Hi all, I stopped by Carters for the first time a few weeks ago, on the way up to Tyler White’s shop, and I spent a good 3+ hours playing mandolins and still only played maybe half of them. It was a really nice privilege to get to play all those fancy mandolins way out of my price range! The guys I talked to were really nice and let me play any mandolin I wanted to except for the ones behind glass, so I didn’t get to play any Loars, but I did get to play 2 Gilchrists!
Please keep in mind though that before this, the best sounding mandolin I’ve played over the past 10+ years is my Kentucky KM900(which I will talk more about later on), so I’m not that experienced in hearing the different sounds from different high end mandolins in person. I have been playing for 20 years tho, and I can judge the quality and sound pretty decently I think.
I felt it was really unfair to so many of those mandolins though, because with so many people coming in and out playing them, the majority of them had old, dead, and corroded strings on them(which is why I didn’t play many of them). I also only played a couple Gibsons, as they were the worst as far as dead strings. I imagine more people would be wanting to play them because of the name.
I also realized that most of the Gibsons were flat fretboard with really narrow frets, and I really don’t like that setup(even tho that’s what my Kentucky has. Mine is set up well though so it’s playable for me at least). So when I saw that I really didn’t give many of them much of a chance.
The mandolins that I liked the most as far as sound and feel and playability combined were the 2 Gilchrists(specifically the older one, I think it is an 82, it was X braced, and I really liked the tone of that one!), and the few Ellis’s that I played, and every Collings I play I liked, a lot! The Apitius, The Heiden, the Cohen(that one was exceptional, as was the Wiens, at least to me. One of my favorites tho was the Voight A5, if I only had $3500 to spend only at Carters, I would pick the Voight, to me it sounded and played as well as many costing 3 times the price!
I do have to admit that I was kind of disappointed in the Webers. A friend of mine has one of the older Galatins with the Mahogany back and sides, and I’ve never played it, only heard it from a distance. I don’t remember what I thought of the sound, but it didn’t stick out to me as anything spectacular.
To my taste, all of the Webers sounded kind of hollow, and lacked bass possibly. I thought I would like them more, But I guess now I realize I am one of those people who the Weber sound does not do anything for...lol.
Maybe if they had decent strings I would have thought differently about them, but I didn’t like any of them the way they were.
As far as my Kentucky though, I was kind of impressed with how well it held its own to mandolins costing 2 to 3 times its price. It does not quite have the depth of tone that I like, like the Colling’s had, it’s more of a drier tone I guess, not my favorite, but pretty good quality, considering the price, and that it’s already mine and paid for...haha!
I will be keeping it after I get my White mandolin, and just keep it in a different tuning.
The next day, I went to Tyler White’s shop, and I have to say, I was not disappointed!
He seemed to be very knowledgeable and very organized. He had #11 back in the shop for some modifications, and I was very impressed with the way it sounded and played, especially considering how much he charges, and considering that I had played several mandolins the day before over $10k. As far as I’m concerned I think I’ll be totally happy with one of his, and I won’t be thinking that I’m missing out on something I would have had with a much more expensive mandolin.
I am really looking forward to getting #17, it will be a bit different in some ways than any of his previous ones, and I think it will be spectacular!
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