Gold Tone Mandola Traditional Irish Mandola with Pickup & Gig Bag

If you’ve ever sat in on an Irish session and heard that warm, resonant voice sitting just below the mandolins and fiddles, you were probably hearing a mandola. The Gold Tone Mandola occupies the same musical space that a viola does in a string quartet — deeper, fuller, and more expansive than a mandolin, but still nimble enough for the fast ornamental runs that Celtic music demands. Tuned CGDA and strung in four double courses, it fits naturally into trad Irish ensembles, old-time string bands, folk orchestras, and really any acoustic setting where you need a voice in that rich mid-range register. I’ve spent decades helping players find the right acoustic instrument, and what Gold Tone has done here is genuinely thoughtful: a solid spruce top for real tonal projection and long-term improvement with play, paired with mahogany back, sides, and neck for that warm, woody sustain that Celtic music rewards. The cast brass tailpiece is a meaningful upgrade over the stamped sheet-metal pieces you’ll find on budget mandolas — it’s heavier, stronger, and contributes noticeably to sustain and tuning stability.

The rosewood fingerboard carries 20 frets with snowflake inlays, and the scale length of 17-1/16″ keeps the string tension comfortable without sacrificing that characteristic mandola depth. The ZeroGlide nut at 1-1/4″ width gives you precise intonation right out of the gate — ZeroGlide nuts are a genuinely smart inclusion at this price point, using a zero-fret design that eliminates the open-string intonation issues that plague cheaper instruments. Sealed guitar-style tuners hold pitch reliably across long sessions. The built-in transducer pickup means you can plug into a PA or acoustic amp when the session moves to a bigger room, without having to permanently modify the instrument or deal with an external clip-on. It ships in natural high-gloss finish with chrome-plated hardware and includes a gig bag — everything you need to start playing immediately.

Every instrument receives a professional factory setup at Gold Tone in Titusville, Florida before it ships. You’re not getting a factory-fresh instrument pulled straight from a box. You’re getting a properly set-up instrument that plays the way it should from the first note.

Why Buy From Banjo Warehouse

Banjo Warehouse is an authorized Gold Tone dealer based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which means every instrument we sell carries the full manufacturer warranty and is backed by Gold Tone’s support team. I’ve been in this business for more than 45 years — I co-own Watch & Learn in Atlanta, where we’ve been teaching people to play acoustic instruments since the 1980s, and I wrote Banjo Primer, which has become the top-rated beginner banjo method on the market. I know these instruments the way a woodworker knows their tools, and I don’t list anything I wouldn’t recommend to a student or a friend. When you buy from Banjo Warehouse, you’re buying from people who actually play, teach, and think carefully about acoustic instruments — not a warehouse fulfillment center. Financing is available through PayPal Pay in 4, Afterpay, and 3, 6, 12, and 24-month plans, all with no late fees, so you can bring home the right instrument without waiting.

Gold Tone Mandola Specifications

Top	Solid Spruce
Back & Sides	Mahogany
Neck Material	Mahogany
Fingerboard	Rosewood
Frets	20
Inlay	Snowflake
Scale Length	17-1/16″
Nut	1-1/4″ ZeroGlide Nut
Tuners	Sealed Guitar-Style
Tuning	CGDA
Tailpiece	Cast Brass Mandolin-Style
Bridge	Adjustable
Hardware Finish	Chrome Plated
Headstock Buttons	Metal
Truss Rod	Two-Way Adjustable
Pickup	Transducer Pickup
String Gauge	.050w, .035w, .020w, .016 (Doubled)
Finish	Natural / High Gloss
Weight	3 lbs.
Bag	Included
Setup Location	Gold Tone Factory, Titusville, FL

Frequently Asked Questions

How is a mandola different from a mandolin, and is it hard to transition between them?

A mandola is tuned CGDA — a perfect fifth lower than a mandolin’s GDAE tuning — and has a longer scale length (17-1/16″ versus roughly 13-7/8″ on a standard mandolin). The fingering patterns are identical; the interval relationships between strings don’t change. Most mandolin players find they can transfer their technique directly, though the longer scale means stretches feel a bit wider at first. Think of it the way a guitarist thinks about moving to a baritone guitar: the muscle memory carries over, the hand just needs a little time to adjust to the geography.

What kind of music is this mandola best suited for, and will the pickup work for live performance?

The Gold Tone Mandola was designed with Celtic traditional music in mind — Irish sessions, Scottish folk, old-time string bands — and the solid spruce top and warm mahogany body deliver the kind of round, sustained tone those styles reward. That said, it works beautifully in bluegrass, Americana, and acoustic ensemble settings of any kind. The built-in transducer pickup gives you a direct output for live performance or recording without any permanent modification to the instrument. For best results in live settings, running it through an acoustic-voiced preamp or DI box will help smooth out the transducer’s natural brightness and give you a more natural sound in the mix.

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