I've been staying more on the acoustic mando pages of this site, but since I have 2 electric mandos I figured I might as well hop over here for a change. Here's a video of a band I was in about 2 years ago, playing my mandobird. Now I know lots of people knock the bird... and believe me I can see where there are coming from... I had to do a lot of set up work to get the intonation and playability where I wanted it. Even after that I had the classic E-string-is-quieter-then-all-the-rest problem... but some compression and some tube saturation made that all but go away. My thinking with the electrics is that I have an acoustic mando for bluegrass... why not go full on electric with the bird? I set up my effects accordingly. However, I got the 8-string, not the 4-string, as I was hoping the extra strings would keep it from sounding EXACTLY like a guitar. With distortion, two strings do some interesting things - beats and the like. Once I got used to it, I kind of liked it. Anyways, here was my take on the electric mandolin... please keep in mind that this song/video was written/recorded/filmed in two days for a school project, and is far from perfect [=
Not two long after this video I started playing lots more acoustic stuff... the mandobird went under my bed. Got it out a few months ago, and the action is at least a little more than "manly". Seeing as there is no truss rod, I gave up. Found an eastwood mandola at the local shop - truss rod, humbucker. Much more professional feeling instrument, also 8 strings. I'm in electric heaven... I guess that's my axe now! Thinking of turning the mandobird into a 5 string with a strat style single coils and maple neck... any thoughts?
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