Show your cboms!

[steve V. johnson]

I'm a Gallatin fan, esp the appearance. I like the mahogany backed ones.

Congrats on your new dola!

Let us know when you can play three of those at once, eh? ;-)

stv

[Steve-o]

my album ...

omg!

[John L]

This is my Alan Perlman OM. The builder is fairly well known for his flat top guitars, but I do not believe he has built many octave mandolins. Note bridge pins. This is a great sounding and very beautiful instrument, but has a fairly long scale for this mandolin player.

[John L]

AND... this one is my Levin mandola, or as the Swedes would say, a tenor mandola. There is a similar one in the 1952 Hagstrom catalogue posted on the Hagstrom UK website - www.hagstrom.org.uk - a really neat site to visit if you are interested in Hagstroms (and you should be). Seems Hagstrom acted as a distributor for Levin at the time.

Levin is an interesting company, which was bought out by Martin around 1970 and then closed in the late 1970s. I have never seen another Levin mandola, although perhaps they are more common in Europe? I have seen a few Levin flat top guitars and one Levin mandolin which looked a lot like my mandola including the sunburst finish, flat top, and oval soundhole.

[Pulgar]

Hi there - first time poster and thought I'd show you all my lovely Jack Spira 'Zook, made here in Aus. It's a gorgeous, balanced tone - subtle or bold - depending on what you need .... & the workmanship is superb.
Jack built it for me back in '98 - and I asked for a guitar scale-length which works beautifully. Tasmanian Blackwood back and sides, Sitka Spruce top & Ebony board.
The A.G.A pick-up had a custom saddle-transducer made and it works a treat. I quite like using it plugged in, with my little trio (two fiddles).
Great seeing all the other fantastic instruments, too!
(Apologies - the Spruce comes up a little over exposed!!)





Cheers..

P.S - Great, friendly Forum !!

[Michael Wolf]

Hello Pulgar,

a warm welcome to the forum. This is a beautiful Bouzouki. How is it tuned?
I´m always a little bit jealous about the wonderful domestic woods that you have in AUS.
Do you have recordings from your trio? I´d be interested to hear this combination.

[Gerry Cassidy]

Hi there - first time poster and thought I'd show you all my lovely Jack Spira 'Zook, made here in Aus. It's a gorgeous, balanced tone - subtle or bold - depending on what you need .... & the workmanship is superb.
Jack built it for me back in '98 - and I asked for a guitar scale-length which works beautifully. Tasmanian Blackwood back and sides, Sitka Spruce top & Ebony board.
The A.G.A pick-up had a custom saddle-transducer made and it works a treat. I quite like using it plugged in, with my little trio (two fiddles).
Great seeing all the other fantastic instruments, too!
(Apologies - the Spruce comes up a little over exposed!!)





Cheers..

P.S - Great, friendly Forum !!

Beautiful! I've admired Jack's work for many a year. Yours looks exceptional!

[steve V. johnson]

Hi Pulgar,

Welcome and thanks for the pix. Jack sure does build nice stuff, congratulations on that one.
The indigenous woods are great, too.

stv

[Eddie Sheehy]

"Onion-on-a-stick look"... too true....LOL

You crack me up Steve...

[Marcus CA]

My latest acquisition. A Weber Gallatin Mandola. Plain Jane but such a sweet robust sound. I haven't been able to put it down.

I agree completely! I played one a few months ago, and it sounded absolutely gorgeous. Instead of the new dola, though, I was lucky enough to find a used Gallatin F mandocello, which also sounds absolutely gorgeous.

[oldwave maker]

Crossposted in 'post a video of yousef'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jFxMfQST9k
Walnut/Engelmann spruce GOM

[steve V. johnson]

In the notes for BB's video it says...

"A tune performed at the 1792 Belfast harp festival..."

Wow, that's a great looking video for the 18th century!!!

stv

[Patrick Gunning]

(fail for now, pics later)

[Patrick Gunning]

2nd time's the charm...

Ok, I got this a couple months ago, but I never shared it down here in this thread. Also, I have a new mic, and thus new soundclips of my octave mando having opened up a bit.

This is an Arrow octave mandolin built by Paul Lestock. 22 1/4" scale length. Red spruce top. Month-old strings (ugh)...

For your viewing/listening pleasure... Oh, and the soundclip is a solo arrangement (in GDGD tuning) of a song by Swedish band Vasen called Bjorkbergspolskan off their album "Live in Japan," which I highly recommend.

[steve V. johnson]

Wow, splendid instrument and a beautiful arrangement of that tune!

Those old, old strings, tho... yeah, pretty ratty...

LOL!

stv

[Bertram Henze]

Technology's not advanced far enough, or else I would download the whole instrument. Now there's a beauty. Good, clean sound, too - can't hear the string age at all.

If that is opening-up just beginning, you have something to look forward in the future...

Simply outstanding, bursting my eyes and ears.

Bertram

[Avi Ziv]

Excellent tone and playing! I like the bass on this instrument. Deep but not muddy. Great for solo work.

Thanks for sharing
Avi

[Ken_P]

For your viewing/listening pleasure... Oh, and the soundclip is a solo arrangement (in GDGD tuning) of a song by Swedish band Vasen called Bjorkbergspolskan off their album "Live in Japan," which I highly recommend.

Wow. That's an amazing instrument you've got there. It looks amazing, sounds fantastic (helps that I'm a big Vasen fan), and you can't even tell how old the strings are! I've had a bad case of the 'cello version of MAS for a long time, but that just made it worse.

[otterly2k]

wonderfully done, Patrick
a fine axe, well played.
thanks for sharing this.

[Marcus CA]

Very nice arrangement! It shows the richness of the instrument and its player.

[David Newton]

New Navy Mandola in Walnut and Carpathian spruce going to Jon in Vermont.
I'd like to do one of these as a 'cello. Any advice about scale length?

[Ken Olmstead]

Patrick, that was astounding! The recorded sound is as good as anything going! I had to plug it into my home stereo for the full image and HOLY SMOKES!!! That sounds fabulous! Beautiful instrument but most importantly that was some tasty playing!!! Encore, encore!!!

[Charles Johnson]

Pics of my early (1981) Grit Laskin OM. 20 inch scale length. It was built for the owner of Unicorn Tonewoods in Toronto, hence the inlay. Its Macasser ebony back/sides.

[Bertram Henze]

Pics of my early (1981) Grit Laskin OM. 20 inch scale length. It was built for the owner of Unicorn Tonewoods in Toronto, hence the inlay. Its Macasser ebony back/sides.

That's peculiar. A 10-stringer I'd normally call a cittern, not an OM, though the scale length seems very short for a cittern. On the other hand, one string seems to be missing - should we call it a Waldzither, then? The fretboard looks very wide compared to the body - what is the width at the nut? How is the instrument tuned? Soundclip? What is the bridge made of?

So many questions, so much curiosity...

Bertram

[magnetite]

Left to right.
Gypsy Spirit - spruce & maple.
Petersen Level 2 bouzouki - spruce & rosewood with redwood rosette and maple binding. 25.4" strung in octaves and tuned GDAD.
Flatiron 3MC - spruce & flamed maple. 23.5" strung in unison and tuned GDAE.
All keepers.
One day I'll add a nice woody sounding walnut OM.