Comparing Mandolin "tone".

[Flyboy]

I apologize if there is already a thread dealing with this.

There is a lot of discussion about mandolin "tone". Some of us, like myself, have not had the opportunity to compare a lot of different mandolins in real life, however, there are a lot of YouTube clips showing different mandolins that everyone can access.

Acknowledging the limitations of sound quality via YouTube, perhaps we could assemble a selection of different clips of solo mandolin playing, demonstrating, as distinctly as possible, the different kinds of sound & tone produced by different mandolins, for example, a "woody" mandolin vs. a more trebly, "sweeter" one, old vs. new, ff vs oval etc. etc.

Seems to me this could provide a valuable reference tool & subject for ... um ... polite discussion.

[sunburst]

It's futile.
Sounds like a good idea, seems like it would work, but it's futile. One person's "woody" is another person's "hollow". There are so many quotes like; "talking about sound is like dancing about architecture" and stuff like that. Try as they might, nobody has been able to come up with common terms for various sounds. Threads abound here about variations on the subject, guitar "tastings" and mandolin "tastings" have been organized to try to pin down terms describing sound. The first "guitar" tasting I attended for this exact purpose was in 1989, and I have no idea haw many had been done before that. Here is is 2010, and no attempt at categorizing mandolin sounds and assigning them universal names has met with any success that I know of.

Anyway, have at it, don't let me or anyone else discourage you! It's worth a try just for the fun, education and interest of it all, but don't be surprised if people can't seem to agree on how to describe sounds, let alone agree on how to put it all into words.

[Cullowheekid]

There are tonal differences between individual mandolins. Let's say F-5, A-5 style. You have to play and listen for some time to develope an ear for the sound you are after, then the journey begins. I've been to some "mandolin tastings" with some very good pickers and mandolins. You come away with some interesting and suprising knowledge about tone and volume, concerning price, builder, and the person pulling the tone out of each mandolin. I think while you develope your ear, get a mandolin by an experienced builder, whether it be a Gibson, Webber, Flatiron....., or an individual builder with a good reputation. You want an instrument that is able to improve with you. Eric

[JEStanek]

I would say this is not a noticeable difference between an A5 and an F5 similarly constructed by the same builder. Between builders there may be differences in tone. Certainly between an A4 (oval hole) and a A5/F5 ff holes. I think you might be able to find some of what you're looking for on some of the older videos on the Folk Of The Wood Mandolin Video Sampler page. Particularly you can hear tonewood differences amongst the Mid Mo mandolins.

Jamie

[Chuck Naill]

I think when you evaluate a mandolin you have to bring with you a set of minimal requirements since no mandolin has it all. This will allow the player to adapt themselves to the instrument in order to get what they need tonally from any instrument.

My list includes:

1. Openness as expressed by ease of play resulting in head room and volume with minimal effort
2. A pleasing fingerboard and set up
3. Lightness, I have never played a heavy instrument that performed.

What I have found is that if an instrument has these qualities, it will work for me.

[Earl Gamage]

Hey Chuck, I totally agree with your #3, I think that's why Collings MT's ring so loud, they are light as a feather. I never see lightness mentioned, good for you.

[Willie Poole]

I find that with the digital recording equipment most mandolins sound pretty much the same when the CD`s are played over stations like Sirrius....I know there is every now and then a different sound coming out but I believe the recording techitions cam make them sound a certain way when recording....The best way is go to a festival or a show where mandolin builders have a stand set up and just the dickens out of them and you will soon see a difference....Have fun and good luck with this venturs.....

[Douglas McMullin]

The Acoustic Music Company in the UK has a great "Mandolin Jukebox" that is the same music sample for each instrument. I think you can even download higher quality samples at the page for each instrument. The Jukebox is nice because you can quickly compare different instruments, and to me each recording sounds distinct.

http://www.theacousticmusicco.co.uk/jukebox2

[jim_n_virginia]

Also two people can play the same mandolin. One could pull tone out of it and the other can't. I have seen this with my own eyes and ears many times. Also I have seen really great players like Grisman and Herschel Sizemore pull good tone out of a mediocre mandolin.

To me pulling good tone is partly the instrument and partly the player.

[Charley wild]

I agree with what Willie implied. I just don't trust any sound system when it come to evaluating an instrument. I always bear in mind that the worst Dobro I owned recorded fine! I agree with Jim's point also. The player certainly comes into the picture.

[DerTiefster]

I think the original poster's desire, like mine was a year ago, actually -can- be satisfied. I'll focus on what I wanted then, because it can be described in such similar words (study that phrasing) that I think it's "close enough." What I wanted was an education for my ear. I didn't want to -have- to attach someone else's dance steps to the architecture I was looking at, but just to be able to see the various bldg styles.

The Folk of the Woods site was absolutely great for that. What a resource! And snagging sound clips put up by vendors for comparison just to see what the range of mandolin sounds were. I found I could reasonably well distinguish between oval and f-hole mandolins, for instance. I personally considered the differences in terms of how big a hole there was in a shoe box to let someone's voice out, or listening to him when he was behind a piece of wood with different sized hole in the barrier. Those pictures don't at all do justice to the issue, but they captured -enough- of the details to satisfy my understanding.

And the there's the ultimate test: the mandolin-tasting get-together. Find one. Attend it. Learn enough to pick a song or a few, and try them on the broad spectrum of instruments you will find. For sheer variety, I think you'll never do better at even large stores. To learn the spectrum, you don't need to go all the way to the extremes of the various tonal "hues," but just to see red from green from purple and so forth. And what you like will change as you hear more different things.

Just my opinion, of course.

[Brent Hutto]

TAMCO's Jukebox is great because it's high quality recordings of high quality instruments with the same guy playing the same material on each one. If you complement that with reading up on the design and voicing of each instrument you'll learn something about how different builders approach the tone thing.

Stuff on YouTube, the old Folk of the Wood site or even some dealer's sound samples sound so horrible I don't know how people can even listen to it with the volume turned up enough to hear any detail. A lot of sound sample don't tell you anything about the particular mandolin, they just confirm what we already know. A compressed recording from a poor microphone place a mile away from a mandolin in a bright, echo-y room will sound ear piercing.

[schloss]

Again , generalizations of what type of performance mandolins will have. The statement about light mandolins sounding good and heavy ones sounding bad is pure bunk. So now we will have this debate. A suggestion to the OP , play as many mandolins as you can, listen to as many as you can, and then and only then can you separate the good , the bad and the ugly. Ask an opinion of 100 mandolin players and you get 100 expert replies, ONLY depend on your senses, no one can tell you what YOUR ears like to hear. my 2 cents

[DerTiefster]

To counter (in a friendly way) part of what Brent said above, the ear education the O.P. was after doesn't have to be that "this mandolin sounds like this, and that one sounds like that." It can be that, "The range of mandolin sounds runs from at least here to there." The FOTW site does a lot of that. When they have similar mic'ing for different mandolins, you might make a comparison. When they don't, you can still hear something about each mandolin. And yes, they may not be the best recordings, but that's not what they were for.

[GRW3]

There are at least three types of tone issues, as I see it:

1) The 'I am the tone' school - think Bill Monroe or Sam Bush or Jethro Burns. The only thing they need is a mandolin that can make their sound. I would not have wanted to tell Bill Monroe his music depended on his particular mandolin.
2) The 'masters of the instrument' school - why point to anybody besides Dave Grisman but there are a bunch. They have a different instrument for every mood or type of music because match perfection is important to them. We all have friends that would like to think of themselves that way but they just want to own a lot of instruments.
3) The 'tone seeker' school - a very personal quest. I fall in this category. I seek the best mandolin I can afford that matches the tone of the mandolin in my head. I have constructed a mental ideal for mandolin (and guitar) and my challenge is to match that. I do OK but education and experience move the goalpost. The also get monitarily higher so the next step is always more difficult. People like me tend to be serial instrument players.

So anyway, the point is that 'tone' is not a singular thing to be categorized or completely understood. Who has not played an instrument that left you cold to not subsequently see somebody (often somebody you know to be experienced) pick it up and go gaga over it. The best thing I can recommend is play a lot of instruments to build yourself a knowledge database.

[Ron McMillan]

The only value of forum discussions of the relative merits and shortcomings of certain instruments' characteristics exist as shared knowledge and opinion. When one person waxes lyrical about the lightness or the woodiness or the cut or chop of an instrument, it makes for an interesting opinion - but that of only one person. When whole groups of individuals say the same or nearly the same thing about a particular brand or model, then the opinions' weight becomes more significant, and might represent something like a consensus that could help others lean towards a particular instrument. I don't think sound clips played over the Web can add much to this already thin set of benefits.

You might as well get dozens of different people to compare different snowballs. Everyone is going to have their favourite handful of snow, but that doesn't mean they're all correct.

ron

[Mandolin Mick]

For me, it's hard to get the tone by listening to sound clips. The most important thing about a mandolin's tone to me is the tone I get on the D string, from around the 5th fret up to the 14th fret. I have something in my head that I listen for, and it's hard to put in words; very personal ...

[Chuck Naill]

The statement about light mandolins sounding good and heavy ones sounding bad is pure bunk.

No really. Weight is determined by how the instrument is constructed. If anyone ever compares the weight of a new Martin guitar with one made before WW2, you will feel the difference ( I only use this comparison because everything else is about the same as before from this company). The reason is the size and amount of braces.

When is comes to mandolins and fiddles, the tops are many times too thick. Some dealers have said that imported products are built thick to withstand the rigors of shipping. Re-graduation of the tops of imported fiddles is common today. When you take away wood, the weight goes decreases.

[Ed Goist]

Great thread. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is how different some mandolins can sound from the player's perspective as opposed to from a non-player's perspective. Sometimes the difference can be remarkable. Hence, ANY sound clip (regardless of how advanced and well-recorded) of a particular mandolin (recorded from a non-player's perspective) might not accurately reflect how that mandolin would sound to you while playing it.
Obviously we're dealing with an incredibly complicated issue here, driven by a multitude of variables and exceptions.

[Chuck Naill]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is how different some mandolins can sound from the player's perspective as opposed to from a non-player's perspective.

Good point, Ed. While its nice to take someone along to play and let you listen. Nothing takes the place of how the instrument sounds and performs in you own hands.

[Ben Vierra]

No really. Weight is determined by how the instrument is constructed. . . The reason is the size and amount of braces.

I'm with you on your point that a heavy top can be an indicator of a less than stellar instrument. But I'm not convinced that one can always tell this from the overall weight of the instrument. The top (however thick) and braces (in whatever configuration) are not the only woods that contribute to overall weight. Perhaps the neckblock and tailblock are spruce (very light) or perhaps they are a hardwood (much denser), the thickness of the sides may vary, there may or may not be cloth or cross-grain wood reinforcement of the sides, the density of the neck wood must be considered, and dare I mention the presence of an onboard pickup or the use of a heavy cast tailpiece? All these other factors must be equal, or at least well-understood, before making the kind of comparison you're talking about.

Very interesting thread, and I'm looking forward to checking out the TAMCO and Folk of the Woods sites.

[Flyboy]

Well, no one's done gone posted anything yet!

This wasn't supposed to be (another) theoretical discussion about "tone", but an opportunity to listen to some examples of what Cafe members identify as characteristic "tone" qualities - NOT saying one is necessarily "better" than another, but just seeing if there is some consensus as to the type of sound a particular sound clip represents.

The only value of forum discussions of the relative merits and shortcomings of certain instruments' characteristics exist as shared knowledge and opinion ...When whole groups of individuals say the same or nearly the same thing about a particular brand or model, then the opinions' weight becomes more significant, and might represent something like a consensus

That's what I'm interested in! Obviously, a live mando "tasting" would be the best way of doing this, but doesn't seem all that likely we'll ever get several thousand Cafe members at one time! Clearly in the end it's just a matter of personal opinion, but as I am stuck mandolining in isolation, I am curious to hear what other people's opinion's are.

[DerTiefster]

Flyboy -- where in the world are you? Are there nearby venues for you to listen to mandolins? friends or acquaintances (or those to be made?) who could help you? Have you met up with the CoMando email list hosted from South Dakota, a holdover from the dawn of time when the internet was a collection of universities and government institutions, and is still active?

[Steve Ostrander]

3. Lightness, I have never played a heavy instrument that performed.

I also agree with Chuck's observation, because I've had the same experience. No scientific evidence, just empirical observation. But I'm always looking for a BG tone. I don't know anything about what players want for classical, choro, or other types of music.

[Gelsenbury]

To me pulling good tone is partly the instrument and partly the player.

That strikes me as the only sensible view to have about this. So, whilst I admire the tone that other players pull out of their instruments at gigs, on CDs and on video clips, it doesn't make me covet their instrument because it wouldn't sound the same if I played it!

It's possible to make valid comparisons if you have the same player playing the same melody on different instruments. The TAMCO jukebox is an example, but I don't spend much time there because all their instruments are outside my price range. Simon Mayor has some samples on his web site comparing the bowlback with the flatback sound. But even then, as players get used to the characteristics of their instruments, their playing changes too. It's all very complex!

But then, that's the beauty of it. The tonal, ergonomic, aesthetic and emotional differences between mandolins all come as a package, which makes the voyage of discovery so interesting. I always find it interesting to see how people become attached to their instruments, and how everyone has slightly different and not always rational reasons for it.