Leather Cord in the Strings?

[mando_noob]

So I'm new to the wonderful world of mandolins. What is the purpose, in some mandolins, of the leather cord woven between the strings between the bridge and the tailpiece? Is it to cut down on unwanted inter-string harmonics? Or is there some other purpose?

[Mark Miller]

The strings past the bridge can sometimes ring a bit with out of tune tones. Some people use grommets or a bit of leather or string to eliminate that. Some people don't have the problem. I tried it and my mandolin got louder and clearer because only the played notes were ringing.

[gtani7]

Yes, some people put them between nut and tuners as well. May not need them if you're a heel of hand planter, and you can also use rubber grommets: http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...r-the-Mandolin, or the Weber wood nymph: http://webermandolins.com/features/wood-nymphs. I think the 2 sides of velcro would work. I use velcro between nut and 1st fret of guitars sometimes, that's what the Chapman stick and other "touch guitars" use (i think it's the hook side of velcro)

[CES]

Yep. The only negative, IMO, to dampening those strings is that it makes it tough to go all Thile, like when he strums the strings below the bridge and above the nut to add a little percussive dissonance...about the only Thile technique I can imitate well

[Ivan Kelsall]

I used to use the rubber grommets only because my very first mandolin,a 'Michael Kelly' came with them fitted. I continued to use them until after re-stringing one time,i played the mandolin without them & heard no difference. So these days i don't use them at all - you can only try grommets / leather or 'whatever' to find out for yourself. If you haven't heard anything 'odd',i suspect that you don't need them,
Ivan

[kypfer]

I fitted strips of leather to a couple of instruments, all in good faith and with good results, until, after a while, strings started to break for no apparent reason. The first one or two were put down to "one of those things", then I realised the strings were rusting through where the leather was. Maybe the leather was contaminated, maybe it was absorbing moisture from the air (or possibly the palm of my hand). Either way, the leather has now been replaced with strips of dense plastic foam material, as used for insulating water pipes ... no more breakages

YMMV

[mando_noob]

Thanks, everyone, for all the helpful information. I'm not a good enough player yet to know whether or not I would actually hear a difference between "muted" and "unmuted" so I'll probably play around with it when I get more accomplished. The only Thile thing I can do at this point is to hold my mandolin. Interesting about the water pipe insulation...

[Mark Miller]

I never heard the problem until I learned how to chop chords. I would chop and still hear something ringing which was not the chord. So I tried this and that stopped, and what I didn't expect also happened--everything I played sounded clearer and louder. So give it the chop test when/if that time comes.

[Stephen Perry]

Depends in part on how the mandolin responds to things. I used to put them in so I could hear what I needed to, but now I hear what I need to regardless, often without hitting a string. They do look nice! Thinking about making up some "mandovoodoo" ones.

[MediumMando5722]

I like the ringing while I'm playing. It's almost like faux-reverb. Can't stand it after a chop, though, so I went with grommets close to the tailpiece. Occasionally I hear ringing above the nut, so I'll put a bit of felt or whatever on the truss rod cover.