Macafferri shaped mandolins

[Jim Nollman]

I own this one:

It's a 4 string Bussman mandola, which I currently have strung with Thomastik Starks to turn it into a fully functional octave mandolin. I may eventually add 4 more strings.

I spotted another Macafferi-shaped mandolin today on EBay, which prompted me to start this thread. This one is a Randy Wood built Octave mandolin. What a gorgeous instrument.


Then there's the Draleon Royale, which I lusted after, although briefly, a few years back. After a bit more research on the body shape, I actually bought a Godin electro-acoustic which seemed a more versatile instrument for the kind of recording I was doing at the time. The Godin too is almost/kind of like a macafferi. I used it a lot over 4 years, then sold it for no good reason.

I'm curious what other Macafferi style mandolins are out there. If so, I'd love to see more examples. One thing they all seem to have in common, is that they are all beautifully made.

[mandroid]

Seems most above are more Jazz Guitar themed, than Selmer Maccaferi


I have a David Hodson Made 'D'Jangolin' , Mr Hodson also made Selmer style guitars ,

this one is made, as I understand , like the guitars were ..

Back and sides, a shop made laminate of Mahogany Inside and Indian rosewood outside .
though flat top rather than the induced arch of the French guitars ..

found a picture of one via G'gl http://www.mandolin.org.uk/images/hodson_img0.jpg
Open and Post if you are more able than I.



I got mine with a wild looking Red metalflake Case .. A Thermoplastic I think.

one from the past on this site http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/at...ntid=30922&d=0

This has a Blue Case... Their shape is more Selmer like , bridge across widest Bout

I have seen one of the plastic Mac Guitars Mentioned Here http://www.lutherie.net/is_a_mac.htm

[JeffD]

The Paris Swing mandolins were meant to capture the general vibe, while still being F style mandolins. Not the shape though, just the vibe.

[Verne Andru]

Greg Rich [formerly of Gibson Custom Shop IIRC and later designing The Loar] designed the Paris Swing line with more than a casual nod to the Selmer/Macaffari guitars used by Django, etc.

I have this John Jorgenson signature model, which was top of the line. All solid woods, ebony fretboard, all the good stuff. Plays and sounds fantastic.

It has the squared off body cut on the treble side and a petite D soundhole.



This is how it was before modifications:



They also had a grande bouche version, but the tops were prone to collapsing from what I've read:





And then there was this version:



I was originally after this one but missed the eBay auction.

They also had a traditional F-Style, but it seemed out of place next to these.

[Bob Clark]

I own this one:

It's a 4 string Bussman mandola, which I currently have strung with Thomastik Starks to turn it into a fully functional octave mandolin.

Hi Jim,

What's your scale length on that one? I think it is a real beauty!

One good thing about having it four-strung is that the Thomastiks have two sets per pack. Seems like a bargain that way.

Best wishes,

Bob

[crisscross]

The closest thing to a Maccaferri guitar seems to be the mandolin the French builder Maurice Dupont offers

[Tobin]

Would the Weber cutaway style mandolins count?

http://webermandolins.com/instrument...away-mandolins

I think these were first introduced at 2014 Winter NAMM as the "Mustang" models. Photo below borrowed from jazzmando.com , taken at NAMM.

[Mandobart]

To me those guitar shaped cutaway Webers look great; I've never heard one but would like to. I would say they are archtop-like but not SelMac-like. A well built gypsy jazz guitar is a real canon, my Altamira is way louder than any Gibson or Martin or frankly any non-resonator acoustic guitar I've heard. I've never held or played one of the SelMac inspired mandos shown in this thread. Are any of these real loud like their guitar counterparts? The form is great, how's the function?

[jeho2a]

Paul Hathway in the UK makes a flat-top mandolin in this style: http://www.paulhathway.com/mandolins/.

[mandroid]

The closest thing to a Maccaferri guitar seems to be the mandolin the French builder Maurice Dupont offers

One of the 2 styles the above a 12 fret to body , the smaller oval Has 2 More frets to the body..
In both D'Jangplins and (AFAIK) the guitars they are patterned after.

as Paul Hostetter points In article linked to(above) the D sound hole is entirely Selmer ,
Mario Maccaferri influence came into the game to influence the small hole variant. ..

Mario was a concert player, who had studied Lutherie in his youth,
His own Guitar (shown on Paul's site) was classical strung not steel .


Quoting Mr H..

Maccaferri only became a "brand name" after he emigrated to the US ...

The only guitars bearing the brand name of Maccaferri were either made of plastic in the U.S. in the 1950s, or made in Japan in the 1970s.

[billhay4]

Eric Folke makes a nearly exact replica of a Macafferri. There are only a few of these, but he's a very good builder.
Bill

[Jim Garber]

As others have noted, these are more generally guitar-shaped mandolins, maybe more specifically jazz-guitar shaped mandolins (rather than very specifically Maccaferri ones) vs. mandolinetto types. A friend of mine last month got a beautiful blonde-finished Lestock 5-string Jazzbo. I have pics but here is what a four-string would look like, really more like a mini-L5 guitar.



Info on the model here — i think Lestock's web site is non-existent at the moment.

BTW true Maccaferri instruments actually have bent tops, not carved.

I do have Maccaferri-style tenor guitar made by Joel Eckhaus/Earnest Instruments.

[mandroid]

interesting .. Eric's is a 15" scale , Hodson 14+ ish at 365mm ..

[Jim Nollman]

Yah, everybody is correct who pointed out to me that what i call a Macafferi is really only a quasi-macafferi. Mine is an archtop, with s-holes.

My Bussman mandola is quite loud and very clear sounding. Its frequency range is in the same niche as a guitar or piano, which sometimes makes it hard to hear, without power, in a band situation. The sound of it, in its octave incarnation, reminds me more a lute than an octave. Then again, who knows, maybe every 4 string octave strung with Thomastik starks is going to sound like a lute. Yes its true, I only use 4 strings at a time. And they last a very long time with great tone. But they still cost a whopping $72 for a set of eight.

I love that Folke model. And likewise, the quality of the Djangolin. I'd love to see other creative luthiers make an instrument with this body shape.

With one big caveat. Although the shape grabs me as a concept, experimental luthiers need to make a living as much as luthiers who stick to the bluegrass world. I wonder what percentage of mandolin players would actually buy or order from scratch, a brand new Macafferi mandolin rather than an F5 or an A. It's probably low.

The Paris Swing seemed to have a lot of promise when it first appeared on the scene. Verne's gorgeous black model was where I had hoped they were heading. But somehow, the execution only occasionally met the promise. They also made a few with ff holes, but I never got to hear one played.

The Weber? No doubt it has typical Weber quality. But it seems a stretch to fit it into this jazzbo category where all the others here rightly belong.

[Jim Garber]

I found the pics of my friend's 5-string electric Jazzbo mandolin. Here you go! Paul often makes his mandolins with longer scales. This one might be 14.5-15". It sounds great acoustically too.



I have not heard it through an amp. Jason Anick plays one tho and he sounds pretty good.

[mandroid]

Mario seems to have contributed a double back (tone-gard ish function) and a port and reflector baffle in the D Hole .*

Selmer was the factory making them .. http://www.lutherie.net/resonate.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selmer_guitar

It was the Reinhardt brother Joseph on the D Hole, D'Jango on the small oval..

edit * seems I reversed some things in 10th .

[j. condino]

I always liked the subtle simplicity of my friend and Portland neighbor the late John Sullivan's take on the idea in an A style mandolin format.

j.
www.condino.com

[crisscross]

Eric Folke makes a nearly exact replica of a Macafferri.

I do have Maccaferri-style tenor guitar made by Joel Eckhaus/Earnest Instruments.

as Paul Hostetter points In article linked to(above) the D sound hole is entirely Selmer ,
Mario Maccaferri influence came into the game to influence the small hole variant. ..

There seems to be a little confusion as to what exactly is a Maccaferri and what is a Selmer.
As Paul Hostetter points out in his article http://www.lutherie.net/is_a_mac.htm

The rule of thumb for describing Selmer guitars: the 1932-33 models with the D-hole are called Maccaferri, or Selmer Maccaferri, guitars, while the later oval-hole model is simply called a Selmer guitar. The only guitars bearing the brand name of Maccaferri were either made of plastic in the U.S. in the 1950s, or made in Japan in the 1970s.

The large D-hole (grande bouche) and shorter scale gives the Maccaferri style guitars more bass response, what makes them attractive to rhythm players.

The small oval hole (petite bouche)and longer scale Selmer style has a more focused upper midrange sound, good for piercing leads.

Maccaferri style guitars had originally 12 frets to the body, while Selmer style guitars had 14 frets.

Contemporary builders like Maurice Dupont build hybrids, 14 fret guitars with d-holes but longer scales.

So, strictly speaking, a Maccaferri style mandolin would only be a 12fret large d-hole mandolin.
A 14 fret oval hole would be a Selmer style.

[Jim Garber]

I always liked the subtle simplicity of my friend and Portland neighbor the late John Sullivan's take on the idea in an A style mandolin format.

j.
www.condino.com

That one is a real beauty, James, esp with the slothead and vertical oval hole. I also liked the vertical oval hole on Peter Langdell's Q95 mandolin. I liked the way it sounded too.

[Eric Foulke]

I guess the question is whether you are just interested in the look or do you want the sound too?
I want both. It was the sound of the Selmers that first attracted me; somewhere "in-between" an archtop and a flat top, with a fast attack/ short decay and a little "dryness" to the tone. I want my instruments to sound like they look. If I built an archtop version, it would sound like an archtop, not a Selmer.
I am currently using a 14.75" scale with a 12th fret neck joint- for me the longer scale, in combination with lighter strings is an integral part of the Selmer sound.
To answer another question, Sel-Mac mandolins are definitely a niche instrument. All of my clients own another mandolin (or five). I don't do this for a living (and I have tremendous admiration for those who do.) so I feel free to experiment and leave the F5s to the pros.
Here are a couple in progress:


ps: John Sullivan had an amazing sense of style.

[Rick Jones]

Great looking stuff, Eric. I tend to agree re: the differences between SelMac and Archtop. I owned a Djangolin for a few years, and though I love the Gypsy-style music, that mandolin and I never really bonded. Later I built a couple archtop guitar-shaped mandolins, and I still have and love the one I kept. Warm and woody - much more like an archtop guitar. (By the way - thanks again for your invaluable guidance back when I began that project, back in the early 2000s!). I still think about building a Sel-Mac mando sometime, a D-hole to match the guitar I built in 1999 - but if it sounded like the Djangolin, I probably wouldn't like that either. I just listened to the Nuages model clips on your site, and they sound great. The Djangolin was all treble and ice picks. I was not a fan, and my wife was thrilled when I sold it.

[Jim Garber]

I would guess that the Selmer/Maccaferri styles would be closer to Brazilian bandolims in construction with maybe the difference of a longer scale & lighter strings.

[Jim Nollman]

The Djangolin was all treble and ice picks. I was not a fan, and my wife was thrilled when I sold it.

Somewhat off the subject, but this quote makes me recall the time I bought a Stuart Wailing resonator mandolin. It was so physically beautiful. But very rough sounding — all ice picks and bombast. My wife made me sell it after just a few weeks of ownership.

Two questions. First, I notice two (or maybe even three) alternate spellings for macafferi. I got this spelling from a gypsy jazz website. Anyone wish to give us the actual true spelling?

And second, the original models were all guitars. Correct? Or did Selmer make a mandolin with that same shape, as well? I had thought they never made mandolins. If not, then I have to wonder about the statement from Eric, who says that working with that unique form is not enough, and he mostly seeks to use the form to capture the original sound of the Macafferi. Please say more about this.

[Eric Foulke]

Rick,
Thanks! I'm glad I could help. The Selmer-styles definitely have their own "sound", but I try to avoid the "ice picks" side of the spectrum. I do find myself bouncing back and forth between them and archtops. I have a Jacobson right now that has really captured my ear. (Luthiers usually have the worst form of MAS)

Jim G,
I don't know exactly how bandolims are constructed, but for what it is worth, I do think my mandolins would be great for choro music.

Jim N,
I believe the correct spelling is two "c'"s and one "f".
Selmer did not make mandolin versions of their guitars (they did make tenors), although it might be argued that the ladder-braced bent-topped guitar design was somewhat inspired by the bent top Neapolitan mandolin.
As far as I know the first Selmer-style mandolins were made by the late David Hodson, the "Djangolin". Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to actually play one of his instruments.
When I refer to the Selmer "sound", I am referring to the sound profile of the guitars. When I play up the neck of a Selmer-style guitar, I start to hear mandolin-like tones; a somewhat compressed, singing tone. It is a tone that flat-top and archtop guitars just don't seem to have. That is what inspired me to go down this path; to make a mandolin that was "in-between".

[crisscross]

Just discovered: the German builder Henning Doderer also builds Selmer style mandolins.

http://doderer-gitarren.de/category/mandolinen/