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Thread: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

  1. #26

    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by kmmando View Post
    Just seen this thread on a "long necked" Sobell mandolin ... interesting!

    http://www.sobellinstruments.com/en-gb/news2013.aspx
    Interesting indeed! It's the same concept as the instrument that Nick Apolonio built for me a couple years ago - 19.25" scale, tuned DAEB. I usually just call it a long-scale mandola, but I suppose "long-necked mandolin" is just as logical. I'd love to hear what this one of Sobell's sounds like.

  2. #27
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Wow those 5 stringers are extraordinary - I had no idea such a thing had been made! I wonder what they sound like?
    Stefan did make Appalachian dulcimers at one point .... Cheers! Kevin

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    I wrote to Stefan last night about his 5-string banjo-citterns. He said he's built about six over the years. Stefan writes that Martin Simpson has one and recorded a track with it on one of his albums. Stefan couldn't recall which album it is but it's out there on one of Simpson's albums; if anyone knows which one it is I'd love to know.

    I am considering ordering one of Stefan's banjo-citterns. When I sold my Sobell mandolin last July, which I had with me as a faithful companion for nearly forty years, I bought a 5-string banjo. As mentioned in a previous post, I developed focal dystonia in my picking hand which made it impossible to hold a flat pick. But I can play with a thumb pick and fingerpicks, hence the banjo. I'd love to have another Sobell instrument and the banjo-cittern could be a very nice way to go.

    By the way, I sold my Sobell to Charley Rappaport. So, it's in very good hands and will have a new life with a professional mandolinist.

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Fascinating, any more Sobells out there? Must be some .....

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Gold Tone have made a 5 string banjo/ cittern. There is one that has been sitting in a shop in Inverness for a while.

    Some of Gold Tone's stuff isn't bad actually, although hardly in Sobell's class.

    http://www.goldtone.com/products/det...ent/80/Banjola
    David A. Gordon

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    I've also got one of Stefan's early builds and nothing else I've ever heard comes close. Incredible instrument. Does anyone have any suggestions on where I could get a flight case for it? Calton and Hoffee don't have molds big enough for it unfortunately.

    Cheers,
    Glenn

  7. #32
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    I foolishly parted with my 10-string mandola some years ago, and found another almost just like it some years later. Still love it, it's a frequently reached-for instrument!
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    I got a chance to pick some on a Sobel mandolin at the 12th Fret in Toronto when it was on sale. Still wish I had enough to get it at the time. It rang like a cathedral. Wide neck though
    Jason Anderson

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  9. #34
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Here is a low quality pic of my Sobell which I absolutely love. I scooped it off Ebay thanks to a post from the Cafe Facebook notification and pulled the trigger instantly (a Sobell was always my dream instrument.) It showed up smothered in a million layers of bubble wrap with a "caution - Mandolin has no case" warning written all over the box. See Stefan's warning below in an e-mail I'll cut and paste but the good news is, it's incredible. I hate the fingerboard extension - Stefan said it was a replacement but I can actually see a joint when I examined it carefully, it was just added on to the existing fingerboard. At least if it's ever pinched it would be easily identified!

    Hello Glenn, this is clearly one of my very early mandolins with a replacement fingerboard. It will have been built between 1975 and 1980, probably closer to 1975. Apart from the fingerboard it looks original, including the tuners. It’s built from Western Red Cedar and Indian rosewood. These early mandolins (and citterns of the same era) were ground-breaking in their way, but I knew much less about construction than I do now. I hope you have the opportunity to examine it carefully before committing yourself, as some have not survived well.
    Best wishes,
    Stefan Sobell


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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Here's the small bodied European spruce/Indian rosewood Stefan Sobell mandolin sound .....




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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    I don't see a link Kevin.

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Great playing, Kevin. I really enjoyed that.

    In what part of town is the Folk Club? I lived in Edinburgh in '90-'91, but I was a musically clueless grad student at the time and don't remember getting out. I do remember a great weekly session in a hotel bar around Haymarket. They called it a "chukter's" (or highlander's) bar I think.
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Really glad this thread was revived, fantastic pics!

    Good a time as any to note there's a Sobell 10-string for sale at the Chiff & Fipple used instruments exchange, don't know if it was ever posted here.

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    Smile Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Anderson View Post
    Good a time as any to note there's a Sobell 10-string for sale at the Chiff & Fipple used instruments exchange, don't know if it was ever posted here.
    This 10-string in California is of quite a lot of interest to me, actually.

    When I went to see Stefan 30 years ago with a view to ordering a mandolin (I already had an 8 string cittern, as it was called at the time) I had no plans to get a 10 stringer. However, he had just made a 10 string mandolin for someone in California which I tried, and decided there and then to order one myself. The rest, as they say, is history. Probably the best buy I ever made in my life!

    Still sounds as good as ever.

    It seems very likely to me that this is the very same mandolin which I tried all those years ago and set me on my 10 string way
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4M22Vrfrg
    David A. Gordon

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Dagger Gordon View Post
    This 10-string in California is of quite a lot of interest to me, actually.

    When I went to see Stefan 30 years ago with a view to ordering a mandolin (I already had an 8 string cittern, as it was called at the time) I had no plans to get a 10 stringer. However, he had just made a 10 string mandolin for someone in California which I tried, and decided there and then to order one myself. The rest, as they say, is history. Probably the best buy I ever made in my life!

    Still sounds as good as ever.

    It seems very likely to me that this is the very same mandolin which I tried all those years ago and set me on my 10 string way
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4M22Vrfrg
    That's a great story Dagger, and a great video too!! Wonderful playing, great transition from a jig to a slip jig and back to a jig.

    I'll tell you, if I won the Lotto I'd buy that Sobell in a heartbeat. Don't know what his new maple instruments go for, but that one grabs me.

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Just for Sobell overkill .... rauch picking and poor video mike, but it has the sound ...


  19. #42

    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by gw16 View Post
    I've also got one of Stefan's early builds and nothing else I've ever heard comes close. Incredible instrument. Does anyone have any suggestions on where I could get a flight case for it? Calton and Hoffee don't have molds big enough for it unfortunately.

    Cheers,
    Glenn
    Pegasus - based in Southern Scotland have just made a great case for me based on their Gibson F2/4/5 standard - as good as a Carlton and half the price.

  20. #43

    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

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    This is my 26 yr old Sobell - still playing brilliantly - just been serviced by Stefan - all she needed was a wee tweak to the neck and a little buffing of the frets. An amazing machine. I also have a birds eye maple new build from Stefan which is just superb.

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    This is my Sobell Octave Mandola, bought through a small-ad in Gumtree of all places. I’ve never seen another for sale and to find one six miles from me was too much of a fortunate coincidence to allow it to escape. It was also at an amazingly low price and I consider it a great bargain - the seller knew the value of it but wanted it to go to a home where it would get played more often. It’s about 20 years old and came in a nice tight-fitting case - in which it stays when not being used. All my other instruments hang around my study walls; this one doesn’t. It’s mint and if it ever gets marked I’ll cry. The tone is superb, not as forgiving as my Fylde but a real quality sound.

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Harding View Post
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    This is my 26 yr old Sobell - still playing brilliantly - just been serviced by Stefan - all she needed was a wee tweak to the neck and a little buffing of the frets. An amazing machine. I also have a birds eye maple new build from Stefan which is just superb.
    Hi Mike,

    Good to see you here. These old Sobells are just terrific!
    David A. Gordon

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

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    Last week. rather bizarrely, I spotted both these Sobells in Achiltibuie at different sessions I was at. The unusual sunburst one is a 1998 maple version, spruce top, and the other is all maple and 1978 belongs to Mikey Austin from Orkney.

    A really great sound from the Orcadian one, and a larger body. Well used too, and it played superbly well.

    I had no idea Stefan Sobell was making maple bodied mandolins in 1978. It was almost identical to my brother in law Tim Jones's 1978 one seen earlier in this thread.
    Last edited by kmmando; Sep-01-2014 at 10:43am.

  28. #49
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    When I was talking to Mikey he told me that he had specifically asked Stefan to make him a maple bodied mandolin with a spruce top as that was what his fiddle was made from. It's likely that this instrument is unique.

    He turned up at the Summer Isles Festival last weekend with the Sobell and his home crafted tenor banjo - which he had named a Killer after comments passed at a session where someone else had produced a banjo.

    I was really sorry I hadn't got my own Sobell to hand for comparison as dimensionally the 2 mandolins appeared identical but the quality of sound was very different - still loads of tone and ring but more direct and less complex - fascinating.

    Tim
    Tim Jones

  29. #50
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    Default Re: Stefan Sobell mandolins and other instruments

    Here's my 10-string.

    The guy I bought it from (almost a year ago) said it's 30 years old -- any way to tell?
    It says "The Old School" on the label inside.
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