So we've all heard of violins strung with octave strings. Don't laugh, but does anybody out there have any experience of stringing a mandolin, of the same scale length, with octave strings? ANY relevant info or suggestions wrt modifications, string availability and selection, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
I had an octave mandolin once; or at least I think I did! I was never sure what the swine was. One person would tell me it was an octave mandolin and the next person would swear blind it was a mandola. It was definetly bigger than a mandolin, but not by much! Sorry, I realise that's utterly irrelevant and of no use. Better luck with your next caller.
Dan Biemborn (on his CD "Shatter the Calm") tuned his mandolin DDAD for one set, with the "G" string tuned down an octave below the D. He describes how he came across this funky tuning on his website. Read down to the "Midnight on the Water" set for the info.
Nastyweegirl, do you mean stringing and tuning the whole thing an octave lower? No, I've never tried it.
I can think of three reasons why it might not be a success:
(i) The tone and volume would not be great, given the small body size and short scale length (one reason why the bouzouki is preferred over the octave mandolin);
(ii) It would be difficult to fret - the heavy gauge strings would have very little play in them over such a short length;
(iii) It would be difficult to achieve correct intonation.
But, like I say, I've never tried it. My theories could all be wrong. I have come across mandolas (intended for viola tuning - CGDA) tuned as octave mandolins, but even they begin to exhibit the problens I have listed above.
Yes, David, that is what I meant. The reason for my question was that a friend of mine has a mandola he made himself (cherry top and sides, mahogany back, with a soundpost!!), which he's strung and tuned as an octave mandolin, and it attracts nothing but praise. Lovely tone, fabulous sustain, user-friendly action and scale length. Intonation is fine. So he/we wondered whether it would be possible to "push it" that wee bit further, by making a mandolin-sized instrument, but strung an octave lower.
the difficulty lies not in the physical size of the instrument (you can make almost any kind of mandolin family instrument with almost any size of body you like) - but in the string length. if you want to tune an instrument down to GDAE (one octave below a fiddle), you start to get impossibly thick strings on the bottom G once you get below about a 20" string length (nut to bridge). you can get down to about 18" by using something like a .052" string for the G but, as david said, that string is becoming hard to tune and you have a make a fairly weird bridge to get the intonation close to correct. below 18", it becomes unmanageable and you have to settle for using a different note on the 4th course (another D, for instance). you could try having the 4th course tuned to a G which is an octave higher than normal but that gives an unexpected sound when you drop onto it!. overall, i'd say that most productive line would be to reduce the physical size of the instrument to something like a large mandolin and keep the string length as near to 20" as possible. this will, of course, reduce the volume of the instrument a bit but wooden instruments of this type never do have significant volume - they just don't cut through as well as mandolins because of the lower frequency of the sound. that's why you need the serious volume of a tenor banjo when playing at that pitch................
octave mandolin .... sort of
octave mandolin .... sort of
So we've all heard of violins strung with octave strings. Don't laugh, but does anybody out there have any experience of stringing a mandolin, of the same scale length, with octave strings? ANY relevant info or suggestions wrt modifications, string availability and selection, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Karen
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
I had an octave mandolin once; or at least I think I did! I was never sure what the swine was. One person would tell me it was an octave mandolin and the next person would swear blind it was a mandola. It was definetly bigger than a mandolin, but not by much! Sorry, I realise that's utterly irrelevant and of no use. Better luck with your next caller.
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by sergeant fox
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
Dan Biemborn (on his CD "Shatter the Calm") tuned his mandolin DDAD for one set, with the "G" string tuned down an octave below the D. He describes how he came across this funky tuning on his website. Read down to the "Midnight on the Water" set for the info.
http://www.celticmusic.com/dan/expanded_liner_notes.html
Not really a direct answer to the question, but it's a start.
Greg
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by octogreg
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
Nastyweegirl, do you mean stringing and tuning the whole thing an octave lower? No, I've never tried it.
I can think of three reasons why it might not be a success:
(i) The tone and volume would not be great, given the small body size and short scale length (one reason why the bouzouki is preferred over the octave mandolin);
(ii) It would be difficult to fret - the heavy gauge strings would have very little play in them over such a short length;
(iii) It would be difficult to achieve correct intonation.
But, like I say, I've never tried it. My theories could all be wrong. I have come across mandolas (intended for viola tuning - CGDA) tuned as octave mandolins, but even they begin to exhibit the problens I have listed above.
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by ragaman
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
Thanks for your comments so far.
Yes, David, that is what I meant. The reason for my question was that a friend of mine has a mandola he made himself (cherry top and sides, mahogany back, with a soundpost!!), which he's strung and tuned as an octave mandolin, and it attracts nothing but praise. Lovely tone, fabulous sustain, user-friendly action and scale length. Intonation is fine. So he/we wondered whether it would be possible to "push it" that wee bit further, by making a mandolin-sized instrument, but strung an octave lower.
Any futher comments would be welcome.
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
the difficulty lies not in the physical size of the instrument (you can make almost any kind of mandolin family instrument with almost any size of body you like) - but in the string length. if you want to tune an instrument down to GDAE (one octave below a fiddle), you start to get impossibly thick strings on the bottom G once you get below about a 20" string length (nut to bridge). you can get down to about 18" by using something like a .052" string for the G but, as david said, that string is becoming hard to tune and you have a make a fairly weird bridge to get the intonation close to correct. below 18", it becomes unmanageable and you have to settle for using a different note on the 4th course (another D, for instance). you could try having the 4th course tuned to a G which is an octave higher than normal but that gives an unexpected sound when you drop onto it!. overall, i'd say that most productive line would be to reduce the physical size of the instrument to something like a large mandolin and keep the string length as near to 20" as possible. this will, of course, reduce the volume of the instrument a bit but wooden instruments of this type never do have significant volume - they just don't cut through as well as mandolins because of the lower frequency of the sound. that's why you need the serious volume of a tenor banjo when playing at that pitch................
# Posted on November 3rd 2003 by teetotaller
Re: octave mandolin .... sort of
Yep, we wondered whether the strings might be troublesome ....
# Posted on November 5th 2003 by nastyweegirl