Loudness

[Poener]

What do you think constitutes loudness in a mandolin's construction? A friend of mine has an F style Asian Aria that is noticably loud. The depth of the instrument is bigger than a traditional F style. I would think there is more space for the sound to mix around in, but the F holes are the same size.

[fishtownmike]

I have a few A style mandolins that are fatter then a standard and they are louder. They also add a little more bass to the mix then my thiner mandos. But i also think these instruments that i have lack the clarity of a standard A or f style. They don't have that cutting through sound. Their tone is more for a better explanation guitar like...mike

[allenhopkins]

Larger vibrating surface generally = more volume. Larger resounding area ditto. Heavier strings, (sometimes) higher action or at least higher bridge, longer scale (often means more tension on strings to reach the same pitch). All can be contributing factors, as can top thickness and graduation, smoothness of reflecting surfaces (back, sides), and general geometry and bracing of the soundbox.

Also, if it's a banjo...

[Tim2723]

I think if you were to ask the master luthiers, they might say that overall volume is a function of many factors. That said, large-bodied instruments do tend to be louder as a whole. The 'Celtic' versions of mandolins often have over sized resonating chambers, and many choose these for their ability to cut through the Irish acoustic session against louder instruments like the fiddle and banjo..

[Poener]

Larger vibrating surface generally = more volume. Larger resounding area ditto. Heavier strings, (sometimes) higher action or at least higher bridge, longer scale (often means more tension on strings to reach the same pitch). All can be contributing factors, as can top thickness and graduation, smoothness of reflecting surfaces (back, sides), and general geometry and bracing of the soundbox.

Also, if it's a banjo...

Let's call this the: Mandolin Mission Statement".

[Nick Triesch]

You can do all that stuff to a mandolin to try to make it louder or you can just find one thats loud in the first place. That's what I'll do next time. Nick

[Dfyngravity]

There are so many things that contribute to the sound and overall volume of the mandolin. But things you can personally check on your mandolin to make sure you are getting as much volume as possible is that the strings sit properly in the nut and bridge slots and that the bridge feet or foot is properly fitted to the top of the mandolin.

Some other very important factors are weight of the mandolin (you want the least amount of mass as possible), neck angle (having a bit more neck angle will put a little more pressure on the top and can help increase volume), finish thickness is a pretty big one too.

[mandroid]

Wood is variable , building is also variable, no 2 are the same, that's why you have to physically play them, to know , brand and model is not a guarantee of a given sound.

play in the shower stall :))

[Big Joe]

What exactly does anyone mean by "volume" ? Do you mean the amount of sound you hear while you are playing? Or do you mean how loud it is right in front of it? Or do you mean how loud is it across the room from where you are? These three may not be the same. Many mandolins that carry and are incredibly loud across the room are not very loud to the player. It may not be that loud to the person right in front of it. Defining what one means by volume is the first portion of this discussion to come to an answer.

There are several ways to increase volume...in any of those areas, but not many will give extreme volume in all three. The instrument is designed to propel the tone out the front and to function much like a plucked violin. That should mean it works best when the volume is greatest at a distance, rather than just behind it where the player sits. The violin, when played, is generally aimed at the players ear, while the mandolin is faced away from the player.

Many of the bassier modern mandolins are louder for the player and many think that constitutes a loud mandolin. However, that mandolin will not likely carry that well and it becomes lost just a matter of feet in front of the player. The player can hear it better, but others cannot.

Each player has to decide what they want tonally and in terms of volume. Also, some mandolins, merely by the way they are constructed or tuned or finished may not be able to be altered to give the same "volume" as others. While any mandolin can be improved, not all mandolins can be made excellent in that category. Whether the cost to improvement ratio is worth it is up to the owner.

[chordbanger]

I am going to be playing at a jam session tomorrow, and I feel confident that my Aria mandolin will be heard loud and clear when I play. It's loud. Other mandolins I have played do not have the volume Aria has. A friend of mine and I are going to have a show down of mandolins when we play Soldiers Joy. Hope the folks in the audience bring some ear plugs! We play loud. :mandosmiley:

[Nick Triesch]

Come on Joe! When you put a super mandolin in your hands and play it you know right now that it's a great one with huge sound. I just think you are trying to be nice. That's OK, nice is good. Nick

[Bill Halsey]

Very well put, Big Joe.

[Geoff B]

a louder mandolin produces more amplitude in the soundwaves when playing. No one could tell you exactly how to do that out of the blue, but they could tell you how to tweak certain things and what potential things will result. A deeper body will result in a lower main body (Helmholtz) resonance, potentially lowering the voice of the instrument. Smaller F-holes would have a similar effect. Larger F-holes would raise the main body resonance and likely raise the voice of the instrument.

I have a very sweet 1916 pumpkin top that rings like a bell when I play alone and is just as "loud", if not "louder" when I play solo as my personal f-hole mandolin. But when I play with anyone else, the f-hole mandolin is far and above "louder" and sits on top of the mix, instead of getting washed up within it like my pumpkin top. In different contexts the instruments sound top notch, but it would impossible to say which is out-and-out "louder". Also, beating on the side of a dumpster could be louder than either, but I'd usually prefer the tone of a quieter instrument.

[Nick Triesch]

You can have two Gibson F5G mandolins from the same year and the same batch and one can be way louder than the other. It has nothing to do with the bridge or the strings or the neck angle or anything. It's the luck of the draw. I know a lady with a Doyle Lawson that is so loud and responsive that you could use a stick for a bridge and it would still be super loud!! Nick

[allenhopkins]

You can have two Gibson F5G mandolins from the same year and the same batch and one can be way louder than the other. It has nothing to do with the bridge or the strings or the neck angle or anything. It's the luck of the draw.

Nick, not to take exception, but it's got to be something other than "luck." What it may well be is the difference between two pieces of spruce that make up the respective tops. Perhaps the luthiers in the group could chime in, as to whether they can tell "loud" spruce from "not-so-loud" spruce.

[Big Joe]

It's not luck. It is a combination of many things that determines what the final outcome of a mandolin will be. I still maintain that the question is what one means by loud. The lower the frequency of the note the faster it will fall or decay so a mandolin may sound very loud right at the instrument but be lost not too far away. A mandolin with a different frequency response may be louder several feet away than it seems behind it. Then there are so many other issues that can determine the final outcome in tone, and volume (perceived) that can be built into the design of the instrument. Those who have worked with the instruments enough can pretty well tell how to make one with the response they are looking for. They adjust the variables to get the desired effect. Of course, there is a limit to what design can give you. That is where the individual parts of the instrument come to play and a good luthier will know what to adjust to overcome the issues the wood presents. Luck doesn't really have much to do with it if you have the experience and knowledge and understand clearly what the customer wants in a finished product.

One of the most difficult things is to understand what the customer means by the words they use. If both parties are not very clear on what the customer wants, there may well be a disappointment in the making. If a customer just tells me they want the mandolin louder I have to talk with him/her for a bit and I like to let them play for me if possible to see what the complaint is. Once I really understand what they want it is much easier to deliver. This is true when working on an existing mandolin or building a new one. Many of the words we use have a different meaning to different people. As we have seen many times on this forum, it can cause a lot of frustration and sometimes hurt feelings. Clarity is the first step to success when it comes to expressing expectations.

There have been several things discussed in this thread on how to increase volume, but that assumes all parties have the same understanding of what loudness is. I don't mean to ruffle anyone's feathers, just pointing out an issue we luthiers face every day. We always want to do the best we can to deliver the best product meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customer so we have to go the extra step to get that clarity. When that happens, we can usually deliver what the customer wants. Thank you...just my opinion.

[Nick Triesch]

Sorry, but in all due respect if builders can just build to the wishes of the customer and build in the desired loudness.....then why do most mandolins sound ordinary and only a tiny few sound fantastic and huge and wondeful. Really, it's true. In my life only a handful of mandolins..a few Nuggetts, Givens, Gibsons, a Weber have had the super mandolin sound. I do think a lot of it is luck. Think about all the Martin D28's you have played in your life that sounded wonderful. Then think about all the D28's that you have played that were turkeys! I played a $7200 Collings F5 at Old Time Music in San Diego and it sounded good. Then I compared it to my $3500 Weber Fern and the Collings only sounded a little better. Was the Collings $3700 better? No way. I think of my Fern as ordinary and the Collings a little better than ordinary. Nick

[Jock]

Big joe makes big sense IMO. I've spent a lot of time playing music with people in sessions over the years, sometimes loud busy sessions.

Back in the day I played guitar exclusively and would often decide on which guitar to take out to a tune on the basis of who and what instruments were likely to be there.

Mahogany back and sides Cedar top = deep warm lows warm mid and bright highs; sounds great in small groups where there is space in the lower frequencies. This guitar just turned to mud in the bottom in situations where there were other instruments sharing a similar frequency range, zooks OM etc... My Rose wood B&S Spruce top guitar had a more focused bass and mids in a similar situation and therefore gave the impression that it was louder as people could hear it in a large group. Truth is that the more focused tonal range cut through the mud without being any louder in amplitude than the other.

I've observed mandolins (and other instruments) seemingly disappear from audible perception when things get loud. Yet others can still be heard over (more accurately "through") a boisterous tune or loud pub noise.

As Big joe says; what do you mean by loudness? For me it's "cut" not big volume at the instrument.

When I was looking for a mandolin (a process that took me 5 years of enquiry listening and some saving) I concluded that an archtop gibson style design was the most efficient design to deliver a focused tone that would stand up to the rigors of the bigger acoustic sesh.

The clincher was at my local session one noisy evening where the local mando enthusiast and player of many a fine mando family instruments, brought his new (to him) flatiron archtop mandolin. Despite the background noise and the mando players complaints I could still hear him clearly at the opposite end of the group, not loudly but clearly defined, every note :disbelief:

It must also be said that the player is as an important ingredient in the mix as the instrument and I know a couple of mandolin players who can really drive without loosing subtlety.

Tight focused tone cuts where wide warm tone often vanishes, in a crowd IME. It would be nice to always play in nice civilized appreciative situations where everybody makes a space for their fellow musician and non players keep silent, the real world is quite different. As is the difference between loudness and cut.

Jock

[Big Joe]

Hey Nick...I would never say any makers products will live up to the hype. Many will, but those are usually the ones with substantial experience and who carefully chose and cull each piece of wood and have built their instrument with a particular end result in mind. The ones you have listed are all fine instruments, but Martin, who is building over 500 guitars a day, is hardly a suitable comparison for an individual builder who is working to accomplish a particular goal. In mass made instruments there is a formula, which when applied to its highest level, produces a desired outcome. That may or may not be the outcome any particular person wants. However, it is the outcome the builder wants. Now when you add the number of instrument and the quantity being built by some guitar makers it is pretty hard to dial in the formula all the time. Sometimes, no matter how good the company, they have to hit the production goal and they use what is available right now. They can't shut the factory down to wait for a special piece of wood. Individual builders have a bit more leeway in that department.

One who has worked with enough instruments can predict a fairly accurate outcome for the product he/she is building. Certainly there are small differences in each piece of wood or the finish on a particular instrument, and certainly some are better than others, but the ability to hit a desired outcome is far more than luck. The other aspect of this discussion is the listener. You may find a particular instrument rather dull and lifeless, but another will find it the most fascinating instrument in the world. The development of ones ear to distinguish different tonal aspects develops over time and exposure. You may have a more defined sense of the tones you particularly like than another person. You would find one instrument substandard to your ear while they may find it quite substantial to theirs.

When Charlie and I began working together he always talked about how great certain mandolins sounded. I had not been exposed to any great number of that particular type. I was not that impressed with them at that time. Over the years my exposure increased and my ear developed until one day I actually realized how much of what Charlie had said was actually sinking in. It is the same with most of us. If we are never exposed to certain tones we would not likely find them that pleasing until we have the experience to help us discern from the ones we had thought so good.

The joy of building is helping a person...at whatever level they may be...find the best mandolin for them and thier tastes. What they percieve is far more important than what I may percieve. They, after all, are the buyer. I can make recommendations and suggestions from my experience and observations, but in the end they get to chose...not me. As a builder, one may chose to build to anothers expectation or not. Some will try to accomadate the purchaser by trying to give the customer the sound the customer wants. Others will simply say what they build and if the customer wants that sound, fine. If not, find another builder. That is also very acceptable. Most builders know what they can ...and what they cannot do and are not likely to go beyond what they feel they can accomplish.

Again, luck may be a part of the equation, but certainly not a large part to one who has the experience to know what outcome they can provide. In new or experimental situations luck may have a larger part of the outcome, but that can be predicted with experience. One of the joys we had at the big G was the opportunity to experiment. I was amazed at how often we could predict the outcome of the experiment before the project was started. It really confirmed to me the mystery in lutherie was knowledge and experience, not magic. Like with most things in life, magic is created by knowledge and experience, and not the other way around.