Everything You Wanted To Know about the Mandocello (But Was Afraid to Ask)

[Trespass]

Though Mr. Marshall's playing could've sold me any bizarre instrument.

 

[ellengtrgrl]

Cool tune!! I remember wanting one of the Hamer electric mandocellos years ago, because Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick played them on occasion.

 

[Explorer]

I love what can be played on my mandophone (modified and retuned 12-string, bottom four courses play as a mandocello). It cost me so much less than a stock mandocello (less than $800 total including mods, compared to more than US$2K for a mandocello), and the fact that so much Bach is playable on it, for both cello and violin (mandolin tuning is at the fifth fret capoed) just adds to the coolness factor.

If someone wanted to really exploit full fifths tuning, I'd suggest two books: The Complete Mandolinist, and Getting into Jazz Mandolin. The first book will get you comfortable with reading music, and both free you from open-string tyranny.

I like the tuning so much that my two eight-strings are in full fifths. Look at my signature, and tremble at the range of my guitar.... *laugh*

 

[emguitars]

I loved Cheap Trick's song Mandocello so much that when I started building instruments a mandocello was one of the first things I built!

 

[djohns74]

Cool instrument, great playing. The Bach piece in the first half is just beautifully executed, I could listen to that sort of thing all day.

 

[Trespass]

I love what can be played on my mandophone (modified and retuned 12-string, bottom four courses play as a mandocello). It cost me so much less than a stock mandocello (less than $800 total including mods, compared to more than US$2K for a mandocello),

Pictures, and explanations please, good sir!

 

[Explorer]

Pictures, and explanations please, good sir!

As you request, good sir. Explanations first...

In the '80s, I had worked in a music store which had many fifth-tuned instruments. I tried to retune a guitar to full fifths, but starting with a high E4 meant the bottom course was F1, which was too floppy for an acoustic guitar. (There weren't the huge amount of string choices as there are now, but it was clear that the body wasn't large enough to move enough air to get good tone that low.) Attempts to tune the high string to B4 failed, as a 25.5" string will pop when you get to around G#4; thinner and it's not strong enough, thicker and it has the strength... but requires so much more tension that it still breaks.

(Incidentally, Bob Fripp was living in the same general area, and apparently decided to make a virtue of necessity. Instead of going for full fifths, he went with a crippled fifths tuning, keeping the high course to G4, a minor third above the E4. I've been waiting for over twenty years for someone to leverage that top string to do something amazing, but at this point I've decided that it was just a compromise which didn't yield any results beyond having mostly fifths. Bob Fripp did wind up ordering the Ovation guitars he used in his courses from a folk music store a little further north, where they stocked quite a few of the mando family instruments, and where he had quite a bit of contact with that music scene.)

Twenty years later, I heard of a bass player who had decided to develop a string which could tune higher than a normal steel string. I did some calculations, and decided to buy a few to see if full fifths was now achieveable. The beater guitar worked, and I started looking in earnest for an acoustic guitar which would give me the doubled strings and body tone of a bouzouki or mando instrument.

I figured that most mando family instruments didn't have much body to them, and so I felt that an Ovation shallow bowlback would be the best choice. I almost went with a Douglas bowlback 12-string, as it was a bit cheaper, but snagged an inexpensive Ovation on Ebay.

(Incidentally, this was what led to me finding the Rondo Music website, where I first saw an eight-string guitar, the Intrepid Pro. I must have come in during one of the ordering periods, although it had closed when I went back. Still, that was what had me dig a bit more, and eventually led me to sevenstring.org, and to all the informative threads on Agile guitars and other eight-strings. I haven't thought about all that for a while, but even my FM-408 was purchased because of info I found on SS.org... which I found because of my obsession with full fifths.)

Once I had the Ovation, I did the string calculations, purchased a bunch of bulk strings, and tuned it up. I originally strung it for the high course to be a duplicate E4, so that I wasn't breaking strings from messing around. The scale length turned out to be a little shorter than the two six-strings I now had in full fifths, and so I had to go a little heavier at the bottom end. Once I knew I had the gauges to my satisfaction, I ordered more strings from O4+ for the high B4, and gave the guitar to my tech. She thought the idea was completely out of the norm, and loved the chance to do it.

Once the slots in the nut had been widened for unison strings (normally 12-strings have octave tuning at the bottom), the saddle intonation corrected and the relief and action set up, I took the instrument and replaced the top two strings. I hadn't wanted to give the strings over, as they cost $5 a pop, and if they were going to break, I'd rather not have hard feelings about someone else breaking them. *laugh*

The tuning held, and I now had a 12-string which would do what I wanted acoustically. Behold!

I know, it looks just like a 12-string. However, it has a range of almost five octaves, and is versatile.

In addition to this instrument, I later took the original beater guitar (a Joshua AE-400) to my tech, and as it had only cost $30 to begin with, I had her set it up. I invested an additional $30 in a raised abalone soundhole rosette, like on some Ovation guitars, which I found on eBay. (I wish I could find another, but maybe that's like lightning striking twice.) She did some fretwork, replaced the plastic dots with abalone, and now it is my favorite guitar when I have to grab one for acoustic work. I run the signal through a Korg PX4A, which has 12-string modeling and pitch shifting available. (By setting the pitch shift to zero, one gets a slight delay, a time shift smaller than most delays, and thus the subtle chorusing of a double-strung instrument.) By the use of a Danelectro Honeytone amp, placed unobtrusively and concealed under cloth, the guitar is subtly reinforced, but with the shimmering sound of doubled strings. It's interesting to see folks try to figure out why the instrument sounds the way it does.

Getting back to the mandophone, it does what it does much more inexpensively than any mandocello on the market (normally costing much more than US$2K, new or used). Having six courses gets me more range than a limited four-course instrument, and the Dunlop Victor capo I use at the fifth fret is so unobtrusive (most capos being chunky and hard to fret against) that it's like playing a long-scale mandolin with a little more body to the sound.

Mandocellos are interesting, but too rich for my blood. I now have instruments that do more for less money, and that's a good thing.

 

[damigu]

nice find. thanks for the vid w/ info!

 

[Apophis]

wow, interesting instruments, nice find, thanks for sharing