I’m visiting family for the holidays, and my dad has given me 2 of his mandolins. A Johnson MF-370 and a Michael Kelly F Style.

I’ve noticed a relative lack of parts for this instrument here on ccMixter (though there are a couple of really nice one’s like admiralbob’s) so I’d like to try putting up some of my own.

My dad’s a purist bluegrass player, so neither of the mandolins have any electronics built-in. Was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to the best/interesting ways to (non-destructively) mic F style mandolins.

I don’t have any mic’s of my own at the moment, but I do have 2 other instruments without any built in electronics, a bamboo flute, and a peruvian panflute that Snowflake gave me last year. If a single mic could work for all 3 this would be a bonus, but I don’t want to compromise too much for this convenience.

I should note, that while I expect to do some clean tracks with the mandolin, I’d also like to try running it through my existing guitar processors (a POD X3L, and a Digitech Multifunction) and amp (A Carvin Nomad + Roland Cube 60 Speaker Cab) in the pursuit of fun noises.

Found this.
When recording acoustic guitars with mic, the position of mic and guitar is very important (i supposse that the same with mandolin); try to find the sound you want moving the mic around the mandolin. Also is very, very important the acoustics of the room where you are recording (more important than one could think).
Good luck.

it’ll be great to hear your mandolin samples!

Howdy.

The best microphone arrangement I can think of is an instrument condenser on the neck joint. As long as you put a pop-screen on it, it should be good for wind instruments as well.

I use an SM-57 on the mandolin, a mic that I also use for percussion. Unlike some condensers, the SM-57 does not do any tone shaping in the midband, so it is about the best mic you can use when your purposes are likely to be wildly varied.

EDIT: if you can manage to finagle TWO microphones, I record rhythm parts this way. Put one mic on the neck joint, pan left. Put another on the F hole, pan right. I use an SM-58 on the sound hole, as it fattens up an already warm sound. This technique gives almost enough warmth that you can use mandolin for the entire backing track.