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It is rainy today in Houston.
I have four instruments that I tune every day, an Octave Mandolin, a Mandola, and two Mandolins. Some days the instruments are all a bit sharp, sometimes a bit flat, sometimes right on.
Has anyone ever kept a diary that showed both the weather and how their instruments were reacting?
(Also, whoever keeps the dictionary, "Mandola" would be a good word to add.)
There are a few things you can plan on:
Metal strings and metal parts contract when it is cold and expand when it is hot.
Wood expands when it is humid and contracts when it is dry.
Most glues can be weakened by freezing and let loose at just around 130°F.
On a clear summer 80°F to 90°F day a car with windows and doors closed can reach 170°F within an hour or two.
Never kept notes but my observation is that humidity is the biggest factor in altering tuningQuote:
Originally Posted by RodCH
I guess if you wanted an oddity to show friends, a violin bow should make a sensitive and accurate hygrometer. Real hair, though. Never noticed, because I was taught to detension the thing when putting it away. And yes, I do know human hair is preferred but how much different is horse?
My octave knows when I’ve cooked up a big pot of veggie soup.
“ a violin bow should make a sensitive and accurate hygrometer”
Fiddle player in my band comments on the humidity based on what his bow is doing…
Kirk
I just set my mandolin outside. If it gets wet, I know that it's raining.;)Attachment 205803
I keep a couple dozen wooden stringed instruments hanging up in my music room maintained at pretty constant RH and temperature. The fiddles almost never need tuning. The ukulele almost always does. Banjos like being tuned frequently too. The guitars and whole mandolin family vary.
Usually nothing needs major adjustment. I can tell the indoor conditions with a thermometer and hygrometers. I look at my phone to check outdoor conditions. Except for spring and autumn they're not the same.
On my mandolins, at low humidity the arching of the top, and thus action and pitch are a tad lower most probably due to shrinkage of the top wood.
I just look out the window. Do whatever works for you.
This post made me laugh because I do notice my mandolin (and guitar and banjo) is definitely affected by humidity and (I think?) barometric pressure.
As others have noted, it drops pitch as the top contracts with drier weather… and increases pitch as humidity swells the top and makes tuning sharp.
I also find that on some days - typically dry and high pressure, it is resonant, stable and loud. But then on days where it is snowing or raining (low pressure) it sounds like garbage - won’t hold tune and tone is muted.
At first I questioned if I was going crazy, but this happens with 3 quality mandolins I’ve owned, and I notice it to a lesser extent with my guitars.
Yes, except for my McPherson carbon fiber guitar. That thing’s the worst meteorologist ever. Or believes it lives somewhere like Aruba where the weather’s always the same ;)
My main indicator is humidity. I store my instruments in a humidity-controlled closet. If the ambient humidity is low, like in the winter, they always come out of the closet sharp, because I had to tune them down the last time they were out. Then they got "fat" again when I stored them in the closet. I know "humidification season" is over when I no longer have to do the retuning as much.
I don't deal with temperature much because I never play outside anymore and I don't leave my instruments in the car for any length of time.
If my sinuses know, I bet my mandolin does, too. :))
Years ago I heard Leo Kottke play in a building with open windows. When he went out of tune, he asked if it was raining outside. (It was.)
D.H.
Can I be the only one whose instrument goes sharp no matter what?
Instrument gets cold - Sharp
Instrument is in a warm room - Sharp again
I'm in one band that pays a half-step down, so I have to retune twice a week.
Detuning strings to drop a half step - Remaining strings go sharp
Tuning strings back up to standard - Remaining strings go sharp
Measure RH for comparison instead of temp.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitch Stein
You may go online and check the stats on the amount of expansion/contraction of steel, vs. the amount of expansion/contraction across wood grain. Cross-grain movement of wood across the top and back of your instrument (due primarily to changes in humidity) will far outstrip the amount of change in your strings.
I have long suspected as much; there has been discussion (and disagreement) about this issue here in times past; I still find anecdotal evidence year after year to convince me that RH is the bigger culprit, at least in my neck of the woods (Texas, Louisiana).
Fiddles and their bows are indeed the canaries of the instrument world. Humidity effects bow hair to the point that it becomes sloppy with a high moisture content in the air. With a low moisture content in the air the hair becomes slightly brittle. The violin itself when dry becomes "shrieky" when the humidity is high it produces a mellower tone. I have never lived where the humidity was so high that it caused problems. dhergert gives a good information in his comment for those new to wood instruments. R/
http://https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nist...n1p147_A2b.pdf
So here’s the definitive study from my old workplace that gives us the quantitative foundation for using a banjo with a skin head as a hygrometer. Possibly vastly expanding the utility of said instrument.
One 1 uke is always flat, another sharp. My mandolin goes sharp.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mitch Stein