Re: Electric Mandolin Build Help?
First off, super excited for you to embark on selecting an electric mandolin, especially one that is custom made! Second, I want to offer some observations I've had on the electric mandolin journey.
The first thing to think about with getting an electric mandolin (whether it's 8 strings, 4 string, 5 string, tenor, octave, or whatever), is thinking about what kind of music (or voice) you want with this instrument. I began the electric mandolin journey as a fan of Michael Kang and SCI, loving that electric jam band sound. I then got into Jamie Masefield in Jazz Mandolin Project and Michael Lampert. My first electric mandolin was a 4-string Dillion (semi-hollow mahogany with a single coil pickup). I started by playing as I would a with normal 8 string setup. I found it was not at all the same for me, because it's a completely different animal. Eventually I got used to the electric feel and started trying to use it as a lead instrument, but the single coil pickup wasn't enough to achieve the voicing I was looking for.
My second electric mandolin is a Schwab 5-string (solid ash body with two bartolini hum buckers and tone selectors). Again, totally different instruments with different voice and feel. The Schwab is basically a mini-telecaster tuned as a five string mandolin CGADE. This thing is significantly different in size and weight from the Dillion. The Dillion is almost the same scale length as most of my acoustic mandolins (13.875" scale). The Schwab is larger (14.5" scale) so it was more of a workout for chords at first. And the additional string and hardware made it feel like a bucking bronco: if I didn't learn to work with it, it would literally get away from me and I'd lose myself in practice and gigs wherever I was in a scale, chords, whatever. I had to take the time to really get to know the setup on that instrument before I could jump all in. I have learned to not play it exactly like an acoustic mandolin. The Schwab is now my prime electric instrument. I won't even play an electric guitar anymore, because I've gotten accustomed to the Schwab feel and tone.
The point I am trying to make is, the biggest hurdles with electric mandolins, in my experience anyway, was finding what voice I wanted when playing these electric instruments. For me, they're not really mandolins: they are essentially electric lead instruments with mandolin tuning, but not mandolins exclusively in a traditional sense. That's just me. I'm certain there are infinite ways of playing these instruments. I highly recommend checking out resources like Emando.com and read up on the electric mandolin forum section of the cafe. MrMando is the owner of Emando.com and is super helpful.
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