Volume vs Tone

[starrbri]

Hey Guys,

I have heard or read somewhere Tom Ellis say that he sacrifices some volume for a sweeter tone. I love the tone on my Ellis, but i have noticed it is not nearly as loud as my MT. But i strongly prefer the tone.

Anyone else experience this? For jams with lots of people, I could definitely see bringing the MT over the Ellis.

Either way they are both lovely instruments. I play lefty, so have only played these mandolins plus one Eastman 305.

[Zach Wilson]

I've noticed the same thing with my Weber Yellowstone. Sometimes it seems quieter, perhaps 'mellow'. Although it may be explained due to the fact that my other mandolins are really loud Flat tops.

[Mike Buesseler]

Good singing is a lot better than loud yelling. (There’s a banjo joke in here somewhere….)

[pops1]

My Brentrup has a wonderful tone, and is still fairly loud. In a jam, depending on size, you most likely won't hear the quality of the tone. With a lot of people playing you can play harder, bring a louder mandolin, or not worry about it and play what you like. Subtlety of good tone won't be heard anyway.

[Josh Levine]

I owned an Ellis and it was plenty loud, had no problem holding its own in large jams, but it did emphasize the mids and lows, where I had other instruments that emphasized the mids and highs. While they may not have been louder because they emphasized those tonal ranges they cut more in a jam setting and appeared louder.

[GMorgan]

I find that my ellis has plenty of volume to spare, but am not playing in a group setting. Comparing it to my Eastman 515, I find the Ellis gives me much better volume, sustain, and tone. I find the quality of the Ellis clarity to b consistent, pure and absolutely perfect for my needs. Gorgeous instrument, gorgeous sound. So, no, I have not noticed any volume issues.

Enjoy!

[DavidKOS]

When I choose a mandolin, volume is a main consideration, along with tone and playability. If you can't hear it, why bother?

[Mitch Stein]

*insert generic joke about this being an excuse to buy more mandolins*

[Charlie Bernstein]

I go for volume every time.

Oops. Correction:

I go for volume every time!

[John Soper]

I was playing a mandolin once with some friends and the guitarist looked over & said "That is the loudest mandolin I ever heard. You got to have volume to get to tone."
So many ways to pull tone out of all but the least responsive Mandolin-Shaped Objects (MSOs), but you have to be heard first!

[Jim Garber]

My Brentrup has a wonderful tone, and is still fairly loud. In a jam, depending on size, you most likely won't hear the quality of the tone. With a lot of people playing you can play harder, bring a louder mandolin, or not worry about it and play what you like. Subtlety of good tone won't be heard anyway.

My Brentrup has a wonderful tone, and is still fairly loud. (Is there an echo in here?) Actually what I have found with the higher quality mandolins I have owned and played, generally these have ample headroom so even plucking with some force still produces good tone. OTOH a lesser quality instrument will sound forced or lose tone at the forceful picking. I am not 100% sure I am explaining that correctly. Anyway both my Campanella and Brentrup have that capability at least to my ears.

[T.D.Nydn]

I was playing my Gibson for a friend and he actually asked me : “is that thing electric,?Are you plugged in somewhere?”..

[pops1]

I agree with Jim, some mandolins can be "overdriven" when played hard, the Brentrup just keeps giving. No matter how hard you play it keeps giving. It is a fairly loud, warm , lush sounding mandolin. Not only can the folks across the room hear it , I can hear it. In a recording session with a grammy award winning sound engineer I was told, "it was the best sounding mandolin he has recorded". I feel pretty lucky to have such mandolin.

[j. condino]

I was in a pub jam in Asheville a few years back with five very good mandolin players playing five fantastic well known mandolins- a Dudenbostel, a Duff, a Gilchrist, a well known original L. Loar signed F5, and one of Peter Mix's NewMad carbon fiber mandolins. All of the mandolins were passed around in nerd fashion for each other to check out in a jam setting.

On every single tune, one player blew the doors off the other five- like an amplified tweaker on a meth'd out three night binge.

On every single tune, another player was meek and weak and delicate and not a single person could hear them, even though he knew all of the tunes, had a lot of great "chops", and played a variety of "powerful" mandolins.

The other three were a wonderful balance of taste, tone, volume, and dynamics that they adjusted as needed for every song.

I learned a lot about mandolins that night without playing a single note. The 100 year old coveted model that costs as much as my house didn't mean a thing in the hands of a mediocre player, while the $4000 carbon fiber model that I left in the trunk of the car all day was a formidable, powerful weapon in the hands of someone who gave every note their best effort.

[Richard Mott]

Hi James—That tale from the Asheville pub is terrific and so full of insight! I am always struck by how we as players can fall into asking the world of our instruments but correspondingly little from ourselves. When so often a player gets less than 50% of what an instrument can deliver, it is always a revelation when a middling instrument is put in the hands of someone who pulls out everything it can do and … Wow! My 2022 New Years resolution is to spend less time on the phone with my luthier and more working on my right hand. —R.

[pops1]

James is so right, different players can make the same instrument sound very different.

[Charlie Bernstein]

James is so right, different players can make the same instrument sound very different.

Yup. I love letting good players play my instruments. It give me something to shoot for.

[Dan Rosenberg]

My theory is that you should always have an instrument that is better than you are so you can work up to. There are no excuses that way. Just keep practicing.

One funny story I have to share is that years ago (decades) I was in Gryphon's in Palo Alto CA to attend a finger style guitar class taught by Martin Simpson who is one of the best of his generation. He was standing behind the counter before the class started and someone mistaking him for an employee asked him to demo a guitar they were interested in because they wanted to learn but could not play a note. He pointed to a $300 guitar on the wall and Martin graciously gave it good workout. Every one in the store stopped to listen. The sound that came out was remarkable. Of course the requester bought the instrument on the spot. I doubt that guitar ever sounded that good again. In class Martin showed off a new custom Sobel that he just received which had the punch of a grand piano in his hands but I remember the $300 guitar more clearly in my mind. All the great mando players (from Grisman to Hull) could probably sound better on gourd with strings attached than me on a Loar.

[HoGo]

I fully agree with James here. The differences anmong players are far larger than differences between reasonably good instruments. You can learn how to nudge the sound to be heard better a bit by moving your hand closer to bridge or changing pick angle (or pointier pick).
In jam session it is impossible to cut through if the rest of players just bang a crap out of their backup with open chords and funky rhythms. Best players will just chop at moderate volume or even stop playing (just faking rhythm) so the lead player (or singer) can be heard. Otherwise the whole jam has no sense.
Even in standard four piece BG band mandolin player could not be heard if guitar player played backup too hard or banjo picker picked loud all the time. Sometimes just a hint of backup will make the lead stand out nicely. I remember good video on YT of Del Mc with that young guitar player (but playing mandolin here) doing duet and Del's backup was just like that.

[Dagger Gordon]

So the obvious question after hearing these accounts from J. Condino and Dan Rosenberg:

"Is there any need to buy an expensive instrument at all? Why not just play a $300 guitar or an affordable mandolin?"

As a footnote, many of you may have seen Eva Scow doing Mandolin Monday very recently. She was playing an Eastman mandolin. One of their better models, no doubt, but not desperately expensive. Sounded fine to me, and seemed to do everything she needed. Great playing, by the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUltvE9QwOw

[HoGo]

So the obvious question after hearing these accounts from J. Condino and Dan Rosenberg:

"Is there any need to buy an expensive instrument at all? Why not just play a $300 guitar or an affordable mandolin?"

As a footnote, many of you may have seen Eva Scow doing Mandolin Monday very recently. She was playing an Eastman mandolin. One of their better models, no doubt, but not desperately expensive. Sounded fine to me, and seemed to do everything she needed. Great playing, by the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUltvE9QwOw

These lower end instruments are not all created equal, some of them are quite good professional instruments, some are just so so... Probably much more are so so than pro grade. Rest is bare average. Well trained pro can accomodate to weaknesses of an instrument quite quickly and sound good.
Back to OP. I think there is some trade-off between "tone" and volume. I wrote "tone" because that is VERY subjective and some may even argue that volume is part of tone. I would rather call it dynamic range than volume.
Some instruments that are built lightly will sound nice "woody" to many folks but their dynamic range will be reduced, they react immediately but cannot be driven hard when needed and the tone will suffer you will have to learn to keep in that limited range. The instruments more heavily built are generally stiffer sounding but the dynamic range is larger, but you also have to pick with heavier attack to get this. Of course there are more parameters that players are looking for, I tried to keep it simple.
There are some instruments that have both of this, thay seem to have large dynamic range AND beautiful tone (though definition of that may vary) on all strings but they are RARE. Not even each Gil, Nugget etc. are like that though these folks may be some of the most consistent builders around.

[dhergert]

Good singing is a lot better than loud yelling. (There’s a banjo joke in here somewhere….)

[mandocrucian]

I've got an old Weyman tenor banjo (tuned Irish style). By itself, I don't like the way it sounds and don't practice on it. On the other hand, in a loud Irish jam, it does sound really good, as the other instruments seem to cover up its sonic (tone) deficiencies while it can hold its own against an accordion.

The setting in which your instrument will primarily be played in is a huge factor in what you'll want the instrument to do. Totally acoustic/no amplification is a vastly different environment than playing with a microphone/pickup. Without a microphone, Bing Crosby would have had to sing like Al Jolson or Ethel Merman, and the Delmore Bros. like the earlier oldtime string bands (Skillet Lickers etc.)

What motorcycle would you take for a 500 mile ride, a BMW or a motocross/dirt bike? Or vice versa? Do you drive that fastener/nail/screw with a hammer or a screwdriver?

At least 50% of "tone" comes from the player. The more experienced a player you are, the higher that % goes. (due to the breath and variety of playing techniques you may use: dynamics, slurring, vibrato, bending, varieties of attack, muting, etc. etc.)

There are some obvious ways to tweak tone/volume from just physical aspects of the "instrument":

• Type and gauge of strings. (I prefer monel-steel)
• Type of bridge and or bridge saddle material, i.e.: ebony > antler/bone > metal (I have a deer antler saddle on my F4 and an original Gibson aluminum saddle on my '19A. I replaced the wood saddle on my Weber mandola with one I made from aluminum bar.)
• A "toneguard" which will reduce mandolin back-belly contact muting.
• An armrest can do something similar (to various degrees) on the top. (I use various muting techniques and one of these would impede me)
• Type of plectrum; material and thickness/thinness

Niles H.

(If you are skeptical about my views on all this, you are welcome to check out some tracks on Soundcloud to determine if I'm 'bona-fide' or just blowing smoke. https://soundcloud.com/user-643522979 )

[GMorgan]

I had several reasons for buying my Ellis. I was a good violinist when I was quite young, but quit playing as I grew into adulthood. Even so, i never lost the love for the instrument and decided to return to my violin roots when I fully retired many years ago. However, I quickly discovered that I have aged quite a bit since starting out during the Kennedy administration. I did begin my relearning with a phenomenal teacher and did get a chance to play publicly a few times. At some point, I mentioned to her that I would love to find a small guitar-like thing that I could tune to G, D, A and E so that I could sit and relax while making music. Playing the violin can be rather physically demanding and I was only good for 30 to 45 minutes of playing every day. My dear teacher mentioned that I might also like the mandolin and that it was tuned the same as my preferred instrument. I never knew that. .

Five years ago, I bought my Eastman MD515 and it has served me well. At first, the instrument was a hundred times better than I was, but I enjoyed it so much that play time was now measured in hours per day. Volume was not critical as I only jammed with an old college roommate and neither of us wanted to drive his neighbors crazy. He was a very talented guitarist. Most of the time, I played just for me. Although the Eastman had plenty of volume, when I wanted it, and the tonal range was quite nice, I eventually reached the conclusion that I was getting roughly 95% of what that mandolin had to offer. A better player could have taken it even further, but I was approaching its capacity with my style and current skill set.

Over the years, I had the privilege of getting to test drive some truly extraordinary mandolins. I decided that I wanted to invest in an instrument that was a whole lot better than I was. Rather than go through an incremental approach to finding my lifetime mandolin, I went for the one that always sounded way better than me.

Full disclosure: I also own a very inexpensive Recording King mandolin that, in the right hands, clearly leaves me in the dust no matter what instrument I might be playing. Still, I wanted a mandolin that sounded glorious if I just happened to do everything almost right.

I have a large front porch where I like to play, mostly soothing music, that can be heard at just the right volume from the street. Although the Ellis can project at any volume I might desire, I am most pleased by the richness of sound coming from my G string, the full rounded balance of the D and A, and the singing bell quality of a great E. I wanted notes, that when I choose to overlap them, sustain and complement each other. Finding a mandolin that was much better than me became my personal strategy. And, now that I have it, my Ellis always sounds exquisite, except when I goof. I love an instrument that makes me work even harder to improve.

Any mandolin that makes you happy is a great mandolin.

[Dagger Gordon]

Nice writing, GMorgan. Cheers.