By now we’ve surely all seen Donner musical products online: they make a huge range of instruments and accessories, including a super-affordable range of mini pedals. When Donner contacted me about reviewing one of their products, it was a tricky choice. I could really use a combined delay/reverb pedal, or a drum throne, or a nylon-string acoustic guitar. And their digital pianos look great.
Ultimately though what caught my eye was the DML-1 A Style Mandolin, which is available in two colours (sunburst and black), and is a cute teardrop shape with F-holes and a height-adjustable wooden bridge (Donner also does a 4-string Banjolele, a huge range of ukuleles, a bunch of violins and some really cute lyre harps. And they offer various pickups for amplifying your acoustic instrument should you wish). I’ve always had fun noodling about on mandolins but I’ve never owned one, and what self-respecting Led Zeppelin fan wouldn’t want to plink along to The Battle Of Evermore? And furthermore, I’m a 90s kid: the sound of the mandolin on R.E.M’s Losing My Religion is seared into my DNA. So Donner promptly sent a mandolin to review, here it is!
First up, Donner doesn’t just send you a mandolin: there’s a little bit of thoughtfully-curated case candy included as well. You get a couple of guitar picks, a pack of replacement strings, a cleaning cloth, a strap and, most importantly, a clip-on chromatic tuner. This is all stackable inside the Donner gig-bag. This bag isn’t padded, so it’s more of a ‘protect your instrument while you’re riding the train or walking to a gig’ kind of case, not a ‘save your instrument from an angry baggage carrier’ case.
Open up the case and you’ll be struck by how nice this mandolin looks. Now, this little instrument sells for $158.99AUD, so you can’t expect it to be built to the same quality as a Gibson F5 or something. Having said that, I’ve seen mandolins that cost twice this which were not as nicely made. Carefully inspecting the instrument, I can’t find anything I would consider a flaw or defect. The pick guard is a little roughly cut, and the tailpiece isn’t anything particularly fancy despite its laser-etched design trying to give the impression of a more expensive instrument. But the bridge is cut well, the sunburst finish is flawlessly applied and the binding looks great. Donner lists the specs as AAA African Mahogany body, top, back, sides and neck. The open tuning machines are decent, and the bridge does appear to support good intonation.
Now, this thing is loud. I was initially really struck by the sheer volume it shot across the room. I also apologise to my neighbours, because it took me a little while to tune the mandolin and learn some chord shapes. But I was playing Losing My Religion in no time, living out my Peter Buck fantasies at last. The sound is rich in midrange, bright and zippy in the treble and tight in the bass, and it will definitely hold its own in a performance situation with other acoustic instruments. I just know I’m going to have a great time learning bluegrass and folk tunes on this instrument, and using it to enhance acoustic guitar tracks on my recordings. It’s also a really affordable way to get into these other non-guitar instruments. I’m really happy with my Donner mandolin.