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Thread: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

  1. #1

    Default Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    Has anyone here had success tuning a mandolin, standard 14"/36cms~ scale, down to mandola tuning?

    I was messing around on the McDonald's String tension calculator and it looks like the D'addario EFT76 set on a standard scale mandolin tuned down to CGDA would be pretty comparable in tension to a light set of GDAE tuned J72 strings.

    I guess that the scale length might not be the limiting factor, but I'm assuming that low C might not sound so hot in a small mandolin body chamber.

    Has anyone played around with this?

  2. #2
    Registered User meow-n-dolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    I tried tuning a standard electric mandolin to CGDA for a blues band I was playing with. Even with heavier strings, the tone and intonation of the C-string was unacceptable. I ended up building a five-string electric, stand-scale mandolin. With the right string, the C was acceptable at least on the lower frets.

  3. #3
    Harley Marty
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    Default Re: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    Maybe you could give nylon strings a go. They may intonate better Thomastik do tape wounds that could go on the A. I’ve gone the other way & tuned up a 17” mandola as a mandolin.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    its not really worth the experimentation, get a low cost dola or an octave and capo the 5th fret.
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  5. #5
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    Default Re: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    Has been discussed a number of times here. Yes you can....all you are doing is cutting off the e strings and moving the other three sets down one position and adding the c strings. Then it is a matter of recompensating your bridge, reslotting your nut and finding an acceptable thickness for the c's. I have done it and am quite happy with it. But that is only because I did it on a custom mandolin I could (will) not let go of. If something like that (sentiment and stubbornness) is not the case........save yourself a lot of trouble and get a dola or a tenor guitar and don't mess with it (unless you go four string electric...then look into Tiny Moore). YMMV

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  7. #6

    Default Re: Mandolin Tuned as a Mandola

    I did this last week on my JBovier Army Navy pancake. I lucked out that the nut slots already fit the string set I had previously determined to fit the tension target (C - .044, G - .032, D - .022, A - .012) for the scale length, and I had previously lowered the bridge for chord-melody.

    In case a little work was needed, I do own nut slot files (Hosco 10-file guitar set, and their overlapping-gauge 4-file set for Perlon violin strings to fill the gaps), and inexpensive long feeler gauges from Amazon for doing nut slots. I also have that Stew Mac Safety Slot nut filing jig, but I normally just use rubber bands to group the gauges and to hold them in place for measuring fret height and for the actual filing. If anyone watches the Safety Slot videos to see how it works, they'll be able to do the job substituting the rubber bands instead.

    The first few times I did string gauge changes, I was new to it but has a repair tech I trusted to make sure the frets and action were great, and then to do the nut work. Since she moved away, I started doing more and more of the work myself.

    ----

    My advice? Do an extra light mandola restringing getting your trusted tech to do the whole set-up at the same time.

    Good luck!

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