Here’s a really fun and interesting experiment inspired in part by the mandolin’s larger cousin the Octave Mandolin. We took a 16″ Viola and set it up with special strings from Sensicore to be played in GDAE tuning an octave below a standard violin. The result is a very robust and rich cello-like timbre that is nothing short of satisfying. An excellent choice for accompaniment, regular fiddle music and fingerings can be used and will sound an octave down.
You can expect to see some further experimentation in this realm from us in the near future. As a broad spectrum of timbre and responsiveness is available by playing with string guage, string length, body size, rosin and bow selection. Who has time to be bored?