jmagill
Apr-14-2015, 7:01am
This is my new-to-me 2009 Heiden Heritage model F5, one of 13 such mandolins in existence, each made with red spruce tops salvaged from a 100-year old building.
In the early '80s, when I was gigging full-time, I was fortunate to own two Monteleone Grand Artists, which eventually passed into other hands (one is now on sale at Carter's). Now, at last, I have finally found a worthy successor to those Monteleones in this magnificent instrument from the hands of Canadian luthier, Michael Heiden.
Discussions of the world's top builders often revolve around the "Big Four," – Gilchrist, Nugget, Dudenbostel and Monteleone, but there are many who would include Heiden in that select group. After a month exploring this mandolin, I would have to agree.
I am notoriously picky and difficult to satisfy. I'm not interested in owning a 'collection.' The merely excellent doesn't interest me. I am driven to find a select few instruments that I consider 'Exceptional', my own subjective term for that small handful of the finest instruments I have ever heard, the very Best of the Best, and even as I played an instrument as distinctive as this mandolin, my demanding inner Critic was constantly whispering, "perhaps a bit more of this, or a bit less of that." But I found that as I continued to explore and adapt to the Heiden, discovering how to get it to sound its best, the Critic calmed down and began to grudgingly admit, "actually, that sounds just about right."
So it is with relief, gratitude and satisfaction that I present to you one of the world's Great Mandolins.
My website features pages of extensive photographs of some of the outstanding instruments I have been privileged to spend time with, and in the case of the instruments I own, I include my own extensive reviews. Here you can find my Instrument Reviews (http://www.magills.net/GtrReviews.html) page, with links to those photographs. The Heiden page (http://www.magills.net/HeidenF5.html) contains many more hi-res photos and a lengthy review, which I will continue to update as I spend more time with the instrument and new features reveal themselves.
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In the early '80s, when I was gigging full-time, I was fortunate to own two Monteleone Grand Artists, which eventually passed into other hands (one is now on sale at Carter's). Now, at last, I have finally found a worthy successor to those Monteleones in this magnificent instrument from the hands of Canadian luthier, Michael Heiden.
Discussions of the world's top builders often revolve around the "Big Four," – Gilchrist, Nugget, Dudenbostel and Monteleone, but there are many who would include Heiden in that select group. After a month exploring this mandolin, I would have to agree.
I am notoriously picky and difficult to satisfy. I'm not interested in owning a 'collection.' The merely excellent doesn't interest me. I am driven to find a select few instruments that I consider 'Exceptional', my own subjective term for that small handful of the finest instruments I have ever heard, the very Best of the Best, and even as I played an instrument as distinctive as this mandolin, my demanding inner Critic was constantly whispering, "perhaps a bit more of this, or a bit less of that." But I found that as I continued to explore and adapt to the Heiden, discovering how to get it to sound its best, the Critic calmed down and began to grudgingly admit, "actually, that sounds just about right."
So it is with relief, gratitude and satisfaction that I present to you one of the world's Great Mandolins.
My website features pages of extensive photographs of some of the outstanding instruments I have been privileged to spend time with, and in the case of the instruments I own, I include my own extensive reviews. Here you can find my Instrument Reviews (http://www.magills.net/GtrReviews.html) page, with links to those photographs. The Heiden page (http://www.magills.net/HeidenF5.html) contains many more hi-res photos and a lengthy review, which I will continue to update as I spend more time with the instrument and new features reveal themselves.
132910 132911 132912 132913 132914 132915 132917