zoukie
Aug-01-2008, 5:40am
Last year at the Gränna festival, I met Victor who was the new mandolin player in Danish bluegrass band Train 45. I tried his mandolin more or less because someone put it in my hands, and gosh, was that a great mandolin!! Good bass and just a lovely sound, and good playability.
It turned out he had made it himself.
Victor makes mandolins, guitar and bouzoukis (and maybe something else too, I don't remember). I decided to see him again since I already then was interested in upgrading mandolin.
He came to the oldtime music gathering at Kattinge Vaerk with his other mandolins, so that I could test play them, and I fell in love completely. I decided to order one as soon as our finances seemed to allow it. It took a while, since we also that autumn decided to move to Ireland.
During our stay in Cork I tried to do some research on builders and such, or how to get a good mandolin for a bit lower price than Victor's, but realized after some research that I would need to go to England, and wouldn't know anyway if I'd find something good, and that if I ordered locally I wouldn't know how the sound would be, and also, there are no builders around here who makes mandolins suitable for bluegrass music. So I decided to order from Victor, even if his prices are high, because I would know that I would get a top quality mandolin with the right sound.
On the 18th of July, my mandolin arrived. Oh, what a drama. I was on and off about how to send it, whether to buy a ticket to Copenhagen to collect it myself, whether to go for post, DHL or something else... I chose DHL, and after Victor had dealt with them it turned out they gave him wrong information about this and that..they didn't collect the mandolin in time, blabla. I was pretty stressed:)
But, the doorbell rang on July 18th and I bounced to the door and got my new baby. It was wrapped very well and it took ages to unpack it but oooh what a lovely instrument.
It is darker than I thought, and looks GORGEOUS!!! First I wanted a blondie but it would be too expensive so I picked some kind of brown color, and it got some kind of dark red-brown finish. Soo beautiful!
The sound is rich, deep, well balanced, it has an open sound great for Irish tunes but still it has a good chop. The thing with a good sounding instrument is that you can't hide that you're a lousy player so I need to relearn my technique on playing chords, which is a good thing. I need to learn more chord grips anyway and to make chords that allows for other than chops.
Time for pictures:
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbush2.jpghttp://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbushback2.jpghttp://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbushbody2.jpg
Awesome, huh?
There are videos on my You Tube site: Susi on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/user/susiakasinead), and there you can see that I'm not a brilliant player but I'm still just learning 8) .
It turned out he had made it himself.
Victor makes mandolins, guitar and bouzoukis (and maybe something else too, I don't remember). I decided to see him again since I already then was interested in upgrading mandolin.
He came to the oldtime music gathering at Kattinge Vaerk with his other mandolins, so that I could test play them, and I fell in love completely. I decided to order one as soon as our finances seemed to allow it. It took a while, since we also that autumn decided to move to Ireland.
During our stay in Cork I tried to do some research on builders and such, or how to get a good mandolin for a bit lower price than Victor's, but realized after some research that I would need to go to England, and wouldn't know anyway if I'd find something good, and that if I ordered locally I wouldn't know how the sound would be, and also, there are no builders around here who makes mandolins suitable for bluegrass music. So I decided to order from Victor, even if his prices are high, because I would know that I would get a top quality mandolin with the right sound.
On the 18th of July, my mandolin arrived. Oh, what a drama. I was on and off about how to send it, whether to buy a ticket to Copenhagen to collect it myself, whether to go for post, DHL or something else... I chose DHL, and after Victor had dealt with them it turned out they gave him wrong information about this and that..they didn't collect the mandolin in time, blabla. I was pretty stressed:)
But, the doorbell rang on July 18th and I bounced to the door and got my new baby. It was wrapped very well and it took ages to unpack it but oooh what a lovely instrument.
It is darker than I thought, and looks GORGEOUS!!! First I wanted a blondie but it would be too expensive so I picked some kind of brown color, and it got some kind of dark red-brown finish. Soo beautiful!
The sound is rich, deep, well balanced, it has an open sound great for Irish tunes but still it has a good chop. The thing with a good sounding instrument is that you can't hide that you're a lousy player so I need to relearn my technique on playing chords, which is a good thing. I need to learn more chord grips anyway and to make chords that allows for other than chops.
Time for pictures:
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbush2.jpghttp://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbushback2.jpghttp://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk241/susiakasinead/instruments/flatbushbody2.jpg
Awesome, huh?
There are videos on my You Tube site: Susi on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/user/susiakasinead), and there you can see that I'm not a brilliant player but I'm still just learning 8) .