Hey that's me!
The idea of that instrument was to embrace the electric guitar aesthetic, while still keeping it sounding like a mandolin.
The limitation with an instrument like that, is that the double strings don't respond so well to regular guitar effects - in other words it's designed as a mandolin substitute for situations where noise levels preclude an acoustic. 4/5 string electrics are a whole other kettle of fish - the single strings are far better suited to the application of effects - and you just get a whole different sound from one string rather than 2, if the moderators will forgive my commercial interest, here's the 5 string follow up to that 8 string:
The granddaddy of all these instruments were a small number of highly collectable models from Paul Bigsby, still the gold standard for electric mandolin tone:
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