View Full Version : New player needs advice....
twatso32
Oct-13-2011, 9:22am
Hey y'sll, Icurrently play guitar and bass in a few different bands and have joined some friends in a christian folk jam band. I've fallen in love with the mandolin. I'm new to playing mandolin and i'm looking for a good quality, low price mandolin. I know that quality at a low cost is hard to find, but i'm a college student. i'd like an electric F style body, but i can always just buy a pick up or mic it. I would also like a mandolin that has good projection and will blend well with acoustic guitar and violin. Any suggestions?
Tim2723
Oct-13-2011, 9:43am
Hi and welcome!
Acoustic-electric F-styles are pretty rare these days. Michael Kelly makes a couple of models with piezoelectric bridge pickups which I've used personally with good luck, and Epiphone has one that uses a magnetic pickup. Of course, when adding pickups to acoustic models you can do pretty much anything you want. The first question is: How much do you want to spend?
multidon
Oct-13-2011, 9:59am
Not exactly F style, but a Godin A8 is a nice quality instrument and already set up to plug in. Guitar Center has a used one right now for 449 on their Web site. I have no financial interest.
Malcolm G.
Oct-13-2011, 10:05am
My suggestion, after wrestling with a MorganMonroe F9E and tearing out the electronics, was to install the K&K internal twin.
Liked it so much, I've installed two more in my other mandolins.
Not hard to do, and other than the jack in the tail piece - invisible.
It really depends on your budget. If you have been around guitars for a while you can use the rule of thumb that a mandolin will cost around twice what a guitar of similar quality would cost. Visualize the quality you want. If it were a guitar of that quality what would it cost? Double it.
If you can keep that in mind when setting your budget you will be able to find something suitable.