Justus True Waldron
Nov-15-2011, 12:59am
Hey everybody, I found my first ever mandolin (km350) in a friend's basement, so I brought it home and couldn't resist snapping a picture of the three axes together. Somewhere along the lines it seems to have given up it's truss rod to help another...
I couldn't help but compare the three as best I could and reminisce:
km350 - played this for about two years. Had a really sweet tone for a cheap instrument once it started opening up. Eventually the top started to deform, and after custom carving a bridge to try and compensate for it, I gave up and moved on. It was a pretty nice starter instrument, just wish it had lasted longer
km162 - again played for just about two years. I don't think the tone was ever as sweet as the 350, but what it lacked there it made up in volume and punch. I put heavy strings on it and it really started to come open with a very dry sound. I also got the neck and frets set up really well for a while, it played great. Still, It was lacking in a fullness of tone, and heavy strings could only do so much (still really impressed me for a sub $300 instrument). One thing I noticed in comparison to the other two? The body is over a quarter inch deeper all around then the others, and slightly bigger/longer too. Could this have something to do with the boxy sound?
Macica A model - I already had a post about this so I won't bore anyone anymore with it. However, I will say that it is very similar in size and shape to the 350... which being my first mando, might explain why the Macica just felt so natural to me. Anyways, that's enough ramblings for the night.
What am I going to do with the km350 now? Well, all this mando stuff has gotten me pretty interested in acoustics once again. I think I'm going to pull the back off, and run a series of tests using transducers. I'm particularly interested at the moment in Virzis... Once I figure out what I'm doing I'll probably start a thread about it, in case anyone else happens to be interested, or have any ideas to add. 7830378302
I couldn't help but compare the three as best I could and reminisce:
km350 - played this for about two years. Had a really sweet tone for a cheap instrument once it started opening up. Eventually the top started to deform, and after custom carving a bridge to try and compensate for it, I gave up and moved on. It was a pretty nice starter instrument, just wish it had lasted longer
km162 - again played for just about two years. I don't think the tone was ever as sweet as the 350, but what it lacked there it made up in volume and punch. I put heavy strings on it and it really started to come open with a very dry sound. I also got the neck and frets set up really well for a while, it played great. Still, It was lacking in a fullness of tone, and heavy strings could only do so much (still really impressed me for a sub $300 instrument). One thing I noticed in comparison to the other two? The body is over a quarter inch deeper all around then the others, and slightly bigger/longer too. Could this have something to do with the boxy sound?
Macica A model - I already had a post about this so I won't bore anyone anymore with it. However, I will say that it is very similar in size and shape to the 350... which being my first mando, might explain why the Macica just felt so natural to me. Anyways, that's enough ramblings for the night.
What am I going to do with the km350 now? Well, all this mando stuff has gotten me pretty interested in acoustics once again. I think I'm going to pull the back off, and run a series of tests using transducers. I'm particularly interested at the moment in Virzis... Once I figure out what I'm doing I'll probably start a thread about it, in case anyone else happens to be interested, or have any ideas to add. 7830378302