Octave Mandolins

  1. Bill Mort
    Bill Mort
    Thanks for starting this group. I'm a lover of octave mandolins and Irish music. I play sessions around the northern Chicago with John Williams and friends and use my octo almost exclusively. A good melody line instrument AND good for chording as well. I have a Weber Sage #2 that I never play and a Trinity College OM that I always play. The difference? Scale length. The Weber is a 23" scale length and the Trinity is a 20&1/8 scale length. When I got the Weber, it seemed like a mile to my fingers. Anyone want to buy a perfectly good Weber? All the best to you OM players out there
  2. DummyMan
    DummyMan
    My Celtic Star Dragonfly has a 23" scale length. I love it. It is a bit of a stretch on some things. I've played a little on the Trinity College OM at my local music store and I do like the shorter scale length, but I love my Dragonfly too much to switch. It has built in pick ups with an equalizer. A little quiet when played acoustic, but incredibly warm when plugged in.

    How much you want for the Weber?
  3. Bill Mort
    Bill Mort
    I put it on the Cafe last night for $1550. I paid $1800 for it and put a couple more hundred into it for set-up, maintenance, etc.
  4. Mike Black
    Mike Black
    I've found that a 21.5" scale length to be the most comfortable and you don't get the floppyness in the G strings that you get with anything shorter.
  5. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Great to see this group forming. I build my own octaves and use a scale length of 540mm (about 21.25 inches) on my octave and have also built a couple for people who wanted them with 520mm (20.47 inches) scale length. They play well and are admired for their sound by those who hear them. Predominant use is for Celtic music.
    I have YouTube clips over on Song-of-the-week group or you can look on YouTube under TheOldBores and there are six clips there featuring my mandolins and octaves.
  6. JeanM
    JeanM
    re: "Scale length. The Weber is a 23" scale length . . ."

    I can relate to this. I've had my "standard" Weber Sage #2 customized (new neck) by the Weber folks, and the scale length is now about 20". This is much more playable for me and I really enjoy the instrument customized in this way. While I've tended to play my Weber mandola more than the octave for mandolin orchestra music, since I've been playing with a group focusing on Irish music, I'm using the octave mandolin in that setting.
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