JESSE GREIST: This mandolin, which is currently my seven-string mandolin, I’m waiting to see if I can get a new set of strings from the States when a friend of mine goes back up there. This is [STRUMS A CHORD] -- It’s a little out of tune right now but this mandolin I brought back here just this past summer. I had left it up in the States because I was very worried about it.

So far, the mandolin has held up fine. This is one where I would worry about warping because the wood is thinner on here. It is a composite. It’s a cheap mandolin so it’s more like kind of the plywood equivalent of, you know, the plywood of mandolins I guess.

GRETCHEN HASSE: [LAUGHING] What is it?

JESSE GREIST: I believe it’s actually a -- What do they call it? -- the particle board is what it’s made out of, so this is, you know, a $120 mandolin mostly just to fool around on and to play some REM songs every once in a while, but like I said it’s an eight-string instrument. There isn’t as much pressure as with a guitar on the neck, so with like a 12-string guitar be very worried about warping, the neck bending, with the temperature changes here. With this, I’m not as worried about that but more with the body of itself like in here between the bridge and where the neck starts, I would be a little bit worried about warping, and then again there’s pressure from the back of the mandolin from the base of it up to the bridge. So, I am worried about that. To combat that, again, keep it dry. Keep it heated when possible. Not heated but at a temperature slightly above the ambient temperature, and again I think the key is keeping it dry, change the strings as often as possible which for me is, you know, every six months when somebody goes up to the states and I can get them to bring me back mandolin strings because it’s impossible to get them here as far as I know, possibly in San Jose, but I have to have people bring them back for me for the most part, but because the strings actually rust here in the humidity, and that’s big part of that. I don't know if you can see how these strings have been on here for probably four months, and instead of the bright, shiny brass, they’re kind of a dark, almost brownish color now and that’s because of the rust that’s growing on there.

GRETCHEN HASSE: So that it’s becoming more difficult to play itself.

JESSE GREIST: It mutes the tone. The bass especially is a lot more muted. It used to be very crisp, and so once I get a new set of mandolin strings I’ll be able to have kind of that crisp sound again.

GRETCHEN HASSE: It’s one of the reasons you have this, and what is the brand name of the mandolin that you’re using now?

JESSE GREIST: This one? Antares.

GRETCHEN HASSE: Okay. [LAUGHING] Yeah.

JESSE GREIST: Like I say, cheap mandolin.

GRETCHEN HASSE: Is that like a choice? I mean I’m not going to take a really super-expensive mandolin down at Costa Rica just so.

JESSE GREIST: More like the mandolin is a hobby. My guitar is a Seagull, handmade guitar, Canadian guitar. I love it. I’ve had it for 16 years, and so that, you know, that’s one that I would recommend, and it’s good made, good price, all of that, but this one like I say it does me fine, and you know you can see how I’ve got this strap that’s a piece of string, and it’s mostly just for fun. But yeah, if I were going to suggest somebody bringing a mandolin down, I would suggest the cheaper variety because I don’t expect this to be in perfect shape when I leave.