Editing Mandolin (section)

== Variations ==
=== Bowlback ===
Bowlback mandolins (also known as roundbacks), are used worldwide. They are most commonly manufactured in Europe, where the long history of mandolin development has created local styles. However, Japanese luthiers also make them.

Owing to the shape and to the common construction from wood strips of alternating colors, in the United States these are sometimes colloquially referred to as the "potato bug", "[[Colorado potato beetle|potato beetle]]", or tater-bug mandolin.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=David J. |last2=Rossing |first2= Thomas D.|editor-last=Rossing |editor-first=Thomas D.
|title=The Science of String Instruments |publisher=Springer |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=77–98 |chapter=Mandolin Family Instruments |isbn= 978-1-4419-7110-4}}</ref>

==== Neapolitan and Roman styles ====
The Neapolitan style has an almond-shaped body resembling a bowl, constructed from curved strips of wood. It usually has a bent [[Sound board (music)|sound table]], canted in two planes with the design to take the tension of the eight metal strings arranged in four courses. A hardwood [[fingerboard]] sits on top of or is flush with the sound table. Very old instruments may use wooden [[tuning peg]]s, while newer instruments tend to use geared [[Machine head|metal tuners]]. The [[Bridge (instrument)|bridge]] is a movable length of hardwood. A [[pickguard]] is glued below the sound hole under the strings.<ref name=tylersparkspaper>{{harvnb|Tyler|Sparks|1996|p=}}</ref><ref name="Sparks115-16">{{harvnb|Sparks|2003|page=15–16}}</ref><ref name=tylersparksearly>{{harvnb|Tyler|Sparks|1989|p=}}</ref> European roundbacks commonly use a {{convert|13|in|adj=on}} [[Scale length (string instruments)|scale]] instead of the {{convert|13+7/8|in}} common on archtop Mandolins.<ref name="mandocafeforumHiin"/>

Intertwined with the Neapolitan style is the Roman style mandolin, which has influenced it.<ref name="Sparks37–38">{{harvnb|Sparks|2003|page=37–38}}</ref> The Roman mandolin had a fingerboard that was more curved and narrow.<ref name="Sparks37–38"/> The fingerboard was lengthened over the sound hole for the E strings, the high pitched strings.<ref name="Sparks37–38"/> The shape of the back of the neck was different, less rounded with an edge, the bridge was curved making the G strings higher.<ref name="Sparks37–38"/> The Roman mandolin had mechanical tuning gears before the Neapolitan.<ref name="Sparks37–38"/>

===== Manufacturers of Neapolitan-style mandolins =====
[[File:Mandolin Player (by Jitze Couperus).jpg|thumb|right|Modern bowlback mandolin manufactured by the [[Raffaele Calace|Calace]] family workshop]]
{{multiple image
| caption_align = center
| header_align = center
| align = left
| image1 = That's my Washburn.jpg
| width1 = 130
| alt1 = Advertisement for American made mandolin
| caption1 = 1897 Advertisement for a Lyon and Healy-made, ''Washburn'' brand mandolin
| image2 = C.F.Martin Tour-14.jpg
| width2 = 154
| alt2 = Martin mandolins
| caption2 = Martin mandolins and [[Harp guitar|harp mandolin]] on display at the Martin Guitar Factory
}}

Prominent Italian manufacturers include Vinaccia (Naples), [[Luigi Embergher|Embergher]]<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Embergher mandolin|date=2004|publisher=R. Leenen and B. Pratt|isbn=9073838312|location=[Place of publication not identified]|oclc=863486060}}</ref> (Rome) and [[Raffaele Calace|Calace]] (Naples).<ref name=mandoglossary>{{cite web |url=http://www.mandolincafe.com/glossary/glossary_15.shtml |title=Mandolin Glossary |website=Mandolincafe.com |access-date=21 December 2014}}</ref> Other modern manufacturers include Lorenzo Lippi (Milan), Hendrik van den Broek (Netherlands), Brian Dean (Canada), Salvatore Masiello and Michele Caiazza (La Bottega del Mandolino) and Ferrara, Gabriele Pandini.<ref name="mandocafeforumHiin">{{cite web |url=http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-63751.html |title=Who are the top classical builders? |website=Mandolincafe.com |access-date=21 December 2014}}</ref>

In the United States, when the bowlback was being made in numbers, [[Lyon and Healy]] was a major manufacturer, especially under the "Washburn" brand.<ref name=mandoglossary/> Other American manufacturers include [[C. F. Martin & Company|Martin]], Vega, and Larson Brothers.<ref name=mandoglossary/>

In Canada, Brian Dean has manufactured instruments in Neapolitan, Roman, German and American styles<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.labraid.ca/ |title=The Latest from the Shop |website=Labraid.ca |date=21 April 2019 |access-date=17 May 2019 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517222520/http://www.labraid.ca/ |archive-date=2019-05-17}}<br/>{{cite web |url=http://www.labraid.ca/ |title=Hi, my name is Brian Dean. I build classical mandolin |website=Labraid.ca |access-date=16 March 2018 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180630113410/http://www.labraid.ca/ |archive-date=2018-06-30}}</ref> but is also known for his original 'Grand Concert' design created for American virtuoso [[Joseph Brent]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.labraid.ca/grand-concert/ |website=Labraid.ca |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125035416/http://www.labraid.ca/grand-concert/ |archive-date=2015-11-25 |title=Grand Concert}}</ref>

German manufacturers include Albert & Mueller, Dietrich, Klaus Knorr, Reinhold Seiffert and Alfred Woll.<ref name="mandocafeforumHiin"/><ref name=mandoglossary/> The German bowlbacks use a style developed by Seiffert, with a larger and rounder body.<ref name="mandocafeforumHiin"/>

Japanese brands include Kunishima and Suzuki.<ref name=Japanesebrand>{{cite web|url=http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=34734 |title=Mandolin (neapolitan, Round Back, Bowl Back...)|access-date=21 December 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221183302/http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=34734 |archive-date=21 December 2014}}</ref> Other Japanese manufacturers include Oona, Kawada, Noguchi, Toichiro Ishikawa, Rokutaro Nakade, Otiai Tadao, Yoshihiko Takusari, Nokuti Makoto, Watanabe, Kanou Kadama and Ochiai.<ref name="mandocafeforumHiin"/><ref name=Japanesemandmanu>{{cite web |url=http://www.mandolinluthier.com/japanese_mandolin_makers.htm |title=Japanese Mandolin Makers |website=Mandolinluthier.com |access-date=21 December 2014 |archive-date=6 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206083757/http://www.mandolinluthier.com/japanese_mandolin_makers.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==== Other bowlback styles====
{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center
 | align = right
 |image3= Giovanni Vailati.png
 | width3=140
 | alt3= Giovanni Vailati, blind mandolinist of Cremona
|caption3= [[Giovanni Vailati (musician)|Giovanni Vailati]], "Blind mandolinist of Cremona", toured Europe in the 1850s with a six-string Lombard mandolin.<ref name=bicent3>{{cite web |url=https://www.cremaonline.it/cultura/07-09-2014_Historia+et+imago+Cremae.+La+vita+di+Giovanni+Vailati,+il+Paganini+del+mandolino/ |title=Historia et imago Cremae. La vita di Giovanni Vailati, il Paganini del mandolino: dai caffè cremaschi ai teatri d'Europa [translation: Historia et imago Cremae. The life of Giovanni Vailati, the Paganini of the mandolin: from the cremaschi cafés to the theaters of Europe] |last= Dossena|first=Luigi |date=7 September 2014 |website=cremonaonline.it |access-date=11 June 2018 |quote= ...on December 2, 1852 in Parma at the Regio theater he performed a single string music from his mandolin, on a Lombard-type mandolin inspired by sixteenth-century instruments still unformed and rough. It was a soprano lute, very small, having the semblance of a paunchy half-egg, which he later replaced with a mandolin inspired by Hispanic Bandurria- type models... }}</ref>

 | image2 = London-Victoria and Albert Museum-Musical instrument-02.jpg
 | width2 = 134
 | alt2 = Lombard mandolin with twelve strings (six courses)
 | caption2 = Lombard mandolin with twelve strings in six courses. The bridge is glued to the soundboard, like a guitar's bridge.

 | image1 = Cremoneze mandolin from Bortolazzi.png
 | width1 = 166
 | alt1 = Cremonese mandolin, 1805
 | caption1  =Cremonese mandolin with four strings, from an 1805 book by [[Bartolomeo Bortolazzi]]

 | image4 = Mandolin MET DP169117.jpg
 | width4 = 150
 | alt4 = Genoese mandolin, 19th century
 | caption4  =Genoese mandolin with twelve strings in six courses. The bridge is held to the soundboard by the strings.}}

Another family of bowlback mandolins came from [[Milan]] and [[Lombardy]].<ref name=MilaneseLombardic>{{cite web|url=http://www.mandolinluthier.com/Lombardic_mandolin_makers.htm|title=Milanese Mandolin Makers|website=Mandolinluthier.com|access-date=21 December 2014}}</ref> These mandolins are closer to the mandolino or [[Mandore (instrument)|mandore]] than other modern mandolins.<ref name=MilaneseLombardic/> They are shorter and wider than the standard Neapolitan mandolin, with a shallow back.<ref name="Sparks206">{{harvnb|Sparks|2003|page=206}}</ref> The instruments have 6 strings, 3 wire treble-strings and 3 gut or wire-wrapped-silk bass-strings.<ref name=MilaneseLombardic/><ref name="Sparks206"/> The strings ran between the tuning pegs and a bridge that was glued to the soundboard, as a guitar's. The Lombard mandolins were tuned g–b–e′–a′–d″–g″ (shown in [[Helmholtz pitch notation]]).<ref name="Sparks206"/> A developer of the Milanese style was Antonio Monzino (Milan) and his family who made them for six generations.<ref name=MilaneseLombardic/>

Samuel Adelstein described the Lombard mandolin in 1893 as wider and shorter than the Neapolitan mandolin, with a shallower back and a shorter and wider neck, with six single strings to the regular mandolin's set of 4.<ref name="Adelsteinp14">{{harvnb|Adelstein|1893|p=14}}</ref> The Lombard was tuned C–D–A–E–B–G.<ref name="Adelsteinp14"/> The strings were fastened to the bridge like a guitar's.<ref name="Adelsteinp14"/> There were 20 frets, covering three octaves, with an additional 5 notes.<ref name="Adelsteinp14"/> When Adelstein wrote, there were no nylon strings, and the gut and single strings "do not vibrate so clearly and sweetly as the double steel string of the Neapolitan."<ref name="Adelsteinp14"/>

===== Brescian mandolin or Cremonese mandolin =====
[[Brescia]]n mandolins (also known as Cremonese) that have survived in museums have four gut strings instead of six and a fixed bridge.<ref name=mandocafebrescian>{{cite web |url=http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?74060-Plans-of-Brescian-mandolin |title=Thread: Plans of Brescian mandolin... |website=Mandolin Cafe |access-date=September 5, 2015}}</ref><ref name="Sparks205"/> The mandolin was tuned in fifths, like the Neapolitan mandolin.<ref name=mandocafebrescian/> In his 1805 [[Method (music)#Mandolin or mandolin-banjo or banjolin|mandolin method]], ''Anweisung die Mandoline von selbst zu erlernen nebst einigen Uebungsstucken von Bortolazzi'', [[Bartolomeo Bortolazzi]] popularised the Cremonese mandolin, which had four single-strings and a fixed bridge, to which the strings were attached.<ref name=Bortolazzi>{{cite book |last=Bortolazzi |first=Bartolomeo |date= 1805|title=Anweisung die Mandoline von selbst zu erlernen nebst einigen Uebungsstucken von Bortolazzi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oz5cAAAAcAAJ |language=de |location=Leipzig, Germany |publisher=Breitkopf and Härtell|page=1 }}</ref><ref name="Sparks205">{{harvnb|Sparks|2003|page=205}}</ref> Bortolazzi said in this book that the new wire-strung mandolins were uncomfortable to play, when compared with the gut-string instruments.<ref name=Bortolazzi/> Also, he felt they had a "less pleasing...hard, zither-like tone" as compared to the gut string's "softer, full-singing tone."<ref name=Bortolazzi/>
He favored the four single strings of the Cremonese instrument, which were tuned the same as the Neapolitan.<ref name="Sparks205"/><ref name=Bortolazzi/>

=====Genoese mandolin, a blend of styles=====
Like the Lombard mandolin, the [[Genoa|Genoese]] mandolin was not tuned in fifths. Its 6 gut strings (or 6 courses of strings) were tuned as a guitar but one octave higher: e-a-d’-g’-b natural-e”.<ref name=musinswld>{{cite book|editor1-last= Midgley|editor1-first= Ruth|date= 1997|title= Musical Instruments of the World|url= https://archive.org/details/musicalinstrumen00diag/page/188|location= New York|publisher= Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.|page= [https://archive.org/details/musicalinstrumen00diag/page/188 188]|isbn= 0-8069-9847-4|quote= ...six pairs of string, and a wider neck than the Neapolitan instrument...|url-access= registration}}</ref><ref name=GenoaMet>{{cite web |url= https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/180013407|title= Mandolin,19th century Italian|author=<!--Not stated--> |publisher= Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date= 4 April 2018 |quote=  “mandola o mandolino alla Genovese”, this mandoline has six pairs of gut strings, fifteen rosewood ribs, and mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell inlays. It differs from other gut-strung mandolins in being tuned an octave higher than the modern guitar (e, a, d’, g’ b-natural, e”) and having a guitar-like peg block}}</ref> Like the Neapolitan and unlike the Lombard mandolin, the Genoese does not have the bridge glued to the soundboard, but holds the bridge on with downward tension, from strings that run between the bottom and neck of the instrument. The neck was wider than the Neapolitan mandolin's neck.<ref name=musinswld/> The peg-head is similar to the guitar's.<ref name=GenoaMet/>

=== Archtop ===
{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center
 | align = right
| image2 = 1924 Lloyd Loar F-5 (SN75846), Virzi (SN10002) (2010-09-18 00.27.59 by Joseph Brent) clip1.jpg
 | width2 = 124
 | alt2 = 1924 Gibson F-5 mandolin
 | caption2  =1924 Gibson F-5 mandolin, with f-shaped soundholes designed by Lloyd Loar

 | image1 = GibsonF4Mandolin1916.jpg
 | width1 = 139
 | alt1 = Gibson F-4 Mandolin c.1916
 | caption1 = 1916 Gibson F4 with arched and carved top, curled scroll and oval soundhole

| image3= GibsonA4Mandolin1921.jpg
 | width3 = 150
 | alt3 = Gibson A4 mandolin
 | caption3  =1921 Gibson A4 mandolin
}}

At the very end of the 19th century, a new style, with a carved top and back construction inspired by violin family instruments began to supplant the European-style bowl-back instruments in the United States. This new style is credited to mandolins designed and built by [[Orville Gibson]], a Kalamazoo, Michigan, instrument maker who founded the "Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co., Limited" in 1902. Gibson mandolins evolved into two basic styles: the Florentine or F-style, which has a decorative scroll near the neck, two points on the lower body and usually a scroll carved into the headstock; and the A-style, which is pear-shaped, has no points and usually has a simpler headstock.

These styles generally have either two f-shaped soundholes like a [[violin]] (F-5 and A-5), or a single oval sound hole (F-4 and A-4 and lower models) directly under the strings. Much variation exists between makers working from these archetypes, and other variants have become increasingly common. Generally, in the United States, Gibson [[F-hole]] F-5 mandolins and mandolins influenced by that design are strongly associated with bluegrass, while the A-style is associated with other types of music, although it too is most often used for and associated with bluegrass. The F-5's more complicated woodwork also translates into a more expensive instrument.

Internal bracing to support the top in the F-style mandolins is usually achieved with parallel tone bars, similar to the bass bar on a violin. Some makers instead employ "X-bracing", which is two tone-bars mortised together to form an X. Some luthiers now using a "modified x-bracing" that incorporates both a tone bar and X-bracing.

Numerous modern mandolin makers build instruments that largely replicate the Gibson F-5 Artist models built in the early 1920s under the supervision of Gibson acoustician [[Lloyd Loar]]. Original Loar-signed instruments are sought after and extremely valuable. Other makers from the Loar period and earlier include [[Lyon and Healy]], Vega and [[Larson Brothers]].

====Pressed archtops====
The ideal for archtops has been solid pieces of wood carved into the right shape. However, another archtop exists, the top made of laminated wood or thin sheets of solid wood, pressed into the arched shape. These have become increasingly common in the world of internationally constructed musical instruments in the 21st century.

Pressed-top instruments are made to appear the same as carved-top instruments but do not sound the same as carved-wood tops. Carved-wood tops when carved to the ideal thickness, produce the sound consumers expect. Not carving them correctly dulls the sound. The sound of a carved-wood instrument changes the longer it is played, and older instruments are sought out for their rich sound.

Laminated-wood presstops are less resonant than carved wood, the wood and glue vibrating differently than wood grain. Presstops made of solid wood have the wood's natural grain compressed, typically creating a sound that is less full than a well-made, carved-top mandolin.

=== Flatback ===
{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center
 | align = right
 | image1 = Bandolim1.jpg
 | width1 = 130
 | alt1 = Picture of bandolim
 | caption1  =The bandolim is a Portuguese variant of the mandolin family. Instruments are flat on top and back.

 | image2 = Ozark flatback Mandolin - 2250 Army-Navy Special (by Jim Hutcheson).jpg
 | width2 = 115
 | alt2 = Army Navy Mandolin
 | caption2 = Army-Navy style mandolin
}}

Flatback mandolins use a thin sheet of wood with bracing for the back, as a guitar uses, rather than the bowl of the bowlback or the arched back of the carved mandolins.

Like the bowlback, the flatback has a round sound hole. This has been sometimes modified to an elongated hole, called a D-hole. The body has a rounded almond shape with flat or sometimes canted soundboard.<ref name=McDonaldp16>{{harvnb|McDonald|2008|p=16}}</ref>

The type was developed in Europe in the 1850s.<ref name=McDonaldp16/> The French and Germans called it a Portuguese mandolin, although they also developed it locally.<ref name=McDonaldp16/> The Germans used it in [[Wandervogel]].<ref name=McDonaldp18>{{harvnb|McDonald|2008|p=18}}</ref>

The bandolim is commonly used wherever the Spanish and Portuguese took it: in South America, in Brazil ([[Choro]]) and in the Philippines.<ref name=McDonaldp18/>

In the early 1970s English luthier Stefan Sobell developed a large-bodied, flat-backed mandolin with a carved soundboard, based on his own [[cittern]] design; this is often called a 'Celtic' mandolin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sobellguitars.com/large-and-small-bodied-mandolins/|title=Stefan Sobell Guitars » Mandolins and Mandola|website=Sobellguitars.com|access-date=25 April 2019}}</ref><ref name=McDonaldp30>{{harvnb|McDonald|2008|p=30}}</ref>

American forms include the Army-Navy mandolin, the flatiron and the pancake mandolins.

==== Tone ====
The tone of the flatback is described as warm or mellow, suitable for folk music and smaller audiences. The instrument sound does not punch through the other players' sound like a carved top does.

=== Double top, double back ===
The double top is a feature that luthiers are experimenting with in the 21st century, to get better sound.<ref name=brent>{{cite web |url=https://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/printer_1420.shtml |title=Joseph Brent's Brian N. Dean Grand Concert Mandolin |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=20 November 2011 |website=mandolincafe.org |access-date=29 May 2017 |quote=[He told the luthier:]..."I want to hear the wood, and not the metal." And, "I want it big and dark and loud, like the engine note on a Ford GT." ...I know there are lots of musicians like me who would love the chance to create an instrument that's more geared to the music they're making...It's got a lot of crazy features, like that aforementioned false back... |archive-date=3 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803203557/https://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/printer_1420.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref> However, mandolinists and luthiers have been experimenting with them since at least the early 1900s.

Back in the early 1900s, mandolinist [[Ginislao Paris]] approached [[Luigi Embergher]] to build custom mandolins.<ref name=Speranski>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/TheRussianEmbergher_201501 |title=The Russian Embergher |last=Speranski |first=Victor |date=November 2014 |access-date= 29 May 2017}}</ref> The sticker inside one of the four surviving instruments indicates the build was called after him, the ''Sistema Ginislao Paris'').<ref name=Speranski/> Paris' round-back double-top mandolins use a false back below the soundboard to create a second hollow space within the instrument.<ref name=Speranski/>

Modern mandolinists such as [[Joseph Brent]] and [[Avi Avital]] use instruments customized, either by the luthier's choice or at the request of the player.<ref name=brent/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?102738-Avi-Avital-and-the-Arik-Kerman-mandolin |title=Re: Avi Avital and the Arik Kerman mandolin |last1=Daniel |first1=Bernie |last2= Garber|first2=Jimi |website=mandolincafe.org |access-date=29 May 2017 |quote=...What is [the luthier] Kerman doing so different from the approach taken by American luthiers...The difference from the German models is that it has the sound holes on the edges and, even more important(?) has a double top.}}</ref> Joseph Brent's mandolin, made by Brian Dean also uses what Brent calls a false back.<ref name=brentfalse>{{cite web |url=https://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/printer_1420.shtml |title=Joseph Brent's Brian N. Dean Grand Concert Mandolin |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=20 November 2011 |website=mandolincafe.org |access-date=29 May 2017 |quote=[Brent's instrument has] ...maple sides/false back, spruce true back...It's got a lot of crazy features, like that aforementioned false back... |archive-date=3 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803203557/https://www.mandolincafe.com/news/publish/printer_1420.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref> Brent's mandolin was the luthier's solution to Brent's request for a loud mandolin in which the wood was clearly audible, with less metallic sound from the strings.<ref name=brent/> The type used by Avital is variation of the flatback, with a double top that encloses a resonating chamber, sound holes on the side, and a convex back.<ref name=israel1>[http://www.thebluegrassspecial.com/archive/2011/jan2011/bordercrossingjan2011.php Artist To Artist: 10 Minutes With Avi Avital.] ''The Bluegrass Special'', January 2011 by Joe Brent.</ref> It is made by one manufacturer in Israel, luthier Arik Kerman.<ref name=mandoKerman>{{cite web| url=http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?102738-Avi-Avital-and-the-Arik-Kerman-mandolin| title=Thread: Avi Avital and the Arik Kerman mandolin| website=mandolincafe.com| access-date=September 3, 2015| quote=This thread digressed into the topic of Avi's Kerman, where it was established that it has a double top and a convex back. … it looks like it is based on the modern German flatback as made by makers such as Seifert, a little deep-bodied. The difference from the German models is that it has the sound holes on the edges and, even more important(?) has a double top.}}</ref> Other players of Kerman mandolins include Alon Sariel,<ref name=israel2>{{cite web| url=http://www.mandolin.org.uk/interviews/sariel.php| title=Alon Sariel interview| website=Mandolin.org.uk| access-date=September 3, 2015| quote=What mandolins do you own? Which one(s) is(are) your favourite(s)? Whoever knows the Beer-Sheva school of mandolin must have heard of the Israeli type of modern mandolins. A mandolin maker called Arik Kerman who lives in Tel-Aviv, invented a formula to make the mandolin in a way for which it has a much of a round and sweet sound, and can easily produce a very soft sound other than the metallic Neapolitan one...| archive-date=April 2, 2016| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402213428/http://www.mandolin.org.uk/interviews/sariel.php| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=israel3>{{cite web|url=http://www.alon-sariel.com/repertoire/instrumentarium/|title=Instrumentarium|website=Alon Sariel – mandolinist, conductor, lutenist|access-date=16 March 2018|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305092522/http://www.alon-sariel.com/repertoire/instrumentarium/|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Jacob Reuven]],<ref name=mandoKerman/> and Tom Cohen.<ref name=israel4>{{cite web| url=http://frusion.co.uk/artists/concert/global/Tom_Cohen.html| title=Concert artists: Tom Cohen| website=frusion.co.uk| access-date=September 3, 2015| quote=The mandolin that Tom plays was built especially for him by Israeli artist Arik Kerman and new instrument is currently being built for, and inspired by him, by internationally-known luthier Boaz Elkayam.}}</ref>

=== Others ===
[[file:Vega cylinder-back.jpg|thumb|right|The bulge on the instrument's back side is visible in this photo of a Vega cylinder-back mandolin]]
{{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center
 | align = left
| image3 = 1930 National Triolian resonator mandolin.jpg
 | width3 = 135
 | alt3 = 1930 National Triolian resonator mandolin
 | caption3  =1930 National Triolian resonator mandolin

 | image2 = Prmntmbful.jpg
 | width2 = 142
 | alt2 = 1926 Paramount Style A Banjo Mandolin
 | caption2 = 1926 Paramount Style A banjo mandolin

| image1 = Howe-Ormes mandolins.jpg
 | width1 = 108
 | alt1 = Howe-Ormes mandolinettos
 | caption1 = Howe-Ormes mandolinettos
}}

==== Mandolinetto ====
Other American-made variants include the mandolinetto or [[Howe-Orme]] guitar-shaped mandolin (manufactured by the [[Elias Howe Company]] between 1897 and roughly 1920), which featured a cylindrical bulge along the top from fingerboard end to tailpiece and the Vega mando-lute (more commonly called a [[cylinder-back mandolin]] manufactured by the [[Vega Company]] between 1913 and roughly 1927), which had a similar longitudinal bulge but on the back rather than the front of the instrument.

==== Mandolin-banjo ====
An instrument with a mandolin neck paired with a banjo-style body was patented by Benjamin Bradbury of Brooklyn in 1882 and given the name ''banjolin'' by John Farris in 1885.<ref name=paper>{{cite web|url=http://blarneystar.com/BANJO_030912X.pdf|title=The Irish Tenor Banjo by Don Meade|website=blarneystar.com|access-date=16 March 2018}}</ref> Today ''banjolin'' is sometimes reserved to describe an instrument with four strings, while the version with the four courses of double strings is called a ''[[mandolin-banjo]]''.

==== Resonator mandolin ====
A [[resonator mandolin]] or "resophonic mandolin" is a mandolin whose sound is produced by one or more metal cones (resonators) instead of the customary wooden soundboard (mandolin top/face). Historic brands include [[Dobro]] and National.

==== Electric mandolin ====
[[File:Rory&#039;s Mandolin.jpg|thumb|upright=.5|A solid-body electric mandolin]]
As with almost every other contemporary chordophone, another modern variant is the [[electric mandolin]]. These mandolins can have four or five individual or double courses of strings. They were developed in the early 1930s, contemporaneous with the development of the [[electric guitar]]. They come in [[solid body]] and [[acoustic-electric guitar|acoustic electric]] forms.

Specific instruments have been designed to overcome the mandolin's rapid decay with its plucked notes.<ref name= Gregory>{{cite web|url=http://maestroalexgregory.net/id26.html |title= Heavy Metal Electric Mandolin, inventions |last1= Gregory |first1= Alex |website=maestroalexgregory.com |access-date= September 13, 2015 }}</ref> Fender released a model in 1992 with an additional string (a high A, above the E string), a tremolo bridge and extra [[humbucker]] [[Pickup (music technology)|pickup]] (total of two).<ref name= Gregory/> The result was an instrument capable of playing heavy metal style guitar [[Ostinato#Riff|riffs]] or violin-like passages with sustained notes that can be adjusted as with an electric guitar.<ref name= Gregory/>