View Full Version : Mandobass
saintanne
Aug-09-2004, 11:13am
Hey Guys,
I guess it makes sense, but I never thought that there might be such a thing as a mandobass. But I saw one at the Experience Music Project in Seattle this weekend. It was so beautiful! It looked like an enormous Gibson A-1. I failed to notice whether it was double stringed, though. Does anyone know?
Tom C
Aug-09-2004, 11:20am
here's a pic of one. From what I believe they do not sound good.
http://home.earthlink.net/~minermusic/jesu.jpg
Jim M.
Aug-09-2004, 11:20am
Only four strings. Here's a pretty good picture:
http://www.williesguitars.com/Pages/mandobass.htm
Gryphon has one on their wall. I've never played one but I've heard they are neary unplayable.
Eugene
Aug-09-2004, 11:48am
I wrote a bit on various mandokin sizes here (http://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/faq.html#mandolintypessizes).
peterbc
Aug-09-2004, 2:08pm
I heard they inspired Leo Fender to use frets on his basses, so some good came from them!
A double bass Prof at my school has 2 of them. Neat instruments, but they are a bear to play - I'm told to "correctly" play them you also must use a tortoise pick. They just weren't practical as bass instruments with the boost in popularity and availability of the double bass in gthe early 1900's.
adgefan
Aug-11-2004, 4:06am
Hilary James (of Simon Mayor fame) plays a beautiful mandobass. I saw them live recently and, if I recall correctly, she explained that Gibson ones were very poor examples of the instrument. She mentioned she couldn't take her own instrument to America on tour and always ended up playing inferior ones instead. Sorry, I can't remember who made hers.
Here's a pic of Hilary and Simon with it:
http://212.67.202.53/~simonmayor/duo_lo.JPG
13 records here (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/perl/list_mandolins.pl?mandobass), most without pictures.. but here's one that does have a couple shots..
http://www.mandolinarchive.com/images/42553_fullfront_bass.jpg