Hello everyone! After mostly lurking here for many years I finally got my first mandolin - A Gold Tone GME-5. I've been playing my soprano uke tuned GDAE and I really enjoy it. I also play a 5 string electric violin and I wanted something similar in a mandolin. I imagine I'm the odd man out here but for my playing I prefer the electric guitar sound over the acoustic mandolin sound.
I live in France and the GME-5 is the only 5 string mandolin I could find, new or used, in Europe. I read as many posts about the Gold Tone GME series as I could find and they didn't seem bad for a starter. So when I saw it "on sale" I bought it.
I noticed that my pickup is not the same that I see in the photos in the US. I'm wondering if they changed the pickup. I read some complaints about the pickup in older messages. Mine looks like this:
and the one I see at Elderly for example:
Can someone explain the difference? The Gold Tone website says "single coil" for both the 5 string and 4 string versions, but they are different in the photos.
Another question: I find it's not easy to hold it. I try to hold it like in this photo:
But the head drops down unless I support it with my left hand. I'm not sure if one is supposed to do that or not. I would prefer not to support it so my hand is free to move around. So maybe I need a shoulder strap? If the cable didn't get in the way I'd point the head up more but that doesn't seem possible with the plug. I know some people don't like the plug on the front because it can interfere with strumming but the plug seems in the wrong place for me. I'm sure I'll get used to it.
So far it's fun to play and a big difference from the ukulele and violin. I'm surprised at how much sustain there is, which I like.
Thanks for reading. Cheers
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