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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...

If one is going to be in the UK, could I express an interest?

I do have an ebony pick, I find it almost unusable but it does this one interesting thing on my cittern where it produces an odd high frequency zing when strumming that almost reminds me of a...

Buffalo horn makes good picks, I get mine from Clifford Essex in the UK. I think wood and stone picks mostly exist as novelty gifts though - I haven't head of anyone using those as their regular...

There does seem to be quite some orthodoxy in parts of the bluegrass world. A mandolin that's not an F style, a guitar that's not a Martin dreadnought or high-end copy, and any bass other than an...

I used octave strings initially on my 10 string CGDAD cittern (which I guess could also be viewed as a 10 string mandocello), but found I preferred unison for most things. I think if I tried octaves...

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,...

Like Caberguy pointed out, the banjo used in bluegrass (5 string) and the banjo used in Irish music (GDAE tuned tenor) are quite different beasts with not much overlapping technique between them. So...

Lighter phosphor bronze strings can work fine for a low C if the build of the instrument is light and responsive enough to speak well with them. I have a 0.060" phosphor bronze low C on my 650mm...

It's now back up to over £1000. Well done if you got one during the pricing wobble!

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)...

They look nice, no availability on my side of the Atlantic though. I like a thinner (1.2 or 1mm) pick with a bevel for my cittern and acoustic guitar, and after discovering my adolescent lurcher...

I enjoy how my bowlback mandolin sounds, a fairly humble Il Globo that's had the fingerboard replaced. It doesn't have a great deal of low end, but it's clear, sparkly and can be surprisingly loud....

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 have some "Alice" branded 1.5mm celluloid triangles that I quite like, and a big bag of them from a Chinese ebay seller was less than one upmarket pick. No clown barf though - there's...

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....

I'm not fond of the word, but I suppose my instrument qualifies. The maker and I call it a cittern, but it's 650mm scale, 5 courses tuned CGDAD and fits in a dreadnought guitar case....

I've seen people using ADAD on Irish bouzouki where they're playing primarily in D, so essentially you've hit upon that, just a whole tone lower.

I played around with CGDGAD on guitar for a few weeks, it's very close to the CGDAD tuning I use on my cittern, but with that added whole tone interval that's good for playing melodies across the...