I make both short scale and long scale Octave mandolins. Very Balanced sound, loud bass. (*Quick note* Hey! Octave Mandolins and Bouzoukis are literally the same instrument with different scale lenght)
Choosing the right wood for your Irish Bouzouki
If you decide to buy an Irish Bouzouki; you can choose between different woods. The tonewoods have different tonal qualities, therefore the instrument will sound different.
Maple: It’s a dense wood with high durability. Boosts the hi-mid frequencies giving us a beautiful bright full sound, good sustain, and big volume.
Walnut: This wood would be between the mahogany and the maple. Soundwise it boosts the lower frequencies, giving us a warm velvet sound. (wood featuring on the pics below)
Cherrywood: It’s a close-grained wood, good mid-range tone.
Octave Mandolin or Irish Bouzouki
We build both instruments! In fact, the octave mandoline and the short scale bouzouki are basically the same instrument, with a scale lenght of 22″/56m. This is the distance between fret 0 and the bridge. What is then the difference between the two instruments? Usually, the octave mandolins are tuned in GDAE while the bouzoukis are more often tuned in GDAD open tuning. The shorter scale is a lot easier on the fingers, you don’t need to strech your hands as much and it allows for finger picking and playing melodies.
The longer scale bouzoukis (61-66cm / 24-26″) have longer necks and are the favourites to play chords and accompaniement. They mostly use the open tuning GDAD but you can also find GDAE, ADAD, and other alternative tunings.
Short scale Bouzouki sound samples
Here are some videos where you can hear what my instruments sound like!
56cm /22 ” scale, tuned GCAD
Bouzouki left handed option
If you are looking to buy a left-handed bouzouki we can also make it for you without any extra cost, certainly, we like lefties! Remember all of our instruments are handcrafted and made to order by Caroline, that’s the only way to ensure the instrument will fit all your needs.
Bouzouki Electric System
In contrast with other makers, we make our octave mandolins trying to get the best acoustic sound possible, certainly drilling more holes than needed on any acoustic instrument will lead to a substantial tonal quality merm. (players do not like this, they like to sound powerful at sessions, right? 😛) Neither do we, that’s why in order to make our amplified Bouzoukis we use a pickup under the bridge so we don’t need extra holes, just connect a jack cable and you’re ready to hit the stage.
Learn your first Bouzouki Chords with us
At the workshop, we are not only trying to make the best Irish bouzoukis starting around 1.400€ we are committed to your learning; consequently, we created our own chord chart so you can learn all the basic Bouzouki chords easily. If you are a guitar player in the transition to the bouzouki you’ll probably learn all the basic chords in one afternoon. Enjoy!
Bouzouki Chords
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Bouzouki Strings
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