12 string neapolitan mandolin octave tuned

[Jim Williamson]

My father bought a beautiful 12 string mandolin in Naples in the late thirties, and it has recently been restored to excellent condition.

Currently it is set up with the three strings in each set tuned normally. When he bought it however it was tuned with one string an octave out to give a richer sound.

The luthier who restored it had never heard of such an arrangement, but my father would like it set up as originally tuned.

Does anyone know how a mandolin is set up that way? Is the octave higher or lower - or does it differ depending on the string? Which strings should be used - presumably not the same as on the strings tuned normally.

I'd be grateful for any information. My father is 90 passed and likes the instrument but each time it is brought out he clearly hankers after the original setup. I never heard it before the restoration and would like to try it, too.

[kww]

I play a 12-string, but I don't do octave tuning. For octave tuning, normally, the center course on the G and D strings are tuned one octave higher. A good place to start is to use your current A and E string gauge for the centers of G and D respectively. Since the strings are thinner, you should be able to test it without cutting anything, but you may get some buzz because of the strings being loose in the nut and saddle.

There are some mandriolas that have one string using an octave lower tuning on all four courses. That would involve recutting the nut and saddle to accomodate the much thicker strings that would be required (I am assuming that your luthier recut your nut and saddle while restoring it). I hope you have a long scale if you are going to try that.

You can go to

Saiten to see choices of string sets for both low octave and high octave tuning.

With the octave higher strings, I disagree that the sound is "richer", BTW. You really don't need much more treble in those notes than they naturally get, and the octave tuning leads to intonation problems. I haven't tried the octave down tuning.

[trevor]

Marlik,
Sorry, I know nothing about 12 string mandos but a bit about octave tuning. As a rule of thumb if you are going for an octave higher you want the octave string to be half the guage of the other plus a bit, ie with a G .040 try 0.022 there is some variation with wound and plain strings, it will take some experimentation to get it just right.
Assuming about 14" scale it would be possible to go an octave up for G, D and possibly A. If he is talking of an octave down that's another matter, you could probably acheive it for D, A and E.

[Jim Williamson]

KWW and Trevor

Thank you both for the information which helps a a lot.

I don't fancy the job of having the nut and bridge cut at least for the present although my father's description did sound a bit more like the mandriola tuning.

In the meantime I have sent him the appropriate strings for the octave G and D to try out. #He was very pleased with the idea, and we will see whether that was in fact the original arrangement once they are fitted. #Otherwise we will have to think about going back to a luthier.

Jim