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When I had my Levoi OM and with the cittern I'm playing now, I've always just used guitar model Shubb capos, straight or radiused as appropriate. They can be a little wider than really needed on a...

I notice that when my dog (going through the teenager stage) gets overexcited and woofy, he sets off the guitar and mandolin that hang in my living room. The Fylde that's hanging there now does it a...

REM had a couple of hits with prominent mandolin earlier in the 90s, also in the UK we had the Waterboys and the Levellers who definitely influenced some peers of mine (as a 90s teenager) to pick up...

I almost caved and went for one when I first saw the thread, as I already had mandolin purchasing plans that week. But I don't feel like an F style is really "me" even if it was a really good deal,...

I love a lot of what Robin has done, but ultimately I'm a Mike person. He still comes across exactly as you'd expect him, this gentle guy pottering about the place with a smile, there's no front or...

Yes, I get the impression he didn't start to specifically embrace the "Celtic" concept and imagery until he was living in California in his post-ISB days. I'm not sure if many on the 60s UK folk...

I dearly love the ISB, though I'd agree that in those days Robin's approach on any instrument other than guitar was quite rough and ready. But it worked! Oddly enough I've ended up running into Mike...

Associating what was the dominant form of mandolin (until they came along) with a loathed agricultural pest was a genius marketing move by Gibson, especially as the association has still stuck 100+...

Blackface/Silverface type Fender amps are surprisingly flattering to piezo amplified acoustic instruments. I think it's a combination of the broad midrange dip in the preamp (centred around 500Hz)...

I have the birch model, mine is a catalogue model that's not branded, but equivalent to the H410 Monterey. I find it has a likable, balanced sound, but not the biggest in terms of depth or...

I played a 560mm (22") LeVoi instrument for a long time that I always knew as an octave mandola, before I'd discovered all the discourse about naming! I used GDAE unison tuning, occasionally GDAD....

European mandolins are often a shorter scale than American instruments in the Gibson style, and European string gauges tend to be lighter. So in addition to the musical developments in the US through...

It does at least fit into the general "what kind of musician are you?" intent of the thread, even if it's digressed a little. And I feel like I have a slightly different "home" style on each...

Flatwound strings often have slightly higher tension than a roundwound of the same gauge (with some exceptions like Thomastik). So the lighter gauges on the G and D of the Galli set might just be to...

I haven't actually tried them with a magnetic pickup, but the Galli flatwound set is reasonably priced at Hobgoblin and is sold as an electric mandolin set. I like the set I have on my old Harmony,...

You could certainly find a factory made European instrument in your range if you look around, like the APC instruments from Portugal, Gewa from Germany or various Romanian instruments under different...

There are pressed-arch solid tops with no carving - Harmony built many of their instruments that way.

The K&k Definity might be worth a look, since it's a film type piezo that slips under a bridge foot, rather than using adhesive.

I've never heard the term "Blarge" out in the wild here in Scotland. I suppose my 10-string would roughly fit into the category, but I go with Cittern because the maker called it that.

I don't know a whole lot about Greek music, but from what I've been able to find, it seems the tetrachordo bouzouki tuned CFAD only became the standard form around the 1950s, with a longer history of...

What's your goal in trying to increase volume? Unless you have a particular need to hold your own as a prominent melodic instrument in unamplified sessions in noisy spaces, it probably isn't your...

Browsing around luthiery suppliers, I was startled to find out you can get clown barf binding to match the picks. It's hideous, but there's almost a perverse urge to put it on an instrument...
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I spent a while playing around with tension calculators for my cittern strings, and I ended up with plain octave strings being close to half the gauge of the lower string, but just one or two steps...

I suppose it's a similar story over here in the UK with the lower end of European brands that were ubiquitous before instruments from Japan, Korea et.al came onto the scene. Some of those older...

I thought I'd share this here - I'm fortunate that my brother is a luthier, and while he specialises in classical guitars, he has occasionally made other instruments for friends and family for a...