4 or 5 ?

Hey all i am interested in a electric mando. Mainly for jazz and swing purposes. Mainly to give a little mix up to my normal acoustic mandolin playing. I really dont care if its four or five string. Dont know much about electric.

Anyway i want something at a good price just to start with. What do you recomend? Nothing real expensive. It can be cheap because it would not be used in public. At least for a while.

Is anyone harder to play? Well give me your info please. Thanks a bunch.

Add anything extra you think might help. Thanks.

[Dfyngravity]

5 string electrics are pretty cool to play around with. And the low C is really nice to have. I have a Mann EM-5 5 string electric mando for sale in the classifieds, if you are interested. However, I am asking $650 for it. Send me a messege if you're interested.

[mandroid]

add one string and you get a mandola and a mandolin range of notes all at once, quite a deal.

Thanks. I will still look before i buy anything yet. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

[Christian McKee]

Options are limited for affordable five strings, but for cheap, playable 4 stringers your best bet are Blue Star instruments, or used things as they are available. Elderly seems to always have a number of the Blue Stars in stock.

Christian

[mikeomando]

I own a Bluestar 5 string and I think it's probably the cheapest you can go and get something that plays well and sounds good out of the box. I've also said this before: You can take one string off of a 5 string and play it like a 4 string. You can take 4 strings off of an 8 string and play it like a 4 string.
I love playing a 5 string like a 5 string. That one "extra" string gives you more chording possibilities, and lets you play down to a C.

[Christian McKee]

I completely forgot that Blue Star made fivers... That'll prolly be the direction I go when it's time.

Christian