mandoline upgrade

[Oliver Fuchs]

Hi everybody,

I play mandoline since a few years now (guitar and electric bass since 20 years). I have a crafter but I don't like it's acoustic tone. The internal pickup sounds o.k. but not great to me. So I'm looking for better one under 1000 €. Here in Germany a lot of brands are difficult to get and/or very expensive. I've thougt about buying a godin a8 or a used ovation mm68. Or maybe a mandoline with no pickup and install one by myself? I play in a kind of semi-acoustic folk-rock-band (maybe a little REM-like, with drums) but also purely acoustic.

Do you have any recommondations?

[Lee]

Why/how does the electric pick-up not sound great? #Maybe you should be shopping for a solid-body electric with a magnetic pick-up?

[Oliver Fuchs]

The internal piezo is not very dynamic and I miss the warmth of a good acoustic mandoline tone (that the crafter doesn't have at all). But does a magnetic pickup sound really acoustic with a mandoline?

[RichM]

1000 € works out to a little over $1300, which might be in the ballpark for a used Rigel A Plus Deluxe. This would pretty much solve all your problems, as is a very good acoustic mandolin, and comes with a good factory-installed piezo pickup.

I used to own a Godin A8, and it's a very good instrument in it's price range. If your goal is primarily to play plugged in, it would be fine; I found it wasn't really loud enough to hold up in acoustic combos.

Of course, you could always add a pickup to the mandolin of your choice. McIntyre pickups are great, and reasonably priced. External pickups are easy to install and usually require no modification, but they're kinda ugly. Internal piezos are much nicer, but usually require the services of a skilled repair person to install.