Puerto Rican cuatro: the $89 cittern

[MatthewVanitas]

I needed a knockaround string instrument to keep me company during a brief 2-month stint in Savannah, something playable but cheap enough I can leave it behind when I depart for an overseas job.

While pondering ideas, I found out that cheap Chinese-made PR cuatros are as low as $89 on eBay, sometimes lower if they're cosmetic seconds. I bought one under the "Harmonia" brand, and while not stellar, I certainly feel I got my money's worth and that this merits consideration for others needing a beater cittern for camping, travel, first "cittern" for poor guitar/mando players branching out, etc.

The PR cuatro (not to be confused with other instruments of same name) is five doubled courses, BEADG, with the B and E being octaved. At first I figured I'd grown out of my past "got to make everything mando-like" period, so just played it in trad tuning, but on a whim started messing around and found out that that I can tune it down to ADADG pretty easily. The bass A is a bit looser than I'd like, the bass D tolerable, and though I don't want to risk strings I could probably get an A on the top too (definitely if I replace the .011 with .010). So with slight tweaking I could get ADADA if I wanted.

(google images pic of a guy playing one, for context and scale)


It's a cute instrument, rather bigger than a mando, maybe the size of a half-size guitar. And I'll admit its unusual shape was a factor, to get the "huh, that's different" response. The $89 one needs decent strings, and I'm going to check the action and see if I can't take some needle files and fix it a bit, but other than that not bad. It's a little heavy, better overbuilt than under, and a little muted though I'll see how the better strings sound.

Overall, if you're looking for a cheap CBOM-ish instrument as a knockaround, I can definitely recommend a cheap Chinese Puerto Rican cuatro as an option, particularly if you're flexible about tuning.

[Twilo123]

Got my first one about 10 years ago. Handmade from PR. Great little instrument. What's interesting is handmade ones from PR are traditionally made from a single block of wood. Seriously old school. Yomo toro is probably most famous person out of PR to play it. Some used to call him Hendrix of cuatro. Example video here (heavy set guy on right):

Also best info on instrument here: http://www.cuatro-pr.org

Mine from PR back in the day

[draugwath]

This one looks quite nice, especially considering its price, although I didn't find any of them for this money on EBay. Do you have any information about its scale? Is it 650? And does it sound in any sense close to mandolin family instruments or it's just a five course guitar?

[Colin Lindsay]

I had one a while back; sort of a miniature 10-string guitar. The £89 GBP one is basic, went out of tune for me quite a lot while playing and sounded… well, it actually had a quite good rich tone but ultimately the lower quality materials spoiled the playing experience and off it went for sale again. Here’s a sample for the sale advert:
https://soundcloud.com/corncrake/10-...sh-folk-sample

[Seter]

I bought one of the 70$ Harmonia a/e cuatros on eBay on a whim, I would say you get what you pay for pretty much. It sounds decent considering its cost, but the neck finish is jarringly ugly. The intonation and action are pretty bad, but tuning has held up well (although getting it tuned up is a chore). I play 7 string electric guitar so I've been able to switch some of that repertoire and thinking over treating it like a miniature acoustic 7 string sans the highest strings. I am hoping on learning some more traditional cuatro tunes as well though.

[vernob]

OK, it looks cool. Inexpensive. But why is it a quatro? That would suggest a four course. This thing should be a cinco.

[Seter]

There are a few different theories on why it's called a cuatro not cinco; one is that it's because it is tuned in 4ths rather than 5ths, another is that an earlier iteration was a 4 course instrument and the name was carried over to the 5 course instrument. This site seems to be one of the better resources for cuatro information: http://www.cuatro-pr.org/node/83

[Seter]

After spending more time with it I realized that the action and intonation are both incredible terrible, not really playable at all and to fix would cost more than it is worth. The intonation in particular is doubly bad because of fixed bridge location and faulty fret locations. I tuned it A-E-A-C♯-E which is an open A variant so that I can at least play slide on it. Not particularly good at slide but better than nothing. I'll probably give the cuatro away to an aspiring luthier or something to monkey with. I would advise steering clear of Harmonia ones eBay, the low price is well earned.