i have just took possession of a Paul Hathway Octave Mandolin. First class service direct from Paul Hathway. A padded gig bag and new strings where given as well.
So just stretching the fingers and having a great time.
i have just took possession of a Paul Hathway Octave Mandolin. First class service direct from Paul Hathway. A padded gig bag and new strings where given as well.
So just stretching the fingers and having a great time.
Congrats and have fun. If you get time a video would be great.
Don't ever get a chance to see his around here.
Gary
vincit qui se vincit
Nice. Post some images when you can -- and of course a video.
Bernie
____
Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.
Which one did you get? These are the Octave Mandolas on Paul's site.
I might have to drop into Hobgoblin and have a play, better leave the credit card at home
Thanks for the reply Gary. Will post a video soon.
I bought the OM-1. I bought it straight from the Paul Hathway site. I also bought it on the strength of the Paul Hathway mandolin I bought a few weeks since. Also some of the reviews on here decided me it was the way to go. I couldn't see any Paul Hathway Octave mandolins on offer on the hobgoblin website however.
You really didn't waste any time on getting it - neither did Paul! Hope you really love it. Are you playing in sessions or solo?
Can't wait to see how it sounds
Suddenly I really want a mandocello by Hathaway. I might need to sell the car though :/
It's really worthwhile getting to a Hobgoblin store - I know the customer service can vary across these stores, but the one in London is just superb. The guys are really first class - no pressure and very knowledgeable. Strangely, only the Hathaway mandolins and mandolas I played were accurately in tune or set up. I guess they are set up properly when they leave Paul's workshop. Not so for the cheaper mandolins or the used ones. The selection which Hathaway's workshop offers are amazing. But this just makes it harder to settle for one...rather than two....or one of each ..mandolin, mandola, mandocello....!
So glad that I bought it. It has a really deep sustain when played. I did visit the Hobgoblin store in Leeds. In fact thats where I bought the Paul Hathway OM-1 Mandolin. Again first class service. One of the shop guys passed me a mandolin after trying a couple of Kentuckys and that was it I was smitten.
I play solo....that is to myself. Just got a mate addicted to Mandolin as well. And both of us members of a ukulele group. I also play fiddle which has helped a lot with mandolin playing.
I sympathise with the collecting of instruments.....I have a fair old few!!
Oh no. I'm about to say something politically incorrect about ukelele players!And both of us members of a ukulele group.
I didn't see any mandocellos in store:http://www.paulhathway.com/images/st...Mandocello.jpg
These are really great value for a mandocello. The Weber equivalents are about 4x more. One more Hathaway, then you have a family like the three bears.
I love playing solo too - maybe when I'm better I'll love playing with other accompanying instruments.
Last year I was at the hobgoblin shop in London. They had three Hathway mandocellos there. I tried two of them. Liked them. One was tuned like a bouzouki. Great sound.
Just sayin' here, there oughta be some kind of fine imposed on us cafe members that post about new instruments with no pic, vids or sound bites. Proceeds could go toward the MAS awareness fund or something.
You scared me there Mandobart. So just for you heres the pic of the Paul Hathway Octave Mandolin.
When I feel I have got to grips with the octave will post a vid. However have posted a vid earlier playing the temperance reel/teetotaller. This tune is still work in progress. Very much a beginner on Octave Mandolin.
I'm really liking the Hathway mandolins, which surprised me because they are very unadorned, with no bells and whistles for decorative sales pitch - just beautifully individually handcrafted mandolins/mandolas/mandocellos for the cost of a factory manufactured mandolin equivalent. Playing is a challenge. I suddenly found my finger pressures of the left hand lacking power to dampen down the thick 0.70 guage bass C strings. I really had to fight! Then the finger stretch, but I've been practicing on a torture chamber rack, so that was less of an effort lol. The problem with the size of these mandocellos, is that the bass strings, relative to the width of the neck, means that there is little width for the strings to slide sideways - and sometimes one of the bass course strings slips sideways. I think I can probably learn to be more forceful and zap it fret down. Otherwise, recutting the nut to move it closer inwards ....
Btw - the mandolas by Paul which you have are great - I found them very very close to playing a mandolin. I couldn't really justify going for a mandola, which is too similar to a mandolin. The mandocello, in Mike Marshall's words, has twice as many strings as a cello, and is twice as cool. I really dig that
Hobgoblin didn't have any mandocellos when I was there a month ago - most likely sold. There aren't that many British handmade mandocello makers. I think they have one now in their Canterbury store, but it's more of a niche which Paul himself, has a good stock of ready made ones for trialling. I never realised, that Paul Hathway allows arranged visits, and he has more mandolins and CBOMs than Hobgoblin itself! London mandolin GAS shoppers take note
Paul explained to me that his tonewoods are sourced from Spain; the model posted by the OP is a OM1 version; the only differences are the bindings and headstock for the price variations. He offers both spruce and redwood cedar.
A classical guitar friend of mine always goes for spruce for his concert guitars; I don't know why, but when I listened to the mandocellos, I was surprised at how beautifully bell like and warm the redwood cedar was. Lately I've noticed a lot of beautiful Korean made mandocellos flooding the internet market - no idea what they sound like. Although they look really beautiful, I'm just not interested: the Hathway mandola and mandocellos make such a gorgeous acoustic resonance and are handbuilt to a really top notch finish that it's hard to feel seduced by the visual beauty of those other non-handmade internet pretty decorated pieces of furniture art
Oh, definitely! For me, the amount of inlay is inversely proportional to the desirability. I mean, would you rather pay for hours and hours of minute jeweler's-saw work, or have that labour (and money) go into some other aspect of the instrument? Seems like a no-brainer to me. And those Vietnamese CBOMs you see on eBay and Lark in the Morning, with huge elaborate dragons inlaid on the back, where nobody can even see them? Makes me just shake my head...absolutely ghastly stuff. Hathway looks fantastic without being gaudy.
I have been looking at getting another octave mando i notice i have only seen oval holes are there many with f holes,
Gotta agree with Mike - less is more
Here's one:
and the Bitteroot version makes 2.
Maybe Gibson also did F hole ones?
The price difference is huge though. I guess if I thought I had no prospect of making what I put in for a mandocello back, I'd never get one. Then the problem of even more left handed struggles to get to grips with the sheer monstrosity of the fretboard span compared to my tiny little piccolo flute which I'm used to
Just looked up the notes I made last year after the visit at hobgoblin. Well, the three mandocellos they had were two acoustics and one electric.A classical guitar friend of mine always goes for spruce for his concert guitars; I don't know why, but when I listened to the mandocellos, I was surprised at how beautifully bell like and warm the redwood cedar was.
http://www.paulhathway.com/mandocello
http://www.paulhathway.com/solid-electrics
The acoustic ones I tried. One was with spruce top and the other one was with cedar. I canīt really compare them as the tuning was different. But I remember that I liked both. The mandocello with spruce top had bouzouki tuning. It was impressing. The larger body volume (compared to a bouzouki) produced a great sound.
As for red cedar tops: I was at Brighton a few days later. Trying some instruments there, especially mandolas (not Hathway). The most impressing and touching was the one with the red cedar top. So I can say itīs really worth a try!
I thought of contacting Paul Hathway when I was in London as I saw he has his workshop there. But I havenīt. I hadnīt had the courage then. Unfortunately.I never realised, that Paul Hathway allows arranged visits, and he has more mandolins and CBOMs than Hobgoblin itself! London mandolin GAS shoppers take note
For me, it was a challenge, too. Well, I must admit that these were the first mandocellos I played. I was only used to play octave mandolin. Shorter scale. I wasnīt sure if I could play an instrument with the scale of these mandocellos. It worked. Slowly.Playing is a challenge.
And it was fun. Exploring something new. Very cool.
You make notes??!!! I'm speechless
Actually your notes are very much a reflection of the very experience I had!
Hathway's studio is on the central line - he's very approachable and welcoming. It's way nicer exploring his massive range of mandolins via appointment with guidance at hand, in a quiet less bustling environment. The thing that gets me, is that I'm not hearing any superiority of my little Weber Gallatin over any of Paul's cheaper priced hand-made large bodied mandolins. He's like, Britain's best kept secret when it comes to mandolins.
Guess I was fortunate that he had two identical mandocellos (as well as the MC3 with the square headstock on the wall). The spruce sound, although lovely with higher pitched instruments, just didn't work as well as the red cedar. This is the one to go for with a lower pitched mandocello I think, based on my limited experience, of errrmmm, two mandocello types from just one maker.
I should mention that Paul does actually provide backup for all of his hand-made instruments and a repair service for his own mandocellos and mandolas.
I'm not sure I can play anything with such a long scale, but I'm going to decide ...maybe my fingers will have stretched over summer and I will set myself a mission to get a mandocello to master Twinkle Twinkle...
Interesting and informnative Clobflute. I am now very curious to hear if you end up buying a Hathway. Anyway best of luck with what ever you choose.
Definitely would like to have a Hathway mandocello ...got to decide before I go on vacation in August. For a non-pro musician (that is, no amount of street busking is going to net me enough to get a Weber mandocello lol), I'm starting to build up a) the dosh (which I've already done) b) the calluses (yup - I can barely feel myself typing now...) c) the finger stretch (well my oriental lute stretching rack is quite exhausting me in the thick of this summer.
I'll have to make sure I take some pics ... another week and then I'll let you know
But of course, it's kind of inspiring hearing about the fun you've had with your Hathway. I knew they were superb from patronising Hobgoblin. There is something about the olden style rock solid luthier style from another world of time which Hathway's mandolins hail from (the Jethro Tull one maybe?) - to me it feels like his mandolins/mandos/mandocellos are marketed at a cost way below that of its quality. For mandocellos, there isn't really any alternative competition (except the guitar shaped Eastman thing)....
I went to the London Hobgoblin just before Christmas, just for a look. I had been looking for a second mandolin for some time and had played quite a few - bib names like Breedlove, Eastman and others from individual luthiers - but had not come across anything that really "sang" to me. At Hobgoblin I tried the Hathways. There were two mandolins that I really liked but it was the octave mandolin that I kept going back to and which I, eventually walked out of the shop with. I have only had it a few weeks but it just gets better and better.
"Danger! Do Not Touch!" must be one of the scariest things to read in Braille....
Your wife phoned them up
To date, to my knowledge, there is only ONE Gibson octave mandolin, and it is not clear that it is actually an octave mandolin. The octave mandolin is a modern incarnation of the mandolin family instruments, designed in the 1980s primarily for Irish music. But I think they are great and I love mine, a custom instrument made in 2006 by Daunt Lee, formerly of Garrison Guitars before Gibson bought them and then put them out of business. It is a unique and exceptional instrument.
2003 Ratliff R5 #0927
1955 Martin 2-15
2006 Custom Daunt Lee Minstrel Octave mandolin
1929 Weymann mandolin banjo
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