Oren
Feb-06-2006, 1:51am
I've had it a week, now.
--solid, satisfying, heavy feel to it
--appears to be very well constructed; nice wood, I wish it had the antique brass (bronze?) hardware, but who wants to wait until one shows up?
--two women have compimented the appearance of it.
--loud; projects like, well, like a resonator instrument.
--tone can be very honky or very heavy on treble if played with a "normal" pick.
--tone can be sweet if played with Tortex 1.0 (blue) or 1.14 (lavender) mm picks; it likes the ones that have a squared-off edge (my National Delphi guitar likes the green Tortex picks the best--go figure!).
--if pick attack is just right, it can sound rather like an oval-hole mando; can also sound like an F-hole mando if strings are struck "just so".
--all sounds are amplified, unforgiving if slightly out of tune.
--holds up well to a loud Stelling resonator banjo.
--dynamic range is enormous.
--very easy to play; comes with light-guage strings; allows for fast picking; neck is rather wide; position playing up the neck is easy.
--lots of echoing sound; can be dampened a bit by winding a pipe cleaner through the strings behind the bridge.
--the low strings sound more full than any other mando I've played; with heavier strings might be able to put it into mandola tuning with some success (can the reso-mandola and reso-mandocello be far behind?--the reso-mandolin quartet: a glorious thought!).
--nice for just about any kind of mando music, if played carefully.
--beats the heck out of the Rigel spider-bridge mando (discontinued, I have heard) (and don't even consider the Johnson metal body reso-mando as a comparison).
--for the past week, I've been playing old-time, blues, Celtic, ethnic, Balkan, and swing tunes on it; it loves everything.
comments from others: "That mandolin sounds great."--jam session 5-string banjo player.
"I want one. How much was it and where did you get it?"--another mandolin player.
"I like it. I can hear you playing."--a certain red-haired lady.
If you try one out, don't be put off by the tone from a plastic pick--try a Tortex blue or lavender pick. I like using the rounded corner, and sometimes one corner sounds different from the other. The thing is so loud that minute differences in pick configuration or attack cause big variations in tone.
Heartfelt thanks to Wade Hampton Miller up in Alaska for loaning his rebuilt vintage reso-mando to National so that they could study it and produce this instrument. It is probably as close to the perfect no-fuss jamming (and probably gigging) mandolin as I will ever find.
--solid, satisfying, heavy feel to it
--appears to be very well constructed; nice wood, I wish it had the antique brass (bronze?) hardware, but who wants to wait until one shows up?
--two women have compimented the appearance of it.
--loud; projects like, well, like a resonator instrument.
--tone can be very honky or very heavy on treble if played with a "normal" pick.
--tone can be sweet if played with Tortex 1.0 (blue) or 1.14 (lavender) mm picks; it likes the ones that have a squared-off edge (my National Delphi guitar likes the green Tortex picks the best--go figure!).
--if pick attack is just right, it can sound rather like an oval-hole mando; can also sound like an F-hole mando if strings are struck "just so".
--all sounds are amplified, unforgiving if slightly out of tune.
--holds up well to a loud Stelling resonator banjo.
--dynamic range is enormous.
--very easy to play; comes with light-guage strings; allows for fast picking; neck is rather wide; position playing up the neck is easy.
--lots of echoing sound; can be dampened a bit by winding a pipe cleaner through the strings behind the bridge.
--the low strings sound more full than any other mando I've played; with heavier strings might be able to put it into mandola tuning with some success (can the reso-mandola and reso-mandocello be far behind?--the reso-mandolin quartet: a glorious thought!).
--nice for just about any kind of mando music, if played carefully.
--beats the heck out of the Rigel spider-bridge mando (discontinued, I have heard) (and don't even consider the Johnson metal body reso-mando as a comparison).
--for the past week, I've been playing old-time, blues, Celtic, ethnic, Balkan, and swing tunes on it; it loves everything.
comments from others: "That mandolin sounds great."--jam session 5-string banjo player.
"I want one. How much was it and where did you get it?"--another mandolin player.
"I like it. I can hear you playing."--a certain red-haired lady.
If you try one out, don't be put off by the tone from a plastic pick--try a Tortex blue or lavender pick. I like using the rounded corner, and sometimes one corner sounds different from the other. The thing is so loud that minute differences in pick configuration or attack cause big variations in tone.
Heartfelt thanks to Wade Hampton Miller up in Alaska for loaning his rebuilt vintage reso-mando to National so that they could study it and produce this instrument. It is probably as close to the perfect no-fuss jamming (and probably gigging) mandolin as I will ever find.