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Thread: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

  1. #1

    Default Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Hi ---- Brother & I today comparing instruments:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ao0aJgLOoS4

    1st: My recently converted $12 junked Epiphone guitar-to-octave mandolin.

    2nd: A very high-end English-made cittern (costing 194 times as much as my $12 OM)

    3rd: Johnson brand bouzouki (same as the Trinity College jobbie)

    4th: Trinity College bouzouki

    This is obviously a very unscientific experiment -- but was fun nonetheless & a bit revealing ! Recorded using an ipad - nothing at all fancy.

    Dennis Havlena -W8MI
    Mackinac Straits, northern Michigan
    dhavlena@gmail.com
    http://DennisHavlena.com (my
    instrument-making webpage)

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Interesting, to my ears the Epiphone still sounds like a guitar, 2 and 4 sound similar and 3 'thinner' than the other 2 (strings?). I prefer 2 to 4, but not by much.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Quote Originally Posted by derbex View Post
    Interesting, to my ears the Epiphone still sounds like a guitar, 2 and 4 sound similar and 3 'thinner' than the other 2 (strings?). I prefer 2 to 4, but not by much.
    3rd instrument is tuned a full step low & capoed up to pitch at the 2nd fret.
    Altho I have converted several, my main 'objection' to guitar-shaped conversions is that
    (no surprise) they sound like a guitar ! Still a lot of fun tho.
    Last nite cobbled two more tuners on the Epiphone - a "short-scale cittern" or
    'ten-string octave mandolin". Ah semantics !

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    Registered User fox's Avatar
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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    For my ears, no two has a far better sound than the others but, no four is quite nice too.

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    Registered User Colin Lindsay's Avatar
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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Why the sock over the end of the Fylde? (Am I right??
    Four was quite nice but interestingly No2 was too…. I don’t know the exact term but if I was to say ‘sparkly’… the notes seem to have too much sustain and blur into each other thereby blurring the tune. Four had a flatter sound (needs tuned!) and thereby sounded better for that tune. Not the proper terms I know but it’s a problem I’m having with my own instruments at present and it’s causing grief!
    "Danger! Do Not Touch!" must be one of the scariest things to read in Braille....

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    Registered User Marcus CA's Avatar
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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    I'd go for 2, 4, 1, 3, and echo derbex's question about the strings on #3, which sounded dead. Were the strings on all four instruments the same, and used roughly to the same extent?
    still trying to turn dreams into memories

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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Quote Originally Posted by derbex View Post
    Interesting, to my ears the Epiphone still sounds like a guitar
    I agree ....
    Be true to your teeth, or they'll be false to you!

  8. #8

    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Quote Originally Posted by Colin Lindsay View Post
    Why the sock over the end of the Fylde? (Am I right??
    Four was quite nice but interestingly No2 was too…. I don’t know the exact term but if I was to say ‘sparkly’… the notes seem to have too much sustain and blur into each other thereby blurring the tune. Four had a flatter sound (needs tuned!) and thereby sounded better for that tune. Not the proper terms I know but it’s a problem I’m having with my own instruments at present and it’s causing grief!
    hello - Thanks to all for the observations.

    - strings are a variety of gauges & ages so again, not a very controlled experiment.

    - #2 is indeed a Fylde.

    - #3 is newer, Chinese-made version of Trinity College bouzouki. As received, several
    soundboard braces had been loose for a long time with strings up to full pitch.
    I disassembled it & reglued all the braces & re-formed the badly caved in soundboard, which stabilized it -- still slightly sunken but a lot better. It's a ''salvage job' but a fun plunker.

    - #4 is a circa 1994 Japanese-made Trinity College zouki. I just obtained it & like it
    much. It does need new strings tho.

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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    I liked the epi and trinity college, kind of leaning on the trinity for best overall tone

  10. #10

    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Interesting, to my ears the Epiphone still sounds like a guitar
    Must be a good reason for that.

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    Certified! Bernie Daniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    Great video. I think the guitar conversion was the weakest but that might be expected -- that box is simply designed for a different sound.
    Bernie
    ____
    Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Simple video comparing 4 different CBOMs -

    A few weeks down the road: The Fancy cittern was returned. I much prefer the 1994 Trinity College jobbie. Am keeping the newer Johnson "TC" zoukie - still a lot of fun to play. Re the $12 junked Epiphone conversion, I narrowed the strings & moved em over to the "right", leaving about 1/4" space between the lowest string & the "left" edge of the fingerboard (I don't fret with my thumb so the whole thing feels/plays nice now). In addition, seeking to "balance" the string pull, right to left side, I ran the strings on a slight diagonal from nut to bridge. The immediate objection to this might be that intonation would be screwed up but upon doing some very basic calculation, the stringlength elongation only amounts to a completely negligible fraction of a fret-wire width. Dennis -W8MI, Straits of Machinac, Michigan http://DennisHavlena.com

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