Showing Up With an Emando

[WRANGLERTBONE]

I'd be interested in hearing some stories about what happened to musicians the first time they showed up at their regular gig with an emando instead of/in addition to their acoustic axe.

Wranglertbone

[F-2 Dave]

I was stoned, dragged out of the city and left for dead.

[mrmando]

I added my first emando (a Gerry Collyard) and the Fender Blues Jr. amp to the passel of instruments I was already playing with Cabin Fever down in L.A. The gig was at a coffeehouse two blocks from Venice Beach. I found a parking spot and loaded up for the walk to the venue. I was determined to get everything in one trip. We're talking acoustic mando, fiddle, tenor guitar, viola, e-mando, Blues Jr., rack bag with preamps, cables, and instrument stands for everything. Somehow I strapped it all on. I walked about a block toward the coffeehouse ... and promptly threw my back out.

[Eric Hanson]

This would be the "case" of the e-mando that broke the busker's back.

[Ben Milne]

hey Dave did they drag u out cos they didn't like E-mandos or stoners?

[F-2 Dave]

They love emandos. They also love throwing stones. The OP asked what happened 'when', not what happened 'because'. Believe me one thing had nothing to do with the other.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

I was playing mandolin and guitar (acoustic) supporting a singer-songwriter, when we started playing songs that cried out for electric lead playing. So I took my Mandobird to practice one day. After the distraction of general interest in the instrument, we got on with it. It fit perfectly into a few tunes.

I started looking for more songs in the repertoire to use it. Stopped playing guitar almost entirely. Bought an 8 string solid body electric mando too. Running an electric 8 string and an electric 4 string through the same amp and effects keeps me from using a PA channel to mic my F5. I don't even bring the F5 to gigs unless I know we're going 100% acoustic (no PA).

The band leader has started to see that the electric mandos work great, are less hassle, and provide a visual identity for the band. We're often pegged as "that band with the guy who plays those cool little guitars!"

Daniel

[Dfyngravity]

And e-mando can be a very useful tool when there are a lot of banjos in the jam.

[mrmando]

And e-mando can be a very useful tool when there are a lot of banjos in the jam.

Until someone shows up with an e-banjo, that is...

[Dfyngravity]

I guess at that point it's up to whom ever has the louder amp......

[WRANGLERTBONE]

Thanks, posters. I've been playing my Rigel Gypsy Q at at the same brunch gig for about ten years, and just bought a Kentucky KM300E that was hanging on the wall at the luthier's shop when I took my old Strad-o-lin in for some work. It's definitely the right tool for the job -- we play a lot of swing tunes. But I have some trepidation about escalating an amplification arms race. So far, we only amp the stand up bass and a vintage Gibson archtop.

[Dfyngravity]

Well you could alway propose the idea before and see what they think, I don't think it would be a big deal, probably very welcoming.

[Christian McKee]

Wranglertbone, I've prevented volume wars before by rigourously watching my own volume. If nobody feels impinged on by the mandolin getting a bunch louder, then you're fine. The problem is that most of us get a little "amp drunk" in the early going, and play louder than we should. If you have the time and inclination, you might try making recordings of yourself and monitoring the levels closely to match them up. Good luck!

Christian

[bonny]

I haven't been playing the mandolin or the emando long enough to comment on them but I did show up for years with an electric bass to gigs where an acoustic was more the norm. The two things I found were that A) many folks including fellow musicians hear with their eyes and no matter how good you sound if it ain't acoustic looking it ain't selling. The other side of the coin is that after years of playing the acoustic I knew the technical devices that made it unique. Using them on the electric I could get a sound that while not "acoustic" had enough of the right things to be convincing in an acoustic situation. The high action I always had never hurt and I'd bet that would be true for the emando too.

[CES]

OP--

I would think it would be fine in your setting...it's your band, not an acoustic jam, after all. Just make sure you keep your volume balanced with the other instruments and you should be fine, especially on those tunes really begging for an electric sound.

Now, if you were talking about taking an electric/amp to an acoustic jam, that ain't right unless you have some disability requiring you to play the lower tensioned emandos and talk it over with the jam leaders (ie, get permission and set up some ground rules wrt volume/effects) first...

Also, there's no harm in trying it out...go in with an open mind, ask your bandmates to do the same, and if it works, then great; if not, then no harm/no foul.

[delsbrother]

Doesn't the Rigel already have a pickup?

[Daniel Nestlerode]

I would say, grab yourself a small amp. One with noting larger than a 10" speaker and no more than 15 watts. Put your amp near or between the other two and keep the volume low enough that you can hear the bass and archtop clearly.

just my $.02
Daniel

[WRANGLERTBONE]

Hey, delsbrother --

Yeah, the Rigel has a great pizo pickup. It reproduces the acoustic sound very accurately, especially through my little Roland amp, and it's a solid as a rock -- you know, carved out of a chunk of wood like a salad bowl. But I wouldn't call it an emando.

The little four string is a whole different animal. I'm really enjoying the way the color and sustain of the notes stays the same way up the neck on the G and D strings. Opens up a lot of territory for lead playing. I've been experimenting with turning the treble down a little and the volume up a little to try to get the Tiny Moore-like sound.

It had bronze wound strings on it when I got it, for some reason, and I just put some Ernie Ball light guage steel strings on there, and things certainly livened up!

[mandroid]

The AC 60 and my classic CGDA 4 string conversion of an A50, really only works well
with the signal from the Magnetic pickup, thru the amp, but very good it does when it is .

[journeybear]

A couple of years ago, soon after I got my MandoBird, I brought it to the weekly pickin'-for-tips get-together that the seasonal Cajun/bluegrass/country band (then guitar, bass, and me) was doing at fearless leader's local bar, trying to drum up some interest in geting a booking and making a little money while more or less practicing. (Now there's a run-on sentence I can be proud of!) Naturally the other two, who are more traditional-oriented than I, scoffed and worse when I brought it out, but I persisted, especially on the country songs. Once they heard how I was able to twang and bend notes and rock out a bit on "Folsom Prison" and such, they became persuaded I was right in doing so.

Another time I sat in with a friend of mine, playing in a duo (two guitars and voices) at an afternoon slot at Capt. Tony's. This time I brought along my effects unit and wah-wah pedal, since I figured they would be a bit more open to stretching out some. They were indeed more receptive, and impressed, even when I got into some psychedelic stuff and hard rock. Launching into "Whole Lotta Love" got a few guffaws, but they followed suit and we rocked the joint. But my best moment came during The Commodores' "Easy (Like Sunday Morning)," which I'd never even considered playing before. Somehow I hit on playing the "oo-oo" backup vocal part on the chorus high up, with some slow wah, and it was pretty magical - light, airy, easy. The guys were impressed with what I was doing, and asked me to sit in a couple more times. But the first time was the best - something about the magic of discovery.

[WRANGLERTBONE]

So, I took my new emando to the regular gig, and everybody liked it. The bass player calls it the Lesser Paul.

I quickly figured out you need a whole different approach to rhythm playing. On the acoustic, I tend to play triads on the three lowest strings, but that seemed to clash with the guitar, so instead I concentrated on color notes on top of the cord, and that seemed to work out well.

The crowd seemed to like it, too.