Hi all
First time poster and mandolin newbie. I'm a guitarist that recently fell in love with the mandolin and I knew I had to have one. The trouble is that here in Madrid Spain where I live it's an extremely limited market. While visiting family back home in the States over the holidays I picked up a second hand Kentucky KM1500, a beautiful instrument.
Now that I am back in Madrid I took the Kentucky to my luthier here in town for a setup. He adjusted truss rod and filed the nut down a bit and now it's much easier to play. HOWEVER, I noticed that the intonation is really awful on the middle two sets of strings, D and especially A... the higher I go the flatter it gets and on the 12th fret it's just unbearable for me, the contrast between a fretted A on the E strings versus a fretted A on the 12th fret of the A strings is stark. I mentioned this to my luthier. He told me that he would have to redo the bridge, possiby working on the original, or possibly having to carve a new one (expensive and at least two or three weeks with my mandolin in the shop). Does this sound reasonable? My concern is simply that out here there aren't a whole lot of mandolinists and so while my luthier really knows his stuff with regards to the guitar, with the mando I assume he has much less experience. Is there a simpler explanation for this problem I'm having? (The intonation is fine on the outer sets of strings)
Also, he's trying to convince me to switch to a lower string gauge. I've currently got what the previous owner was using, which is a medium heavy set (D'Addario EJ75). I feel a bit reticent to do this and I would love some guidance as I have no mandolin community to draw upon locally.
Thanks in advance for your help!
David
Bookmarks