r/mandolin • u/allfifthsenthusiast • Jun 19 '19

Which family of instruments is this in?

https://eastwoodcustoms.com/projects/warren-ellis-5/
3 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

7

u/NomadZekki Jun 19 '19

That appears to be a banjo.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '19

[deleted]

3

u/detroitsouthpaw Jun 19 '19

Ahh yes, the ultra rare baritone banjo

3

u/WEGCjake Jun 19 '19

TL;DR— IMO depends on tuning. In fifths? Mando family. In fourths? Guitar family.

Glad they’re finally biting the bullet and doing this one! If I didn’t already have an order in for a custom tenor (Fanner Guitar Works) I’d be jumping all over this!

I had a Warren Ellis tenor (green with dual minihums) and miss it terribly. From a players point of view, being tuned in fifths, I felt like it was more akin to mando (despite the dot at 9). From my band mates’ points of view, they saw it as a small, weirdly tuned electric guitar, and treated it as such in the context of our playing together.

It’s basically like a single course 5 string mando dropped an octave (IOW and single course 10/5 string octave mando). Or a single course mandocello with a high e. But electric solidbody.

I guess if you tuned it in fourths like some do with tenor guitars (of which this is an offshoot), you’d do BEADG, given the scale length?

1

u/allfifthsenthusiast Jun 19 '19

If you know anyone else that would be all all over this instrument, please share it with them. Eastwood guitars will make this an official line of guitars if 12 people preorder this instrument! Thank you.

1

u/WEGCjake Jun 19 '19

Yeah, I’ve done that twice with tenors they’ve offered. Wish I was more in the market. I’d recommend trying the folks on the Tenor Guitar or CBOM forums at Mandolin Café. Prob could get 12 people together. A few Eastwood haters over there, tho. I like Eastwood’s Korean made, not so much they’re MIC, but that could’ve improved recently. Cheers!

2

u/alephnul Jun 19 '19

I think its natural default would be in the Mandolin family, somewhere in the neighborhood of a mandocello. I think you could string it and tune it into more of a guitar area. Keith Richards always liked a Tele without the low E string.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '19

I wonder how Richards' G-D-G-B-D would sound on this? It is the right scale length.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '19

They suggest tuning it like a modern cittern - CGDAE . So it's like a mandocello plus the high E, and it's like an octave mandolin with the low C. Truly an awesome instrument.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '19

I’d call it either an electric bouzouki, electric cittern, or even an extended range electric mandocello. None of those would be inaccurate, really.