My mandola is a 4 string. It's new to me, and is currently tuned in the standard CGDA. I prefer flat wound strings because they emphasis the fundamental clearly.
Having played fiddle tunes on mandolin in a dance band for some years, I find myself naturally drawn to playing the same unison with my fiddler on mandola, but now, an octave lower than I did it on mandolin. I'm finding that only the C and G strings provide the deeper register I seek. OK, yes, an octave mandolin would be a better choice to provide that bass unison. But my small hands are telling me to stick with the mandolins shorter 16 inch scale length if this is ever going to work while playing at dance speed.
The solution I see is finding heavier string gauges to tune my mandola like an OM's GDAE. I'm guessing that someone out there in Cafe land has probably had the same problem, and can tell me precisely what size strings to use. Please tell me. I'll try it.
I am already aware that I could restring my mandola's current C, G,and D strings into the slots where I'd normally string the D, A, and E strings, and then simply tune them all a whole tone higher to actually become DAE. And where the C string now resides, I'll need a new heavier gauge string to provide the best tension as a low G.
However, I'm wary of adding too much tension. I'm really enjoying the vibrato I get from single strings. More important, I really don't have the know-how to judge if extra tension would, in the long run, cause harm to my very fine instrument. So I'm thinking the best solution would be researching slightly different gauges than what I am using right now.
