NMD Eastwood Warren Ellis Mandostang

[kurth83]

It's their 4-string electric. Pretty much what I was hoping for tone and playability. This is a budget instrument but is usable.

Bought from Instrument Alley through Amazon.

Scale length claimed 14", but feels oddly short, the frets feel closer together. After inspecting this is because it has jumbo frets on it, wider than normal, so it is prepared for some serious bending on it. So FYI, if you want to know what jumbo frets feel like on a mando, the answer is cramped. It make chords generally harder to fret especially up the fretboard.

On the positive side, it sings well up the fretboard for melodic playing, easier to play there than on a normal mando.

It has the crystal clear tone of a single string per course, and the single coil is also very clear, exactly what I was expecting.

It needs a setup, action is a bit high. It came intonated correctly at the bridge, truss rod is set right. Neck is fine, frets are good.

Tone knob is useless, cuts everything but the low notes on the G string, maybe a different cap would fix, but I don't care, I have pedals for that and it's clean tone is just fine as-is.

It feels like lighter strings would make playing easier, especially bending, but I'll wait to decide that until after the setup, since the strings it came with are already pretty light.

And lastly, some commentary on 4 vs 8 strings, this is the second 4 string I have bought and they both had the same strange effect, when going from 8 to four strings on an otherwise similar (or identical) instrument, I find I need to use a brighter pick to get a satisfactory sound. So I ordered a BC TP50 speed bevelled which should be enough brighter than my TP60 to work. For now a primetone 1.4 gives a nice tone.