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    Default Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ...

    I started wondering about this when reading threads about Wienman mandolins and how George G and Sharon Gilchrist were praising it when compared to a $20K Gibson.

    Can someone articulate what it is, with respect to the feel when playing, and wrt the tone, when evaluating a high end custom build that makes one go "Wow!"?

    I've now played quite a few from starters to high end builders and some were louder or sweeter than others, some carried more midrange or more treble/cut, some played so easily it played itself, and some literally vibrated as if it was alive.

    With respect to the build, is it the wood and nut and saddle and tail piece used in something like a MacClanahan build? Or it is a technique used when cutting and assembling parts? Tighter tolerances, etc.? Or is it the sum of all the parts and an other-worldly precise building process?

    Very curious.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    BTW ... I saw the Wienman F for sale in the classifieds today and started thinking about how quickly I could sell one of my bikes.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    If there was one aspect that called out perfection then everyone’s build would cost $20K which would mean that no one’s build would cost that much. Also there is no one template of qualities that you could assign to even a pile of the best mandolins— there are differences between those and some players would still choose one over another. In addition, why exclude vintage instruments? After all they were made by humans as well.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    Can someone articulate what it is, with respect to the feel when playing, and wrt the tone, when evaluating a high end custom build that makes one go "Wow!"?
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Building a lot of instruments keeping detailed notes. Learning how to feel and react to the wood of choice. Using unicorn hide glue and pixie dust varnish.
    Charley

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Charles E. View Post
    Using unicorn hide glue and pixie dust varnish.
    Does Stew Mac sell that?
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    BTW ... I saw the Wienman F for sale in the classifieds today and started thinking about how quickly I could sell one of my bikes.
    Ha! That's how it starts my friend. Welcome to the rabbit hole.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Charles E. View Post
    Building a lot of instruments keeping detailed notes. Learning how to feel and react to the wood of choice. Using unicorn hide glue and pixie dust varnish.
    I know a lot more about making violins and all that goes into it from that perspective, than making mandolina, but there are parallels. One of the best violin makers I've known (actually a talented maker of anything as well as restorer of high-end violin family instruments) had the same approach, plus being in a position to take apart master made instruments and study the work. He made the best F5 mandolin I've ever played on his first go using this approach. He also had a "feel" that I can't describe without turning into word salad, but that was a big part too. Talent is a huge variable...

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    The difference is in the details. I've posted this before and I'll try to be brief:

    All builders have access to the highest quality materials. All builders have access to the myriad of information about building, published and/or on-line, scientific and anecdotal; information is available to all. Some people are naturally good with their hands, some have to work at it more, but craftsmanship can be learned, so any builder can, if he/she so desires, learn to make and assemble a high quality piece and make a good instrument.

    And so, it is the details of sound, of feel, of shape, of balance, of finish and of all of the intangibles that set the great apart from the good. Still, personal preference is the main thing that determines what we as individuals like.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    I believe it's talent and skill, which includes everything already mentioned. But most important, just like the with music their intended to make, is heart. Just like us musicians the great builders certainly don't do it with the illusion of fame and fortune. Including the folks just doing thier job right in a bigger operation.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    ... Can someone articulate what ... makes one go "Wow!"?
    Answers that you're not looking for:
    1: Probably not, because we all go "Wow!" over different things.
    2: Experience. That is, what makes =you= go "Wow!"?
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by EdHanrahan View Post
    Answers that you're not looking for:
    1: Probably not, because we all go "Wow!" over different things.
    2: Experience. That is, what makes =you= go "Wow!"?
    yes! Point 2 means try out lots of mandolins to find out what you like and what makes you go wow!
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    First of all I like the way you posed this question: not who but what makes a great new build? The responses are so far are right on the mark. I'll add a little to the discussion from a slightly different perspective.
    I'm not a luthier, nor do I want to be. I have done some woodworking, strictly amateur, and I'll use an analogy from that angle. I have made a certain keepsake box that I give as presents to family for various occasions, about a dozen in all to date. They all come from the same pattern / design. Each one has subtle differences between them. I CAN honestly say that the latest one is nicer than the one before it, etc. But only incrementally. So experience in building a project is, in my opinion, a big factor in what you can expect in the final result. Being able to reproduce an instrument (especially in todays day and age with CNC machines, automation, etc.) that looks just like the last one and the previous one is very doable. And yes some, not all, of these are fine instruments. But instruments aren't auto parts!
    All things being equal (wood, glue, finish, etc.) I feel that what makes a great, versus good, instrument is an experienced builder who knows how to bring out the best in his individual instrument, one perhaps incrementally better than the last.
    Thus I'll propose that "What" becomes "Who".
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    ………….With respect to the build, is it the wood and nut and saddle and tail piece used in something like a MacClanahan build? Or it is a technique used when cutting and assembling parts? Tighter tolerances, etc.? Or is it the sum of all the parts and an other-worldly precise building process?

    Very curious.
    All of the above plus your random experience. Not to mention the vagaries of your hearing which has deteriorated over time also due to your experience. I’ve played modest instruments which sounded fine and expensive instruments that were ‘meh’.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    I have thought about this question a lot over the past year as I have tried to figure out how to make a professional-grade carbon fiber mandolin.

    The real truth/growth serum for a builder is listening and watching top professional players play (or not play) your instruments over time. For the most part, professional musicians are obsessive, passionate, willing to suffer for their addiction to making music, and constantly craving the hedonistic joy of the "fix" of playing something new, fresh, and exciting.

    From my experience, mostly in the Bluegrass world, all the musicians are really nice and generous about sitting down to try out new instruments. But it took me a while to realize that the universal experience of them playing for a few moments, looking at the back and the headstock, and saying, "Wow, that is really cool." meant that I was not there yet.

    Great musicians often spend more than half their day playing their instruments. The relationships that they forge with the best are passionate, persistent, and intimate.

    Great builders, I believe, are as obsessive about creating instruments which have the feel, tone, balance, stability, power, complexity, and cosmetic beauty to create an indelible, powerful, lasting impression upon professional players. That means, that the builder has to be dissatisfied with the instrument results until he/she is consistently creating "marriage material" instruments for pro players.

    For me, somewhere in the first year of showing instruments at big festivals, I realized that if a pro or expert player EVER looked at the back and started talking about the beautiful curl or started showing the woodworking to other players .... I had failed. Real musicians can't stop playing, and when the get their hands on a new instrument that grabs them deeply, they really can't stop playing. So success starts to come when they play, and then play some more, then ask their friends to play while they watch, then ask their band mates to come over to jam ... and they keep on playing.

    On the build side, that means being willing to question and refine every step of your build process. It means being relentless in measuring, feeling, and listening to the great instruments that captivate players. It means being brutal in the process of "killing your babies." It means not "fixing" mistakes but being willing to toss the expensive components of a misdirected effort into the fireplace and staring over. I have a collection of partially burned headstocks on my fireplace mantle to remind me that all builds can't be winners (the body of a mandolin burns really fast and hot!)

    Carbon fiber and epoxy are not great combustibles ... so my method of fireplace Quality Control has really been tested this year. Since May 2022 I have had to discard more than 30 "near miss" build attempts and thousands and thousands of dollars in composite materials. I can only wonder what the folks at Waste Management trash sorting are thinking as they see partial instruments and body molds sliding down the line.

    But in the end, all that will matter is that the instruments grab players by the ears and heart; that they are easy to play and really really hard to put away.

    Steve
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Hi I don’t usually post much but the question peaked my interest. After twenty plus years of building and 100 plus instruments I think Steve hit the mark with his reply. I can always tell when i hand someone particularly a pro or expert player an instrument to try whether guitar or mandolin.If they can’t put it down I know I built a good one. If they mention nothing about the wood or fit and finish etc and just keep playing it i know i have hit my mark. Early on i got a lot of compliments on the wood or color etc. Now not so much they expect the fit and finish to be there. They are interested in tone and playability and how they can bring out the best in the instrument when they are playing it.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    In addition, why exclude vintage instruments? After all they were made by humans as well.
    Maybe I missed the OP’s answer? But I am still curious, especially when there are quite a few contemporary makers who copy aspects of vintage mandolins and some to an extreme, e.g., February 9, 1924 Loar F-5 copy.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Mainer73 View Post
    Ha! That's how it starts my friend. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
    You're not kidding. I saw a pic of one of Ken Ratcliff's Fantasm 3-pointers and fell in love. Seriously thinking about having him build one for me this Summer. I get the same way about guitars and basses. It gets ridiculous.

    Re. vintage mandolins, I'm just curious about new builder's instruments. I've read posts here praising $18,000 builds and folks equally enthusiastic about $2000 builds. Sounds like it's just the sum of all the parts plus builder experience to a certain point. After that it may just be player's tone preference.

    I've owned and played vintage Les Pauls and Strats and some were amazing and some were dogs. Just absolutely 'dead'. But you can put any 50s Les Paul in MOST guitarists' hands today and listen to them go on and on about the tone, the feel, the whatever. And that's just not reality. Many of us listen with our eyes.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    ...I've read posts here praising $18,000 builds and folks equally enthusiastic about $2000 builds...
    Yes.
    While personal preference is the biggest part of that, quality and price do not always correspond directly so it is possible for a $2000 mandolin to compare favorably with a $18000 mandolin. In order to evaluate quality (regardless of price) we must learn to see, feel, hear the details that define top quality. Those things are not obvious until we learn to see, feel, hear them.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    The $18,000 mandolins are made by people who have both a sterling reputation and have been doing it for years with consistent high quality. There are very talented folks even amateurs who are competing in a relatively crowded mandolin marketplace and who maybe can’t don’t need to get the big bucks. Then again there are others who charge somewhere in between. Again those who can afford to buy the high priced ones will do so and many of us can’t justify the price.
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakum View Post
    I've read posts here praising $18,000 builds and folks equally enthusiastic about $2000 builds. Sounds like it's just the sum of all the parts plus builder experience to a certain point. After that it may just be player's tone preference.
    I think you got the nail on the head here. Getting a well- made mandolin from a knowledgeable and skilled luthier will be a huge improvement from most budget instruments. Once you get past that point, the objective improvements will be relatively minor and it becomes about wood preference, voicing, and visual details.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    These discussions always seem to devolve to the same sort of discussion as guys talking about their cars -

    1. The cars that they loved as teens and will covet again as old guys.
    2. The dream cars that only "rich and stupid" guys are get suckered into dumping a fortune.
    3. The Super-Ultra cars that are clearly amazing but the possible target for only a rare few.
    4. The guys who crow about how they have been driving the same beater since they bought it back in '87
    5. The "You can't tell me there's any difference between a Ford and a Lincoln" guys who know that there is a difference but can only afford a Ford.
    6. And of course, the guys like me (and so many here) who decide to go into our shop and start building hotrods for ourselves ...

    My point is, everybody knows that there are huge differences between a Toyota Corolla and a Koenisegg One:1. The guy driving the Corolla can really rationalize his car and will never understand the "insane" expense of the super car .... but the differences in components, time in production, design, and singular purpose are obvious.

    You would never expect to see Charles LeClerc or Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez line up for a Formula One race in an '84 Hyundai Excel. That would be a lesson in guaranteed failure.

    The best instruments for a particular gig are like the best cars for a particular road -- wide ranging, but fairly clearly defined.

    When you get started driving, you get your Mom's old Chrysler, and at that point in your driving career it is AMAZING even though you wish you had parents who would just give you a used Porsche like the VanDerHoffs did.

    At some point, you graduate up the food chain (or you don't). But the fact is, if you are ever gonna race Formula One, you are going to need to upgrade to a team like Ferrari.

    Or, if you go into farming or construction, you'll need a heavy duty truck.

    Bottom line, where you progress to, where you end up will depend upon your goals, tastes, financial limits, and passion. If the ol' beater from '87 still makes you feel like you're winning the car game, I would guess that carbon fiber suspension arms on a million dollar super car will always seem kind of wasteful and stupid.

    With mandolins the discussion is as obvious --

    1. Does your mandolin have Waverly tuners or a mystery discount brand? Is the tailpiece Bill James or stamped and flimsy?
    2. Was the build process precise and time consuming or quickly done in a huge factory?
    3. Did the builder take the time to clean the internal body joins and shape the edges of the F-holes?
    4. Do the frets roll over into the fingerboard so that you can't feel the edges. Do your fingers feel like thy are flying over greased ball bearings when you play?
    5. Is the finish, thin, consistent, and tone-enhancing or is it a thick sprayed on glossy shell?
    6. Is the inlay work artful and unique or a quick copy of some old design?
    7. Are the tonebar placement and shaping, top and back graduations, and neck profile carefully defined by the builder, or copied from an antique, or quickly milled out to some unknown standard?
    8. Do top mando-drivers use your mandolin in the studio to record albums, or take them on the road?

    As with cars, there really is no mystery what defines power, or state of the art, or classic, or cutting bleeding edge. And if you know the difference, know the need, and know yourself, get the quality you can afford and work it hard every day.

    And as with cars, the goal is to find the balance where the delight and excitement is greater than or equal to your expense!

    Steve
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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    It also greatly depends on the person playing. I was a volunteer at a folk festival for many years (18+) and I've had the chance to lay hands on a Loar signed mandolin and when I strummed it it sounded exactly like me playing any of my other mandolins. This gets to the heart of what John (Sunburst) wrote in post #19. Until you can match the caliber of the build, you can't really tell much about something better. My mandolins sound much better in the hands of a more proficient player than in my own. Imagine that!

    I'm a much better photographer than mandolinist. I understand the light and framing and exposure, depth of field and all pretty well. I'm a passable post shooting editor of photos but am by far not a super user of Photoshop or lightroom. I can evaluate different camera systems much better than my friends who love using their iPhones (which are great photo tools on their own) and can justify the expense of my camera kit considering the use I get out of it. My mandolin journey may have me appreciating the builds of a variety of folks I consider world class builders (even if their instruments aren't commanding $18K+) but I won't be buying bc what I have more than meets my needs and goals.

    So to answer your question, what makes a builder top shelf? Consistently putting out instruments that meet very discriminating eyes and ears. Having your instruments in the hands of Mandolin Glitterati on stages helps a lot. Being dead or no longer building seems to help, too. It's a complex web of technical and social factors.

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

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    Default Re: Trying to learn what makes a great new build (not vintage) ..

    I've loved these kinds of discussions when it comes to stringed instruments since I was a teen. But vintage discussions get weird.

    Even in the late 70s vintage LPs were starting to become a big deal. Myself and my bandmates were swapping around a wrap-tail goldtop and it's owner kept going on and on about the wood and the "hand crafting" and how well it played and sounded and the "amazing" P90s while two of his buds were acting like it was magic, nodding and agreeing. And the rest of us were laughing. It was sonically dead plugged and unplugged, wouldn't intonate, the 60 cycle hum was worse than my '63 Strat, fretboard hump at the neck joint. My best friend's dad (a touring country guitarist) played it and dryly said "Nice firewood". Roughly the same thing happened with the first burst I played in the early 80s. Total dog. But everyone just went on and on about it. Even at that young age we could tell when something was crap. That's why I stay out of vintage discussions.

    The post is just intellectual curiosity. Me buying a $10,000 mandolin is like putting lipstick on a pig. You could do it ... but no one's gonna ask the pig to dance. I suck just as bad on a Collings as I do on an off-the-rack Rogue at GC. But when younger, before old age, motorcycle wrecks, and fist fights destroyed my hands, I was a pretty decent guitarist. And I always had a feel for good guitars. I was blessed to keep an early 60s Burst for over a month and it was glorious. Original PAFs. Unplugged it was so resonant it jumped out at you. Wish I'd taken out a loan and bought it. But we had no idea back then. But Gibson laid a few eggs too. I had a pair of early 68 Deluxes. One was a dog and the other was like that 60 burst. Just amazing.
    Last edited by Snakum; Jan-26-2023 at 7:02pm.
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