Temperature and Tone

[slk]

Hey guys just wondering about a couple of things. Been reading all of post about strings, and when to change. Tonal quality going down. I was even ready to change mine until this morning. I took my mandolin out and it sounded fantastic. Now that being said it was not my playing that sounded that way although it did sound improved. I have such a temperature flux in my house during the day/night. I keep the fireplace going most of the day and I can get my music room around 68*-70*. When we go to bed the thermostat is turned back to 60*. So this morning it was 63* downstairs. Wow did it sound fantastic. Seams like when it is warmer the tone is sort of dull. Not ringing out. Humidity is at 38% inside now. Now my mando was made this year in July. I don't know what humidity the Gibson factory has in their workshops. I was told by Martin that a new guitar has to have a couple of years on it before it stabilizes. Is this true with a mandolin as well??? I still have my original strings on it. It arrived at my house on Oct.21. So have you experienced any tonal differences with temp????

Steve

[sunburst]

I was told by Martin that a new guitar has to have a couple of years on it before it stabilizes. Is this true with a mandolin as well???

It's not even true with guitars, necessarily. If an instrument is made from correctly dried and seasoned wood, it is stable from the get go. String tension tends to gradually change the shape of things (wood has a bit of plasticity about it, and will move under constant strain, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the instrument "stabilizing".

[T.D.Nydn]

Slk..I have experienced pretty much the exact same thing.i have not figured it out at all.....

[Mark Gunter]

Temperature definitely has an effect on steel strings. They tend to contract a bit when temperature drops, and expand a bit when temperature rises. I've been messing with guitars since about 1968; what I notice most often is pitch changing. Example: Guitar is in tune, temp changes significantly, and now guitar is out of tune. Sometimes the pitch changes almost straight across the board, as in all six strings will be either sharp or flat to about the same degree. Sometimes, only the wound strings, or only the bare strings will change a bit.

I've never really noticed a big improvement in, or degradation of, the sound of the strings due to weather changes, but it seems logical that colder strings that have contracted a bit might sound brighter. Likely, people in areas with greater temp changes will have noticed more and be more qualified to address your question. I have lived in fairly temperate zones in Louisiana and Texas, and to this day experience the pitch changing due to small but significant changes in temperature.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Ever since i bought my first 'good' mandolin,i've noticed one thing above all others,temperature affects the tone. Humidity in the UK isn't such a big deal,it's mostly pretty stable all year round,but temp.does change all the time.When my mandolins are cold - they go sharp. When they get warme(er) they go flat. I don't think it's caused by just the strings or the body of the mandolin on their own,i think it's a combination of both being cold. I'll certainly find out today,right now it's below freezing outside, & in my un-heated upstairs room where i do most of my practicing,it's a tad chilly !. I'd expect any one of my mandolins to sound thin & tinny,
Ivan

[AlanN]

What I've found is that in the winter, as it cools down, humidity drops. When that happens, the wood dries out and my mandolins tend to go flat. During warmer months, humidity increases, the wood swells and the instruments go sharp.

[Jim Hudson]

There may be a sound wave propagation effect with cold weather, that is, cold air is more dense and perhaps then sound is more crisp. I've noticed sound seems to travel farther on cold mornings. Any sound engineers want to comment?

[slk]

Like I said I was contemplating changing my strings. My mando was just sounding dull. I do use fast fret every time I put it up, but for the month I have had it now the tone or better way to describe it crispness/clarity seamed to diminish. That was until the other morning. The sound projection has improved dramatically. It may be a combination of me getting somewhat better, but I had done an experiment also. I still have my little Rover RM-75. I decided to play it right after I noticed my Gibson getting dull sounding and the Rover just seamed to have more volume. It was a tinner sound, but projected really good. The Rover is a fine mandolin. My Gibson on the other hand is a monster of volume and tone when all is right... I do intend to change the original strings. What do you guys use on your Gibsons?

Steve

[Mandoplumb]

There may be a sound wave propagation effect with cold weather, that is, cold air is more dense and perhaps then sound is more crisp. I've noticed sound seems to travel farther on cold mornings. Any sound engineers want to comment?

Here we go with more science

[UsuallyPickin]

Humidity seems to have more of an effect on tone that temperature. Yes temp will make a string go flat or sharp due to expanding and contracting metals. But tonally not so much. A dry mandolin guitar or fiddle will begin to sound harsh, strident. I live in Kentucky so most of the year I am not concerned but when the heater comes on in November I have to water my friends. The fiddles are the first to be effected due to the thinner wood of the tops I imagine. It is also true that cold air is more dense than warm air. Sound certainly travels farther in cold air. Perhaps that adds an "edge" to the tone....... It is surely a possibility. R/

[sunburst]

Temperature and relative humidity are directly linked. Unless we (or something) do/does something to control RH, it changes whenever temperature changes, and RH probably has more effect on how an instrument sounds because it affects the moisture content of the wood (Drier = stiffer and lighter, less dry = heavier and less stiff). Bottom line, since temp and RH are directly linked, there is not good way to distinguish effects of temp or RH on instruments in normal use.

[slk]

What would be interesting for anyone that is interested in keeping a log. I think I will start documenting the temp and humidity in my house and indicating the tonal quality for a couple of months. Just to see if there is something to all of this.......MN winters are brutal to everything. A guitar is much easier to detect. If I start to get string buzz I know it is drying out. I will start my notations and give them to you once a week. Mornings and as the day progresses, as I have temp swings.

Steve

[EdHanrahan]

... cold air is more dense ...

THAT part of the science is definitely true; just ask the typical private pilot. In cold weather, the engine packs in more air for more power, and the wings grab more air for more lift. Makes for fun flying.

Conversely, more than one pilot has flown from a sea-level airport at 70 degrees, picked up a load at a mile-high desert airport at 100 degrees, and been unable to safely get off the ground.

[T.D.Nydn]

My experience is ,this is not about strings going sharp or flat,I've had a lot of that happen ,and this is different.its about some notes at certain times sound "duller" than at other times.ive noticed it only in mandolins.not banjos,guitars or violins,just mandolins.ive been at this a long time.ive kept notes and logbooks myself,about seasons,days,weather and mandolin response.i even get up in the morning and check the temperature of the tailpiece with the back of my hand,just to see the temperature of where the mandolins at.ive gotten really nowhere and I'm no farther today in figuring it out than before.the mandolins sound sharper and my responsive in the winter.now,currently I'm thinking it's because of the humidity in the instrument,I.e. I don't humidify them.someone called it the "Monroe school of mandolin maintenance" and that's pretty much me,,I just play it,the instrument is at the whims of the environment.maybe I play more agressively in the winter,,I just couldn't tell you.these are good mandolins,,right now I have 3 decent gibsons..I usually use Gibson Sam bush or bill Monroe strings....

[Willie Poole]

Boy, I know Ivan and Allen both have top notch mandolins and they get just different reactions when the weather changes, I guess that is why some questions on here get confusing to some people, just keep a watch on your instrument and see which one is true for your mandolin, keeping notes on what changes occur may be OK but I can remember it most of the time...

Lets see now which mandolin was it that went flat yesterday, or was it sharp?

[Mark Gunter]

Temperature and relative humidity are directly linked. Unless we (or something) do/does something to control RH, it changes whenever temperature changes, and RH probably has more effect on how an instrument sounds because it affects the moisture content of the wood (Drier = stiffer and lighter, less dry = heavier and less stiff). Bottom line, since temp and RH are directly linked, there is not good way to distinguish effects of temp or RH on instruments in normal use.

You may be right about the humidity. I've noticed not only with my instruments, but when I visit a nearby music store that has a large "playing room" with numerous acoustic guitars - Some days, after a drop in temp outdoors, the guitars will exhibit the same thing I mentioned earlier, where all the strings on many of the instruments are sharp, to the same degree across the board per each affected guitar. Not all the guitars will be affected. Perhaps that is an indication the RH rather than temp is the real culprit? Of course, the store is air conditioned, perhaps RH and barometric pressure are responsible more than temp since this occurs in an AC environment? I always assumed it was some effect of the weather on the steel strings.

[Jess L.]

... have you experienced any tonal differences with temp????

Humidity, in my case. The only time things dry out around here is a few weeks in summertime (opposite of normal, I guess), the rest of the year everything is damp and soggy with very high humidity.

I first noticed the humidity affect on soundboard-like things, with hide (calfskin or whatever) banjo heads, they absorb moisture from the air and they sound, well, soggy. But dried out they sound brighter. 1920/1930s banjo players had a solution for that in the way of a little heater that they tucked in behind the banjo head, to help heat up the head so it'd dry out a little, and sound better. Nowadays there are plastic heads that don't absorb moisture at all, much better from a tone-consistency point of view.

I've noticed a similar effect with other of my acoustic instruments over the years, whose wood soundboards are capable of absorbing moisture - after a few months of extremely high humidity the instruments sound kind of dull and muted. By the end of a long damp high-humidity fall/winter/spring (again opposite of other parts of the world), the instruments sound terrible. But after a few weeks of dry weather, they start to sound better - and louder too.

This is probably not the normal experience, since most people don't live in such damp climates. Here there's moss on the south-facing sides of the tree trunks (so the old schoolchildren's tale about knowing which way is north by seeing where the moss is, doesn't work here), and moss and green slime everywhere else too for that matter... even cars will grow moss if left unattended/unwashed for too long. The rest of the world uses humidifiers. We have to use de-humidifiers otherwise things decay and rot and rust.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Quote - "someone called it the "Monroe school of mandolin maintenance" . That was me. It was with reference to general 'cleaning up & maintenance' of a mandolin,something that Mr.Monroe wasn't exactly renowned for.
Yesterday,despite my Lebeda mandolin being on the chilly side of things,it was spot on in tune & sounded fine. I don't think it's been cold enough for long enough yet to really effect my room temp.
Alan gets the opposite effect when his mandolin gets cold or warm,i suspect that's down to changes of humidity coupled with a temp.change whereas my mandolins only suffer from a temp.change, & unless the weather really bites,that's a gradual process as well,
Ivan

[OldGus]

Everything is stiffer/crisper when it's cold.

[Bertram Henze]

Temperature never changes alone. With a falling temperature and constant absolute humidity (=amount of water in the air), relative humidity (=humidity percentage of what is needed to make droplets, i.e. fog) rises. The mandolin is interested in relative humidity only.
Therefore, walking through the house into a colder room, instrument in hand, means bringing the instrument into a more humid environment. I'd call that soggy, not crisp. Changing humidity makes wood change its shape - ever so slightly but maybe just enough to change how the bridge couples to the top, for instance.

There has been a mention of soundwave propagation in cold air. Indeed, sound velocity rises with rising temperature. The fact that you can hear noises from further away on a clear/cold evening is due to a refraction effect: by radiation the ground cools down faster than the air higher above, so the sound from, say, the passing train behind that hill is refracted into a slight curve over the hill to reach your ear more directly. But I doubt that has any effect within the walls of a house.

Walking into a different room with your instrument has other effects, of course: how is reflection? Have you tried your thick-carpeted living room vs. your bathroom?