Kansas mandolin

[fredhicks]

A student of mine just bought a Kansas A style mandolin....think he said his folks paid $130 for it. For the life of me I can't tune the thing. Alread broke one of the E strings just trying (no problem there, I have plenty of old sets strings I can give him)....I tune it like I usually do and get the strings fairly decent to the next(not easy on this thing).....then a chord sounds horrible. Get a chord to sound decent and the strings don't match up to the next. Could the frets be off? The bag has already started splitting just from putting it in.

[MikeEdgerton]

The bridge top could be reversed.

[Folkmusician.com]

I would say that Mike is on the right track... it would be the bridge. Even the low grade mandolins seem to have reasonable fret spacing. I would check the bridge first.


Start with a measurement from the nut to the 12 fret. Then measure from the 12th fret to the bridge saddle on the E string (right at the point where the string breaks contact with the top of the bridge). These measurements should be real close. If they are not, the bridge needs to be moved.

After the bridge is placed fairly close, it is finished off with a tuner or even by ear. check the 12th fret harmonic and the fretted 12th fret. They should match. Now match the G string as well. The bridge may end up crooked. This is fine. Once you have the E and G in, you can check the D and A and try for the best compromise across all 4 courses. It sounds like it is bad enough that just doing the measurement thing would help. :)

[allenhopkins]

"Kansas" is a line of cheapo Asian imports. You can find the Kansas MA1B mandolin on Amazon for $67. Most likely problem is a mis-located bridge, which may well also be reversed so that the compensation is operating in the opposite way from how it should.

Reviews of the mandolin mention tuning problems, some of which may be related to new strings stretching and "settling in." You've a "sow's ear" there, and it won't become a silk purse, but probably it can be tweaked to at least be playable. What a concept -- a playable mandolin for a low, low price! Not worth putting much money into it, though, IMHO.

[Jim MacDaniel]

For some visual guidance on bridge placement/intonation tweaking, check out page 3 of this excellent frets.com tutorial on string-changing (http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musician/Mandolin/MandoString/mandostring1.html).

[fredhicks]

Thanks folks. I already broke a string on it just trying to tune it up. I have plenty of old strings at home that I will never use so I can give him a few sets. If nothing else, the Kansas this kid bought is pretty dang loud.....better strings from my old pile should help as well. I wish he had said something to me ahead of time and I probably would have either gone used mando off the classified section or at least checked out some reviews for him. But...for the price...he can at least see if he is willing to practice a bit. I tried to get him sitting still long enough to learn to tune it from the harmonic and string to string....hmm, we will see.