[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. This is the Ovation Celebrity Mandolin. It is made in Korea and it’s basically the Ovation sort of Adamas guitar construction shrunk down to mandolin size as well as the tiny sound holes, I think there’s 14 altogether, and the sort of composite scooped back, and it also does have a really nice sounding preamp. We’re listening to the preamp right now. It’s an OP-24+ and let’s just go over a couple of the controls of the preamp here.

It is a solid spruce top on this guy, not one of those sort of like carbon fiber composite tops but there’s an overall volume control. There is a three-band EQ. Right now, I’ve got the mids boosted a little bit and the treble cut out a little bit to get rid of some of the sort of inherent quackiness in the piezo. If we bypass the EQ, which we can do with a simple press here...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

...you can hear there’s a little bit of quackiness. Even then, it’s no really so harsh. You really got to kind of like boost the treble for it to be harsh. Let’s bring the EQ back in though.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

There’s also a pre-shape control, which is a mid-cut...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

...which kind of cuts the presence back a little bit, so you can actually sort of, you know, if you play both rhythm and lead on the mandolin, you can kind of switch between two tones using the pre-shape control although, you know, navigating these little tiny controls in here might be a little bit of a challenge but so like here’s a rhythm tone.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

And this would be your lead tone.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

There’s also a mid shift here. Let’s boost the mids a little bit more.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

Mid shift.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

You can hear a little bit -- Let’s see that again.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

It just kind of lowers the mid-frequency a little bit not by much but just a slightly different sound. There’s a couple of different, you know, tonal options on this guy. Let’s hear what this, the celebrity mandolin sounds like unplugged.

So, we’ve got our trusty 414 set up.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

So, you can hear it has a very bright tone. It sounds loud right now because well there’s nothing to compare it to and it’s right up against this AKG, but this is actually a relatively quiet mandolin as mandolins go. You know, it’s really designed to be plugged in. I just -- I wasn’t -- It wasn’t plugged into anything. It is designed to be plugged in and probably the sort of the shallow back and the spruce top probably contributed to the fact that it’s not quite as loud as, you know, like a Gibson F4 or even like some of the lower priced like Epiphone like teardrop-style mandolins, the A shaped mandolins, but it plays really well. This mandolin retails for a little under $500 so it’s not a super-cheap mandolin. It’s definitely less expensive than the American-made Ovation mandolin, and it does -- I mean the intonation’s pretty nice.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PERFORMING A DEMONSTRATION OF THE OVATION MCS148 CELEBRITY MANDOLIN]

And it’s a relatively easy mandolin to play, especially for this price range, and it sounds pretty good. It’s got strap buttons which is nice. Anyway, yeah there you go. So, that’s the Ovation Celebrity Mandolin made in Korea. It retails for -- it’s about $480 I think in most places. You've been watching Gearwire.Com, and I am Owen O'Malley.