Big Muddy Jumbo

[Cliff Seruntine]

I've had a long love affair with lutes and ancient music, leading to my love of big bodied, lute-like mandolins. And I love flat tops for their folksy simplicity and ringing, open sound. Then I discovered that Big Muddy offers big-bodied mandolins. You can get any of their mandolins with a mandola body; it's called their "jumbo" version.


Has anyone tried a Big Muddy jumbo? What are your thoughts.

[brunello97]

I've had a long love affair with lutes and ancient music, leading to my love of big bodied, lute-like mandolins. And I love flat tops for their folksy simplicity and ringing, open sound. Then I discovered that Big Muddy offers big-bodied mandolins. You can get any of their mandolins with a mandola body; it's called their "jumbo" version.


Has anyone tried a Big Muddy jumbo? What are your thoughts.

Been wondering the same thing, Cliff.

Mick

[Em Tee]

I have also been wondering this! Would appreciate it if someone who owned one made a video of it in action!

[MoreThanQuinn]

This is not my video, but it's the only one I was able to find that is clearly labelled as being the Jumbo version of a big muddy. Seems like the mic might just be a computer's internal mic, so it may be hard to gauge the difference in sound, but at least you can see it in action here!

[Tim N]

Somewhere on this forum in the last week I've seen a video of a huge-bodied mandolin being played. The poster was adamant that he/she wanted one! I just can't find it again, but it sound's up your street. Ring any bells? (It might have been a slightly older post - I sometimes look back)

[bruce.b]

Red Valley offers a bigger bodied mandolin too. Seems quite a bit bigger than the standard one. Bandolims look like they have quite large bodies. The Fylde Touchstone has a larger body and a longer scale. I’m curious about this too.

[CES]

Tim, I remember the same thing...might have been a Red Valley...

[Cliff Seruntine]

Somewhere on this forum in the last week I've seen a video of a huge-bodied mandolin being played. The poster was adamant that he/she wanted one! I just can't find it again, but it sound's up your street. Ring any bells? (It might have been a slightly older post - I sometimes look back)

The UK-made Norfolk has a huge body. I like it but could never afford it with the massive conversion between CAN and UK currency.

[bruce.b]

Somewhere on this forum in the last week I've seen a video of a huge-bodied mandolin being played. The poster was adamant that he/she wanted one! I just can't find it again, but it sound's up your street. Ring any bells? (It might have been a slightly older post - I sometimes look back)

Was it the NK Forster? Not a flattop, but the body looks huge on that model.

[Tim N]

Yes, that was it (the NK Forster)

[MoreThanQuinn]

Would love to hear more thoughts from people who have played one of these! It's on my list of "possible future mandolins" haha

[Tmcmakin]

I just received my new M11 Jumbo yesterday, so I haven't had time to really put it through it's paces. Craftsmanship is great and tone is very good, but I don't have a standard M11 to compare it to, so I'm not sure how it compares to the standard body in terms of size or tone.

The mandolin doesn't have overly complex tone, nor would I expect a flat top to have that type of tone. It's mahogany, so it's not as brash but has a sweeter, more woody tone. It has plenty of resonance and sounds good to my ears. It's certainly not a bluegrass instrument, though I think it would be great for most other styles.

I'm not sure this helped much...

[Em Tee]

Tmcmakin, do you know exactly how large it is?

[Tmcmakin]

I'll measure it today for you and post that here.

If I can find a new photo sharing site now that Photobucket went all money hungry, I'll post some pictures.

[catmandu2]

I would imagine it would sound somewhat akin to their mandolas. I like them (dolas), but again MM/BM not a very complex-sounding instrument. Definitely recommend all-mahogany if going MM/BM.

Something that distinguishes the evocative timbre of lutes, et al, is non-metallic strings. When you pair gut/nylon with a huge bowl vis-a-vis lute, oud, etc it's an evocative sound, but not quite what you'll find with a mandolin.

If it's 5ths-tuned, metal-strings you want, I'd recommend a large-bodied cittern or similar - this will also give you lots of drone and contrapuntalism options, in addition to the larger, more resonant voice.

[bratsche]

On a related note, I have a Mid Missouri, as well as a Big Muddy mandola. Both were bought here in the classifieds. One of them was sold with mandolin strings on it, and the seller told me he had ordered it to work as a hybrid of sorts that could work either way, though it has the normal 15.5" scale. When I tried to tune it to pitch, both E strings promptly broke. Without thinking further about it, I simply changed it over to mandola strings and tuning.

Now, years later, as I have more mandolas than I know what to do with, I thought about trying one tuned as a mandolin again. My question is what gauge strings should I get for the E course that will be least likely to break?

Just Strings carries bulk packs of long loop-end strings in .009 and .008 gauge. Would one or the other of these be good? Thanks!

bratsche