begun to think of them as personalities that get together and talk about me when I play the arch top. One of them is always being petulant. If I am playing a bowlback out, I bring two, on the theory that at least one will be in a good mood.

Anyway, a new Eastman would be a reliable, ready eddie bowlback mandolin I could count on.

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## vkioulaphides

As the (often lonesome) advocate of *modern bowlbacks* on this forum, I can only agree. This is, of course, not a value-judgment between "good" and "not good". The reasons behind my reliance on the newly-built are those very points you so eloquently enumerate and explain. I could not agree more...

Cheers,

Victor

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## DougC

> My main complaint is that the 100 year old instruments are tempermental. It seems at any given time two of the three are 100% playable, and the third is having a few intonation issues or wont stay in tune. The problem is the tempermental one is a different one each time. They all react differently to temperature and humidity changes, and I have begun to think of them as personalities that get together and talk about me when I play the arch top. One of them is always being petulant. If I am playing a bowlback out, I bring two, on the theory that at least one will be in a good mood.


 They _do_ talk when you are away. I have a nice old violin built about 1802 and it gets grumpy when I play my new violin. And they both talk when I play my mandolin.  :Laughing: 

I'm interested in the Eastman's neck profile. Is it shaped like a "v" or is it a more rounded shape like the Eastman A5 mandolins? Also is there an Eastman website with pictures of the bowlback?

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## Jim Garber

> As the (often lonesome) advocate of *modern bowlbacks* on this forum, I can only agree.


I straddle the fence.... Victor, you know that my "old reliable" is my 2003 Pandini. Have you ever seen me play anything else in your presence? 

Of course, I own quite a few of the vintage critters, my basic favorites among the American ones are the Vegas tho I recently got a nice Maurer that is the equal and in excellent shape as well.

Anyway, I would not fault anyone for playing anything. I would love to actually try an Eastman but they are few and far between. I would be surprised if there were more than a dozen in the US and they were imported most likey because of folks discussions on this forum.

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## David Miller

With only a couple hours to go, one thing I can share came from a discussion last week with the Eastman Rep who was at our all-state music conference in Hartford. I had asked him if the bowl backs had been discontinued, since they do not appear on the Eastman website, etc. and what he told me was that at the moment, they are making those instruments almost exclusively for sale in Japan, as there is a pretty good market over there at the present time. He said that basically when the market over there gets saturated, or at least level, that Eastman will take a look at marketing the instruments here in the US and elsewhere. Considering the source, I would guess that the information is accurate. I bought mine from Fiddler's Green in Texas, though I don't know the story behind how they acquired it to be put up for sale.

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## Jim Garber

Our connection with Eastman goes back to a few years ago when I started annoying Gordon, the rep at the time, with requests for their bowlback case. After a number of months he was able to get a few of them into the US and a few dealers started carrying them (and still do). 

The bowlbacks came sometime later, but I only recall a few dealers carrying them. For one thing there is and was an unknown market for a new Asian-made bowlback esp in that price range and one that was unproven. I would think that many dealers would not take that chance of an $1800 instruments sitting around for years unsold.

Japan has always been a hotbed of classical mandolin since about 1905 when Calace, Samuel Adelstein and a host of others traveled there. In spite of the few of us on this forum who do have an avid interest in them, most mandolin players in North America are pretty much uninterested, even those who do play classical, in the orchestras that still do exist. For instance, we had about 30 participants in Carlo Aonzo's workshop last month and of those probably 4 or 5 played bowlbacks. 

Still there is a greater interest than there was even a few years ago.

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## margora

"This is my first bowl back, so I wont have much of a point of comparison to start with, though I am going to be sitting in on a rehearsal of the Providence Mandolin Orchestra next week (where maybe I can get some other players' feedback who ARE bowl back players)"

There are some of us in the PMO who own bowlbacks (I own a Calace, Mark Davis has a very fine modern Italian instrument) but no one plays a bowlback regularly with the orchestra (Mark usually brings his to rehearsal, but he is the conductor).   But those of us who do own bowlbacks will be interested in your Eastman; I have played one once before (at Bernunzio's in Rochester, NY) and thought it was a fine instrument.

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## bratsche

They must be (rather) large-bodied, if the cases are made to fit them snugly, yes?    I have an Eastman bowlback case, and my Vega would swim in it, if it weren't for the padding I put in, which makes it into more of a quasi-"suspension" case.

bratsche

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## David Miller

O.K. - the eagle has landed!

Initial reactions....
The workmanship (fit and finish) seem very very good to me. Joints are very tight and smooth, neck joint especially. As near as I can tell, there are something like 8 individual plies to the binding around the top edge - nice detail. I am loving the arm rest, both look and feel. The only place that seems a bit skimpy to me are the tuners, which have plastic buttons. If I really was concerned about the cosmetics, I guess I could always replace the tuners (the tuner buttons are not screwed on, so as near as I can tell, replacing them would mean replacing the entire tuner mechanism.) I have always had a bit of problem playing on a flat fretboard since I am so used to the radius on the Collings, but for some reason this fretboard fell under my fingers pretty quickly. It is just a tiny bit shorter scale than the Collings, and has a slightly more pronounced V shape to the neck than the Collings ( a note for DougC above). 

Now, as for the sound. I am not terribly qualified to make comparisons between this instrument and other bowlbacks, but I am liking what I hear so far. The strings are flatwound, though I don't know what brand. The G strings have a nice warmth and roundness to them, and the upper courses sound clean and bright. The D's sound a bit dead tonally to me, but that may just be the strings, not the instrument. The action seems good, though maybe a bit on the high side. No fret buzzing all the way up the fretboard extension. Intonation seems pretty good too, though I may need to make a slight adjustment to the treble side of the bridge (I am assuming these instruments have floating bridges??? Anyone?).

I am going to try to make a quick sound sample recording later this evening after my daughter goes to bed. I have a 48 hour trial period with this instrument, but I am pretty confident already that this one is a keeper. I am looking forward to getting together with some other bowlback players to see whether this instrument plays well with others, but I don't doubt that it will.

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## vkioulaphides

> The only place that seems a bit skimpy to me are the tuners, which have plastic buttons. If I really was concerned about the cosmetics, I guess I could always replace the tuners (the tuner buttons are not screwed on, so as near as I can tell, replacing them would mean replacing the entire tuner mechanism.)
> 
> The D's sound a bit dead tonally to me, but that may just be the strings, not the instrument. 
> 
>  (I am assuming these instruments have floating bridges??? Anyone?)


Congratulations! In reply, then...

1. Ditto, regarding my 2004 Calace. While the mechanism certainly _works_, the cheap, plastic buttons detract aesthetically. 

2. _All_ flat-wound strings, IMHO, sound less chirpy than round-wound ones. Your taste may take you elsewhere, YMMV, etc.

3. Of course. Feel free to experiment to your heart's delight.  :Smile: 

Cheers, and congratulations, once again.

Victor

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## Jim Garber

I also am not much of a fan of flatwounds on bowlbacks but, as Victor notes, YMMV and it is a matter of taste. Personally I prefer Dogal Calace roundwounds. You should be able to use the medio gauge on the Eastman. You can get them at Bernunzio or at Classic Bows.

Aesthetics are one thing -- you can replace the buttons with ones more to your liking, even on tuners without screws, but if they are inadequate to tune the mandolin, I would replace them with good quality tuners. I can't recall if the headstock on these is solid or slotted. If slotted, your choices are more limited, but there are (I think) Schallers or Grovers you can get.

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## David Miller

Alright, I have had a couple of days to work with the new instrument, and thought I would try to post an audio recording. The piece is, many thanks to Cafe member extraordinaire Victor Kioulaphides, "de Grote Markt." The piece itself is still a work in progress for me, on top of which adjustments to working on the bowl back will still take me some time, but I wanted to hear the instrument "from the front", so to speak, and this particular piece seems to lend itself pretty well to that kind of assessment. One of my initial reactions to playing a bowl back and listening to the recording is that there seems to be a much greater tonal difference between what I as the player hear compared to my audience, when compared to a flat backed instrument. Has anyone else noted this same effect? Anyway, for what my humble playing contribution is worth, here is a link to the audio file:

http://mandopelli.net/media/deGroteMarkt.mp3

Thank you!

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## bratsche

Very good playing, David - and the instrument comes across sounding quite well in that recording!  Is it your first bowlback?  If so, then it's impressive that you could play it so well in just a couple days.  (I still struggle a lot with mine, after years, but admittedly my focus is on my mandolas, which are all flatbacks!)

bratsche

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## vkioulaphides

Very, VERY nice playing! Bravo! Not at all "humble", and _doubly_ impressive (as bratsche writes) on an instrument you just got your hands on a couple of days ago.

Indeed, the _projection_ of bowlbacks is quite astounding, even when, under the player's ear, they seem "light", relative to other types of mandolins.

I hear what you mentioned about the flat-wound strings... then again, some people _strive_ for that lute-like tone and who am I to tell people what to like and what not to like?

In any case, what _I_ like is your playing, David. Well done! I also like the instrument; a "keeper", indeed.  :Smile: 

Cheers,

Victor

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## Jim Garber

+1...   sweet and soulful playing! Thanks for posting.

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## Tom Wright

Add my vote for good tune and strong playing!

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## David Miller

One last quick note as a follow-up to the Eastman notes:

First - thank you all for the kind words about the recording I made. My main interest was in getting feedback about the sound of the instrument, but it never hurts to get feedback on one's playing as well.

I put new strings on the instrument today. I bought a set of Dogal Calace medium round-wounds, and a set of Dogal flatwounds. Since the instrument already had flats on it (though I dont know what brand) I decided to try out the rounds, and oh my goodness!!! This mando has a HUGE sound when it needs it, though without sacrificing the refinement and accuracy of a classical bowl back instrument. The string change also gave me another opportunity to do some bridge adjusting, and now that it is in the right place, intonation seems dead on, all the way up to that very high G on the fretboard extension. There is still a strange ring / overtone / something happening on the upper string of the A course, but I have a feeling it is coming from the nut slot, as it is only noticeable on the open string. Any suggestions on cleaning up a nut? 

I feel I will have to try out the flatwounds at some point, since I bought them, but for the moment at least, I am sold on the rounds. Does this make me more of an Italian player than a German???

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## vkioulaphides

Dogal Calace round-wounds are, in their own way, the "gold standard". I am glad you have had such a positive experience with them. Yes, that would be more of an "Italian" than a "German" sound. 

I have heard that A-course "twang" in _all_ such sets, and on all _instruments_, in the hands of all _players_— including some of the finest, worldwide. I don't know what it is... That's the one sour tinge in this otherwise excellent set of strings. 

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Victor

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## Tom Wright

One of the pair has a longer run behind the nut, and it may simply be good at ringing in sympathy.

If you are positive the unwanted sound is associated with only one of the A pair, you can test by lifting it out of its slot in the nut, lower the tension to keep it approximately in tune, and see if it persists. If it does not, inspect the nut with a good magnifier, to see if the offending string sits differently than the other. If it is sitting lower, you will likely need another nut or to shim the nut up and re-slot. It the sound is still there, it could be from another source even if you only hear it when not fretted. The stronger tone could evoke resonances and buzzes from elsewhere.

But also inspect the slots without the strings there, to see if they match. If one is too large on the fingerboard side, it can have a funny tone. It can also be sloped wrong, so the string is resting on the back side and buzzing against the forward edge.

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