bad mandolins

[keymandoguy]

I ran across a mandolin at a small music store It was an Elecro Brand ?? plywood electric overpriced at $250 I tried to play it just for the fun of it and it had a terrible fretboard. was almost unplayable. Why do stores even bother stocking this kind of junk ?PS price did not include a case either. which by the way have risen in price just like mandolins !

[John Flynn]

Gee, what did you expect for $250? A lot of us learned to play on mandos like that and most of those mandos, if they don't have major defects, can actually be set up to be quite playable. Later, when you get a better mando, they make good beaters.

I know a really great mando player who plays a Gibson F-5L, but he also has cheap plywood electric that he does plugged-in gigs with. He has it set up perfectly and has added a custom pickup. He says he likes it because it doesn't feedback and he doesn't have to worry about it.

[levin4now]

johnny, I think there are mandolins that shouldn't even be sold in stores, let alone for 250 bucks (as Kenneth states), and then there are some mandolins that are properly priced at that range and do a fine job - I've heard good things about some Kentucky A-models as being good basic starter mandolins - or lifetime mandolins if that is what the player wants. So I think Kenneth's point is well made.

When I was looking at mandolins about four or so years ago, there was one store (Greenville Guitars, Greenville, NC) that had just really cheap stuff - one was called 'The New Yorker' even. the owner just bashed the mandolins he had on his own wall. When I tried to ask who made that NY model, (knowing that there probably wasn't a NY-mando factory out there), he was impatient for me even asking and wasting my own time and said "All these mandolins are made in the same Samick factory in 'asia' blah blah blah. A couple years later, the same guy is praising his line of Johnson mandolins. I wanted to let him have it.

[bjc]

I worked in a mom and pop store giving guitar lessons and the owner kept wanting to push the guitars he had in the store...NONE of them would play in tune, even after a set-up. Oh, but they sure looked cool. Thankfully, I moved out of the state before I had to quit the jobs because of it.
That being said, cheap axes can be good starters, but they have to be able to be played. My first guitar was an el cheapo that wouldn't stay in tune,..I thought it was me...so I gave up, only to pick it up 5 years later with a proper axe...I hate to see people quit because their EQUIPMENT is awful...like I did

[8ch(pl)]

I think it is all in the setup. Companies that mass produce mandolins on an assembly line may merely slap a bridge and a nut on and don't take the time to make sure there is good nut action, string height etc. If you buy at a good music store, they may take the time to do this.

[J. Mark Lane]

...the owner just bashed the mandolins he had on his own wall. #

That's something I would have enjoyed watching.

[John Flynn]

My first guitar was an el cheapo that wouldn't stay in tune,..I thought it was me...so I gave up, only to pick it up 5 years later with a proper axe...I hate to see people quit because their EQUIPMENT is awful...like I did

I had the same thing happen to me. I wanted to learn guitar at age 12. My Mom took me to the local music store and got me "fixed up." Unfortunately, the store owner sold us a complete POS and he gave me lessons, even though he had no business being an instructor. I gave up after a few months. Later, I started playing again, this time self-taught, when I was 20. A few years later, when I had gotten some skills and was playing in bands, I found that first guitar in the basement. It was so bad I still couldn't play it or even see how it could be adjusted it be playable. I also found out years later that music store was notorious for doing what they did to me. That guy cost me 8 years of playing. Sometimes I wonder how much better I would be if I had been playing those years.

So I hear what you're saying. My original point was that some $250 instruments just suffer from bad setups. Also, I think it's important to not convey the idea that everyone who can only spend $250 on an instrument is wasting thier time, which frankly was one possible conclusion from the original post, even if that is not what the poster intended.

BTW, I have a guitarist friend who works in the music retailing business and he tells me some stories. What I think is an even bigger scandal is how bad some of the "reputable" names are getting. There are instruments going for $1,000 or more that are unplayable and both the manufacturers and the stores are sometimes not making it right.

[Pedal Steel Mike]

I know a really great mando player who plays a Gibson F-5L, but he also has cheap plywood electric that he does plugged-in gigs with. He has it set up perfectly and has added a custom pickup. He says he likes it because it doesn't feedback and he doesn't have to worry about it.

I just bought a cheap solid body electric for exactly the same reasons. I sometimes play in bars, where instruments are subject to abuse and occasionaly theft. There's no way I'm going to take my new Rigel to those kinds of places. I also don't take my best guitars to those gigs. Instead I take my Asian knock offs.

This practice is becoming more and more common among club players. I see more and more Squires, Agiles, Ravens, and Aslin Danes at these places all the time.