$100 Octave Mandolin

[BlueMountain]

So, maybe you've been wondering for a while how an octave mandolin might differ from a regular mandolin, and you've been seeing these ads on eBay for $100 octave mandolins. Are they any good? Well, I bought one. Here's what I found. The ad claims that the top is solid. I can't tell, as the sound hole is bound. It was made in China. The quality of construction is satisfactory. The neck has no adjustable truss rod, but it's pretty fat, so it should be okay. The neck was straight and the frets satisfactory. They'd even been nicely filed at the ends. The big problem was that the action was terrible. It's no fun to play an octave mandolin when the action is about a quarter inch at the 12th fret. I sanded down the bridge. Note that the top is very slightly arched, so getting a good fit was about as much work as doing it on an archtop. However, I was able to bring the strings down to about an eighth of an inch at the 12th fret, and it now plays quite nicely. The tone isn't incredible, but it's good enough to let you get the octave mandolin feel and sound. (I learned that I far prefer a mandolin, so I guess you can say this was money well spent, given that I could have spent a lot more money figuring this out.) Apart from the action, my biggest gripe is that there are no fret markers, either on the top or on the sides. I'll probably inlay markers on the side--that's pretty easy--as it really does make it harder not to have them. Here's a link to the guy selling most of them: <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Octave-Mandolin-walnut-spruce-plays-sounds-great-NEW_W0QQitemZ7353994001QQcategoryZ10179QQ
ssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem" target="_blank">http://cgi.ebay.com/Octave-....iewItem</a>

[jim simpson]

Hey Blue - thanks for the review!

I bought one of these a couple of years ago and unwisely spent more than what these are currently going for. I found the action too high as well and lowered mine. I didn't like the shape of the hole and reshaped it to more of a Gibson style oval. It was after removing the sound hole binding that I discovered the top to be laminated. I wasn't going to rebind it but did after my discovery. I had some pearl dots so I inlayed them into the fingerboard. I didn't think it sounded too bad being a laminate top and all. I did throw it into a trade for a mandolin upgrade trade. #When you see this same design under different names, you realize that they are most likely made at the same factory. You will see these offered as both slot heads and drilled.

[Kilrush]

You will see these offered as both slot heads and drilled.

From what I've seen of these, at trade shows etc., the slotted-head ones are the cheaper model, in a gloss finish. I've only had some of the dearer version with the solid headstocks, which are in a much nicer satin finish. I've not had any real problems with the mandolins, but I've had trouble with the bracing below the bridge collapsing in a couple of the mandolas.

[BlueMountain]

At first I thought "Octave mandolin is not for me," but I've been playing it for an hour this morning, and I came to like it. I found, though, that D is a much more satisfying key for an Octave than G, which is a little too low. Once I figured that out, my day brightened.

[steve V. johnson]

Try it with the high course tuned to D. Many folks who play Irish trad music on octave mandos do this.

Also, find "open", "modal", or partial chords and give up the idea of those big four-finger chords from mandolin. Like, fretting the G course at the 7th fret gives an open D (modal) chord, as does fretting the A course at the fifth. Fretting the A course at the second fret is an open G chord, and so on. (Esp with the tuning GDAD.)

When playing melodically, do what you can to use open strings.

Have some fun!

stv

[steve in tampa]

I got on of those ebay octaves and the neck was set wrong. it plays, but the action is not great. Will use it on a couple of recordings.

[billkilpatrick]

as soon as i got hold of my mandolin from mid-missouri i started to look longingly at their mandolas. #i was curious as well to try one of these chinese cheapies but i finally talked myself out of it. #i figure that $100 is a little less than 1/6th the price of the mandola i really want and every-time mas really gets ahold of me - as it did while reading this thread (under the circumstances, your "good enough" assessment counts for quite a lot) - i move just that little bit closer to actually buying it.

- bill