Musician's Friend via Target (
Sold and shipped by Musician's Friend) has
Rogue RM-100 A-Style Mandolin Instrument (Black or Sunburst) on sale for
$53.99.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member
mochaporter for finding this deal.
Note, product will be sold/shipped by Musician's Friend; a Target Plus Partner
Key Features:- With an easy-to-play neck and adjustable bridge, the RM-100A is perfect for beginners who wish to play bluegrass or any other style of music. Finishing touches include chrome tuners and nickel-plated frets.
- Maple neck
- Rosewood fingerboard
- Adjustable simulated rosewood bridge
- 12th-fret neck joint
- Chrome tuning machines
56 Comments
Your comment cannot be blank.
Featured Comments
Seriously, very tempting. Even if this is Rogue's bottom tier of instruments, it would be fun to have around…
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
This instrument will frustrate you and teach you bad habits. Factory setup is shit, so if you take it to a luthier you will be paying more than $100 to set up a $50 mandolin. Even when perfectly setup, it sounds like trash. Hollow and tinny. I wish I had not bought this to learn on - it made learning slower and harder and made playing the mandolin less enjoyable. Once I spent a few hundred on a higher-quality, used, solid-top mandolin, everything took off at light speed.
Please don't buy this mandolin.
Since I know nothing about mandolins and this deal made me think to get one, should any used Eastman, Kentucky, or Loar do for a first but maybe last mandolin? I also have a few guitars, mediocre banjo, and a nice ukulele so this would probably be a fun side instrument for me
Ohh...thought this was something else 😅
One great.
One bad.
oh well. I need a hobby besides tech
It plays sort of like a uke-sized guitar, but not tuned like either. Tuning is like a violin (GG DD AA EE, from low strings to high). Steel strings like a guitar, but frets are close together like a uke. Hard to play with fat fingers.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
If you buy the Rogue and decide you don't like it, you have some funky looking wall decoration I guess?
The difference is that the PROCESS OF LEARNING is immensely more pleasurable on a higher quality instrument. Out of the box, this mandolin will be borderline unplayable, intonation poorly set and action too high. This is strike one - will discourage continuing, because however perfectly you play, it will sound bad. Fixing this will cost $100-125 at a luthier, or taking the time to learn to do the luthier work yourself. Then there's the quality of the tonewoods themselves - this is not a solid spruce instrument, and so sounds hollow and tinny.
A sixfold increase in price seems like a lot, but the instrument that costs 6x as much as this instrument will play 100x better, and on the off chance you don't like playing mandolin, you can resell it. This is hot garbage and should be left in Target's warehouse.
Since I know nothing about mandolins and this deal made me think to get one, should any used Eastman, Kentucky, or Loar do for a first but maybe last mandolin? I also have a few guitars, mediocre banjo, and a nice ukulele so this would probably be a fun side instrument for me
- Solid spruce top. Preferably maple sides and back as well, but not as important. No plywood - the glue between the layers dulls out the sound.
- Nut width - if you have a larger hand, look for a wider nut. Mandolin nuts range from 1 1/16" to 1 1/4", but those extremes are rare. 1 1/18" and 1 3/16" are the most common widths. I have larger hands so when I upgraded I looked for a larger nut width, which means increase string spacing, and made it easier to learn chord shapes. Mando chords are TIGHT. many fingers in close proximity.
I wound up settling on a beautiful used Breedlove FF, with a wide 1 1/4" nut, and I was just blown away by how different the sound was from the Rogue. I've since spiralled a little out of control, was gifted a Michael Kelly (also a good instrument) and started building my own electric mandolins, but you know what I got rid of? The rogue.
www.artistworks.com [artistworks.com] has great video lessons from Mike Marshall and Sierra Hull (who, if you don't know her, go search her on youtube). Costs about $175/year when you catch a sale, which they run frequently. You take the video lessons, then you record yourself playing and submit the video, and the teachers watch the video and respond to you. Way way way cheaper than in-person lessons, and there's an organized curriculum so you're not just trying to learn from random YouTube videos.
Better to learn right the first time than have to un-learn bad habits and technique (ask me how I know)
Seriously, very tempting. Even if this is Rogue's bottom tier of instruments, it would be fun to have around…