Forum Activity for @alan-kolman

Gold Tone Dulciborn - thoughts, reviews?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

hi marg - yes, it's one of the scalloped fretboards, and it warped into bumps and valleys. the factory did an excellent job fixing the problem; however, their customer service skills were not as well honed. i now leave the dulciborn in its case when not being played, and throw in a moist sponge inside a two piece soap dish w/the top perforated. seems to work well.

as a postscript to dusty's welcome share about frets, i need to add that mike clemmer was nice enough to work on my bridge  to improve the intonation on this dulciborn a great deal, which further illustrates the need for an excellent luthiers help to make this a truly playable instrument.

Gold Tone Dulciborn - thoughts, reviews?

Instruments- discuss specific features, luthiers, instrument problems & questions

hi - i also play a dulciborn because i enjoy it's richer tones and sustain. bought it from john hawk 3 years ago and play it every day. before it was a year old it needed to have the fretboard re-engineered by the goldtone factory; there are several different editions w/attempts to fix this nearly-universal problem; all w/limited success. if you can find a good used dulciborn, keep it hydrated and cased, once you get used to its larger body i think you'll come to appreciate this sweet instrument, whatever people want to call it.    

alan 

Richard Fariña -- 50th anniversary

General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

'house un-american blues activity dream' resonates to this day - if you don't know this song, you have to give it a listen. and 'been down so long it looks like up to me' was a must read back in the day - kerouac, ginsberg and farina lit up many minds. 50 years - man, i must be old.

thanks for the welcome, marg.

not sure what tonal differences the two designs might have - if there are any, they're probably too subtle for my ear to distinguish. and the upper register is harder to fret cleanly - not an area that the dulciborn excels.

as far as videos go, not very likely, i'm afraid. due to minimal skills i'm very reluctant to play in public. i suppose only playing in private is a bit like talking to yourself, but for now that's ok.

i've been playing the dulciborn for a year and a half. it's a 'john hawk' model that i bought from john, and it has 1.5,6.5,8.5 and 13.5 frets. it sounds great, is easy to play, and i play it every day. however, after 6 months the fretboard warped badly (it's an early, scalloped model). gold tone repaired it at no cost other than shipping, tho i will say their customer support needs improvement big time. no problems at all since then.i love my dulciborn, but it's kinda like an old british sportscar - beautiful to look at, fun to play with, but likely to spend time in the repair shop.