Customer Reviews

Banjo Mandolin w/ case

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I have been fairly well pleased with Lark in the Morning in the past but this item, other than having a high novelty value if you are a collector of mandolins and/or banjos is a clunker considering what they want for it.

The sol-called case is just a thin zipper bag with no padding or pockets of any kind.

The instrument itself is rather lightweight though a bit thicker than a fruitcake tin.

Basic adive is don't buy it.

A local instrument shop started carrying this instrument, and as a mandolin player, I was just taken with its cuteness, but I thought about it a good couple of years, and currency fluctuations caused it to climb 50%, by the time I actually bought it. It is made in Turkey by Cumbus (pronounced Jumbus and means Joy) and a web search reveals that Cumbus is the Turkish national musical instrument. In Turkey you can get it with a large or small body, with a neck bolted on for either an eastern or a western musician. The bolt joining the neck and the body can also be adjusted to raise or lower your string action.

It took some getting used to it, because it does have a different feel than my mandolins. It doesn't give off a "refined" sound, but it does give off a very happy sound, and it's got the volume to pull its weight if you are jamming with a large crowd. The neck is on the short side, which makes the frets a little small, but once you've past the learning curve and gotten over making the strings thud with fat-fingering, it rings out fine. A friend was so taken with my instrument, he found a used one for sale in a city two hours away and made the drive to buy it, before the seller could find someone else. When we are both at the jam, we form the "Cumbus section". To the untrained eye, it is just another banjo-mandolin.

So you know what you're getting into, the tuning can be quite sensitive if you have just come in from outdoors. Once you're playing a little while and it has warmed up to your body, the tuning stabilizes, and you're pretty well good for the rest of the night.

This little thing has wormed its way into being my primary instrument. In fact, I perform on stage with it tomorrow as part of a larger group of mixed instruments. But I would agree with the other reviewer on one point. The paper thin zipper sock it comes with is worthless as a case. The tin pot base dings and dents if you drop it. Invest in a real case or wrap it in a towel in a duffel bag. Take good care of it, and it will bring you years of joy and happy tunes.