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Matt Lange
Apr-02-2007, 11:09am
i've never owned a mandolin before, but i've always loved the sound, and after playing one at a music store the other day i had to pick one up. I got this Oscar Schmidt off ebay:
ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&sspagename=STRK%3AMEAFB%3AIT&viewitem=&item=250097006485&rd=1&rd=1)
I looked around the web but couldn't find tons of info on this brand. Other sites had these going for $150-200, so i figured $67 was a pretty good deal, but does anyone have experience with this mandolin? Decent quality, stays in tune, etc? Any thoughts are appreciated

Eric F.
Apr-02-2007, 11:27am
Congratulations. My first mandolin was a rented Oscar Schmidt. It got me started and I"m sure this will do fine as a starter for you. If it's difficult to fret, or won't stay in tune, or doesn't intonate properly you might want to have a good repair person give it a setup. Also, see this site (http://frets.com/)for tons of info maintaining an instrument. Enjoy!

Doug Edwards
Apr-02-2007, 1:42pm
My first was an OM-1 my wife surprised me with. It was a fairly good beginner mandolin but MAS came quick.

Jason Kessler
Apr-02-2007, 3:41pm
My first was an Oscar Schmidt. I still have it, though have added to the stable. A very good beginner instrument, I think.

Kevin Briggs
Apr-03-2007, 7:48am
I have played some Oscar Schmidt's before. They always seemed of a higher quality than other mandolins in the same range. Just about any mandolin in the $200 range (yours usually sells for that) is going to yield some positives and negatives.

Most importantly, in my opinion, your entry-level mandolin should stay in tune and should be relatively easy to play. That way, you can worry about actually playing it, and not wrestling sound out of it.

If you stay with the mandolin, like many people do once they play for a little while, you will probably find yourself needing something a bit more eventually. I remember when I upgraded from my Morgan Monroe to a Breedlove, I wanted an instrument that could put out more volume, and that could handle my heavy hand. I only realized this is somethign I needed after playing for a while. It was a natural by-product of me becoming a better player, so I felt I needed a better instrument.

If you do upgrade, you'll quickly notice how different your new mandolin sounds, and that's when MAS (mandolin acquisition syndrome) has arrived. Since the differences between your 1st and 2nd mandolin will be so drastic, you'll wonder what other differences exist in the mandolin world. You'll start driving long distances just to try some mandolins that are supposed to be good. Eventually, you'll start wondering, "How much better can a $6,000 mandolin actually be?"

It's a disease, a wonderful disease.