Zook builders to check out

[pjlama]

Hi folks,
Last year I played a zook in a music store and was taken with it so I got a Trinity College. I played it some but lost interest. Recently seeing Tim O'Brien and listening to him a bunch I've been inspired. I pulled the TC out of the closet and have been playing it quite a bit. I'm thinking about an upgrade. I went to the Zookfest builders day but that was before the bug bit me. I remember the Taylor's standing out but didn't spend time with the zooks as I fell in love with an Old Wave mandola that made it's way home with me. Anywho, I'm too impatient for a custom build, what should I look for? For style I'm playing a bastardized style of tunes I know so no specific genre. All input and direction is appreciated.

P.S. for the price the TC is pretty good it just won't intonate properly and could use some fret work.

[pjlama]

Also, is there a standard to scale lengths?

[man dough nollij]

For a "store bought" OM in the under $2K range, I would look at a Petersen, or a Weber Sage. .

The Sage has a scale length of 23.5", which is on the long side for an OM. My Weber Bridger (waiting for me now in Bozeman...) has a scale length of 22". I asked Rick B. why they were different, and he said it had something to do with the fact that the Bridger's carved top puts the strings up higher to fit the neck angle. The Sage has a flat top, so it needs longer strings to get the right tension. Hope I'm not misquoting him there...

I too have a TC, and I love the sound of it, for what I paid for it. It's a tank, too-- stays in tune perfectly. I can't wait to play my new Bridger!

That might be an option, too. I saw a used Bridger OM for around $2K recently. A Bridger is to a Sage as a Fern would be to a Hyalite, fanciness-wise.

Good luck!

[man dough nollij]

The Weber Sage 2 has more binding and fancier wood than the Sage 1.

[pjlama]

ok, so you've brought up a point I've been curious about. I think I figured this out but here's my guess. A zook has a little longer scale length and octave tuned string where an OM has a shorter length plus the stings are the same gauge. Is that correct? If so can I string an OM like a zook. I like the octave sound and the jingle you get from the lighter strings, kinda like a 12 string guitar.

[Geoff B]

PJ,
Herb Taylor builds a fine Zouk. You may have seen his work at the Zoukfest (not sure if that is the "taylors" you mentioned earlier). He and I have traded notes on occasion and he does a good job. I don't think he is a part of this community, but you can find more at www.herbtaylor.com.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Walt Kuhlman - Gypsy Music - builds some fine instruments. He has some beautiful Bouzoukis and OM's built. He's just starting a two-point OM for me. Should be ready in about 8 weeks.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I also have a fine Bouzouki built by Richard Beard. Flamed Koa back and sides -stunning instrument. Unfortunately he doesn't build a lot.

[TeleMark]

ok, so you've brought up a point I've been curious about. I think I figured this out but here's my guess. A zook has a little longer scale length and octave tuned string where an OM has a shorter length plus the stings are the same gauge. Is that correct? If so can I string an OM like a zook. I like the octave sound and the jingle you get from the lighter strings, kinda like a 12 string guitar.

There are several already opened containers of annelids floating around about this very topic...

You don't have to have the two bass courses tuned in octaves. In fact, virtually all of the zouks at zoukfest (with the exception of Roger's new Taylor which was more Greek inspired) were unison-strung.

I would imagine that you could string an OM with octave strings without too much problem. Just consider that if you end up playing more lead-melody stuff that the octaves might sound a little "odd." My Petersen came with octave pairs but I've switched to unison (and to GDAD tuning) because I'm playing more ITM as well as rock/blues stuff.

[first string]

I like the sound of octaves...even for lead work. You mentioned Tim O'Brien--if I'm not mistaken he has the bass courses tuned in octaves on his Nugget bouzouki (it's actually an OM, or at least it is in the quasi consensus terminology we have come up with here on the cafe), and he does a fair amount of lead work on it, though often that is capoed up to the mandola range.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I prefer Mandola strings on my OM. I prefer unison Irish Bouzouki strings on my zouk. I had a Greek bouzouki and had the octave strings on it - tuned Gg Dd AA EE. The octaves were the reverse of a 12-string (high string nearer the treble end.) Thay all work quite nicely - variety is the spice of life.

[steve V. johnson]

Builders of note... in addition to those already mentioned...

Nyberg in Canada, British Columbia, Phil Crump in Arcata, California. Jack Spira in New Zealand. Of course Corrado Giacomel in Italy.
Bill Bussman/Old Wave in New Mexico. Fylde in England builds some very nice octaves and zouks. Joe Foley in Ireland, Davy Freshwater in
Scotland. Brian Dean in Ontario, Canada. Bill Petersen has already been mentioned. David Weber in Vancouver builds a nice zouk with
a guitar-style pin bridge. Gernandt and Richard Beard are, I think, in Virginia. Guitar luthier J. Thomas Davis in Columbus, Ohio, is building
a magnificent five-course zouk, his first, for a good friend of mine. My friend is -very- well versed in these instruments so their collaboration
will certainly yield a splendid instrument.

I'm just rattling names off the top of my head... I think all these folks can be found in the Cafe's builders section. And there are a lot more, names
that aren't fixed in my mind, but whose instruments have been mentioned &/or pictured here in CBOM... There's a guy in St. Louis who's built some
beauties, another guy in the Chicago area (Joliet?) who is building mostly guitars, but shows a wonderful zouk on his website...

Scale length, tuning, stringing, woods, shapes and designs, like the luthiers themselves are all over the place. But there are some general standards.
"Octave mandolin" seems most often to refer to instruments that have scales from 20" to 23", and may or may not be tuned GDAE. Somewhat more often than not in mando tuning, it seems.

The term bouzouki and mandocello both seem to refer to instruments with scales of 24" and over, but differ in tuning. Bouzoukis are tuned all manner of ways, from the old standards (and variations) of the Greece and Turkey to plain old GDAE. Folks who speak of mandocellos seem most often to use the viola/cello tuning CGDA, but there are variations there, too.

Octave or unison stringing is largely a matter of personal preference and seems real ok for almost any instrument as long as the string slots at either end and the overall setup are tweaked to best keep the tuning true. Fretting pressure on the two different sized strings in a course can be problematic, but can be addressed when conciously set up.

In sum, you can have anything you want. Want a mandolin bark, but lower? Tim O'Brien's Giacomel is a pretty good example of that sound (IMO). And the Giacomels are a good example of creative physical design, too, of how far from 'standard' shapes these instruments can be. At what's perhaps 'the other end' of the audio scale, have a look and listen to Mike Marshall's mandocello playing on YouTube videos. Michael Holmes with the Irish band Dervish plays a Crump zouk that is both melodic and holds down the lowest range of tones (well... excluding Cathy Jordan's bodhrán) in the band.
There are mandolin-shaped ones, eastern bouzouki-shaped ones, Irish bouzouki-shaped ones, guitar-shaped ones and things-you've-never-seen-
before-shaped ones, thick and thin.

So keep looking around the web and listen to all you can. You can have pretty much whatever you can imagine and can find folks at just about any
price point and level of elaboration and craft who can build to your imagination.

It's tough to build a criteria for these things because we don't have places where we can go and find more than two builders' examples in a shop, to play and compare. Here at CBOM is about as good as it gets. I had maybe half a dozen instruments, all bought pretty much blind (and deaf ;-) ) before I
felt that I knew enough about what I wanted (and didn't want) to speak substantively with a luthier about a custom instrument. But, that said, the quality
of the available instruments, at all prices these days, is very good. You've had the TC experience, which with some careful set-up work provides a pretty good basis, and can even let you try out octave/unison setups, custom bridges, nuts, strings and even tailpiece mods/upgrades, and that can be quite instructive.

I hope this helps...

stv

[pjlama]

Thanks for all the info from everyone it is appreciated. Steve, you mentioned Giacomel and Bussmann, I have instruments from both and adore them. I'm thinking of going with a guitar bodied B/OM tuned Gg Dd AA EE probably an archtop Old Wave or if I can find a cool orchestra sized flat top guitar with a slim enough neck I'll do a conversion. I like that these instruments don't have a lot of rules, it makes playing music on them fun and creative.

[man dough nollij]

PJ, it's clear you have a terminal case of MAS. Maybe you ought to skip the preliminaries and go for this one. Dig the bear claw:

[pjlama]

Nice but a little spendy right now. I'm trying to reign in my mas, I'm probably gonna part with one of my high dollar pieces soon. Some of my favorite mandolins I've owned have been relatively affordable. I guess I'm either maturing or wisening or sumpin.

[danb]

My two favorite builders are Stefan Sobell for archtops, and Phil Crump for flat tops. The flat top sound from Phil Crump is what you hear in Dervish, the archtop Sobell sound is in many Irish & Scottish bands, particularly those geographically based in England/Scotland.

[pjlama]

It just so happen I know of a Sobell collection right here in my home town that includes a zook or two...

[pjlama]

I'm actually thinking of doing this with the difference being the zook strings. Any thoughts?

[pjlama]

These 00-15's can be had on Ebay for $700-$800...

[zoukboy]

My two favorite builders are Stefan Sobell for archtops, and Phil Crump for flat tops. The flat top sound from Phil Crump is what you hear in Dervish, the archtop Sobell sound is in many Irish & Scottish bands, particularly those geographically based in England/Scotland.

The only Irish bands I know who use Sobells are Altan (Ciaran Curran) and Andy Irvine (Patrick Street). All the Irish bands I'm acquainted with tend to use Abnetts, Foleys, Mansons, and one Crump in the case of Michael Holmes of Dervish.

Are there that many using Sobells, Dan?

[zoukboy]

I'm actually thinking of doing this with the difference being the zook strings. Any thoughts?

I knew a mando player in southern Missouri who had Martin "custom build" a 12 fret dreadnought octave mando about 20 years ago. They did a really indifferent job, shall we say, leaving the neck full guitar width and so there was a LOT of space between the courses. It sounded like a piece of furniture with strings.

While a conversion might be cheap, I really think you'd be happier with an instrument that is designed and built for the use you have in mind, PJ.

[zoukboy]

I highly recommend Herb Taylor. I love the new zouk he delivered to me at ZoukFest.

[John Flynn]

I can recommend Joe Mendel (jomando here on the Cafe'). I really like the 22.75" scale OM he built for me. I think it would work fine with zook strings and he can also do other scale lengths.

www.jmendelfrets.com

[zoukboy]

three piece staved back

[zoukboy]

soundhole