Mandovoodoo?

[John M. Riley]

I was gonna have a setup done on one of my gibsons and wondered if the mandovoodoo should go ahead and be done too... Who's had this done and did it help??? Any comments on it?? Thanks

[John Flynn]

http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=12;t=30566;hl=mandovoodoo

[John M. Riley]

I checked the other posting of this topic. It really didnt answer my questions...
Has anyone had this voodoo done to gibsons or flatirons?
Everyone just talks about having it done to eastman and mk mandolins..

[Stephen Perry]

You might try simply asking me.

[chuck.naill]

You will find differant opinions about Steve's setup. I have an awesome Eastman MD 504 and Steve set it up for me since I got the instrument from him. I am not sure that I would have paid extra for it since I have access to a luthier that I had been using for some time.

There is evidence that scraping tone bars and other internal structures have been performed on violins with some success. I stumbled upon this information while trying to understand various fiddle tones.

I agree that Steve is the best person to ask. If his techniques are valid, meaning that what he does is repeatable, he should be able to explain this clearily.

Steve is easy and fun to work with.

Chuck Naill

[WoodyMcKenzie]

I know someone who does this on violins (I am very much a believer) and have read over Steve's approach and believe it to be valid. Sound quality is so subjective that I don't believe everyone will be equally satisfied with the changes that can be made with minor adjustments, but I do believe they are significant. If you have a discriminating ear, then this kind of adjustment can certainly be worthwhile.

Just my 2 cents...

Woody

[Stephen Perry]

I suppose I'll jump in with some further information. I've worked on several Gibsons. They respond just like everything else to the limited number of techniques I've been able to modify or develop for them. Nicely made. They get more open, a bit faster responding, lots quieter/free of extraneous noise, tone sweetens/purifies, and folks reported they get louder. I don't think things get louder. Maybe they sound more clear. I did my own Flatiron Festival F and was pleased.

I used the term "everything else" above intentionally. This general approach works great on guitars, for example. But takes way too long. Too much surface area inside. The rib width on a guitar is huge. Really I have to go around the guitar in 4 strips, then go back around, then again. Then I can go through the bracing, top and back. Work on the top impacts the back, and vice versa, so that's a back and forth thing. Then the ribs again, but generally only a tiny bit here and there, but I can hear the difference. Then touch up the bracing. So this turns into a 6 hour exhausting project.

I use this technique constantly in making a violin. I work over the bare rib garland. I'll use a regular type scraper and actually remove visible wood at this stage. As a final step on the unassembled plates I'll work those. The bass bar gets a good deal of time. Once the "box" is together I'll do quite a bit of work from the outside with a scraper. When the neck is one, I'll set up the instrument in the white, let the tension settle in a little bit, and work the outside of the box, fingerboard, neck, ribs, bar. Everything. Everything is connected to everything else, so this is a moderately involved iterative process.

Then I'll varnish, and do the final run through.

So, on a violin I'm making I'll work:

1. All internal surfaces including bar prior to assembly
2. All external surfaces of the box once glued, and sometimes the internal bar and blocks
2. Once the neck is on and the instrument set up in the white, I'll do the majority of the work on the fingerboard and run through the entire surface area
3. Once varnished, I work the interior surfaces, the fingerboard in detail (about 1 cm segments along the sides), the tailpiece, the bridge (extensively). This is in addition to getting the basic setup right.

In comparison, a mandolin already finished only offers modest opportunities. I can't set the B zero frequency effectively because the mass required is too great. I can't work along the edge of the fingerboard because these are varnished on mandolins. I can't work the plates and bars in a more substantial manner because the instrument is together. So I just work the interior a bit and the bridge. This gives me much of the performance increase I'm looking for. I generally just work the ribs, blocks, bars and bridge. Sometimes I find a bad spot on a plate (back or top) and fix it, but generally just the rib/block/bar/bridge. I work mandolins in a substantially different pattern than violins. For example, violins tend to have pairs of points to evaluate, rib and block pairings. But mandolins have much less constrained areas along the ribs that may or may not need work. These are much less stable than on violins. Thus very minor work on a bar may bring up a minor area needing work on the adjacent rib and just a touch on the opposite rib. I suspect this difference might come from the difference in arching. For example, traditional oval hole mandolins have a longer flatter longitudinal arch, more similar to a fiddle. The adjustment points on the ribs seem somewhat more consistent and stable than the more domed F hole models.

I've also done this work to viola, cello, tested on bass (maybe a week to do a bass!), guitars (archtops really light up), violin bows. It feels similar to me to tweeking flutes and recorders by working in the bore and the edge of the fingerholes. That's a very well known approach to set intonation, especially on overblown octaves.

So the work I'm doing hardly takes place in a vacuum. Similar kinds of adjustment throughout the musical instrument world and over a very long period of time provide substantial context. I just applied my own violin version to mandolins, and adapted the approach as I found worked. I'd already gone through perhaps 200 violins and a few guitars before I tried a mandolin, so I had the personal technique part of things pretty well nailed down.

For the experimenters, modeling clay provides a useful way to change mass distribution. Big lump on headstock can set B zero. That's fun. Tiny dots along the ribs will probably show tone differences. Find the "bright" spots around the rim and put a tiny dab of clay on each. See what happens.

I don't mind at all talking to people about this process. Some people visiting can hear what I'm doing while I'm doing it, but not everyone. Everyone who can tune a piano can hear what I'm doing instantly. Just a different kind of listening.

I trust this added explanation will prove useful. I suggest that anyone interested play with clay.

The best available exposition in print is the second half of Deena Spears' "Ears of the Angels." Fascinating. The first half is more challenging to get through! This provided the original basis for more advanced work in my shop and directly led to the work I'm doing on mandolins.

Be well!

[thistle3585]

I've always wondered if these types of modifications, or any type of modification, would void a warranty on an instrument. Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on Steve, but I do know that musicians can get carried away with getting their instruments setup to their liking. Just curious.

[Stephen Perry]

I doubt any company could tell I'd worked on their mandolin. Gordon of Eastman has specifically indicated no warranty problems. He sends me mandolins to work on sometimes.

[mandowood]

Steve- can you ballpark how long this takes? What's your turnaround time? Do you find that some instruments need a lot of work, whereas some are in pretty good shape already?

[Stephen Perry]

1. Usually a 2 day turnaround.
2. MK, MM require a great deal of time with perhaps less satisfactory (to me) results, although the owners appear delighted. Webers do very well and are easy. Gibsons are probably easy if nobody has messed with them, which has proven unusual. One in the nicest shape was from 1915. One from the late 90s had all kinds of wear, weird bridge, etc. So it depends.

The instruments that sound the best to begin with seem to benefit the most to my ears. Sometimes I hate to ship them out!

[skippy]

Would this process be a good process for an instrument that has LOTS of volume but needs a more sweet tone?

[chuck.naill]

From a book review of Deena Spears' "Ears of the Angels."

Her delighted clients are now happy to have her enhance the sound of their instruments over the phone. And, Deena often has to tune the musician before working on the instrument. Now, she works with the chakras and multidimensional energy fields of violins — or humans — rather than depending on relatively crude adjustments to the physical bodies.

Steve Wrote:

The best available exposition in print is the second half of Deena Spears' "Ears of the Angels." Fascinating. The first half is more challenging to get through! This provided the original basis for more advanced work in my shop and directly led to the work I'm doing on mandolins.

Now that sounds like.....real voodoo, Steve

Chuck

[Big Joe]

These techniques are not unusual for many stringed instruments. We often do these same procedures on instruments to help them achieve thier optimal performance. It is not always needed, but where it is, it can be done with great success. The key is go slowly and take your time. Inspect the progress at each step of the way. I would never promise a two day turn around when tuning the braces, but then it depends upon how much needs to be refined. On some mandolins it can be a subtle refinement, on others it can be a night and day difference. Working on an instrument for optimal performance utilizes a balance between bracing, F hole size, finish, etc. Some mandolins require little to make them great, others can achieve dramatic results but that does not guarantee greatness.

The answer to the question of whether these techniques CAN help a mandolin is YES.

[carleshicks]

Big Joe, Would this viod the warrantey on my '03 fern If I sent it to steve.

[Stephen Perry]

I suspect I'm doing somewhat different things than Big Joe. I don't "shave" anything generally. Although my archback flattop guitar has silly bracing - I can hear the big dead spots, so it is time for the violin planes!

I simply apply a standardized system to the mandolin. I could repeat forever, I suppose, but after a certain amount of time the incremental gain becomes very low, probably within the range that string changes and weather will eventually clip out.

I don't recut F holes, recut braces, or reduce bridge mass. Just a rather generic approach similar (although the details are extremely different) to that I apply to bowed strings. Perhaps of interest, the pattern I've ended up adopting differs markedly for F style mandolins and A style mandolins. Oval and F holes are quite different. And mandolins by different makers usually require substantial variation. If I have a mandolin by a maker I've not worked on before I'll play it for a while and try various things (see clay lumps above) to determine what is going to work well. That's always fun. At this point I've worked on Gibson, Weber, MK, MM, Eastman of the larger makes in sufficient numbers to be pretty fast.

My current MV business plan calls for me to drop everything and flip a mandolin coming in around immediately. I really don't like having other people's stuff here. That gives me time to play it. Set it down and mull it over, then go through it, then test it again a few hours later to make sure things are stable. So far they'll all been stable, but I like to check anyway. The violins aren't as stable at first, but new violins really change shape a great deal and are very light.

Interesting stuff. Drop by and I'll demo it. No big "secret" just my own take on rapid enhancement.

Incidently, the same techniques easily serve to take a good sounding instrument and make it sound notably less good. I've considered giving demos that way. Take one from poor to good to poor to good. Doesn't take much.

I wonder whether the mixed reviews on some maker's work are in part a function of the varying "optimization" (for want of a better term). One maker's work often gets dinged for being too stiff/dead or something, while others love it. I've done several and they wake up wonderfully. So the work is very very nice. But sometimes the functioning at a given time isn't so hot. This seems in part to be a function of shop setup or post-purchase monkeying around. More variables.

For problem instruments of all types (and used to be for race cars - same approach) I'll sometimes do a complete reboot. Take everything off. Sometimes pull the tuners. Look over everything inside and out. Check all joints, all binding, all screw holes, everything. Refit the nut for good contact, remove anything interfering with tuner seating, check the bridge fit etc. Works well for bizarre distant buzzes and other odd things. In race car engines we'd sometimes get back our HP without ever finding anything wrong. Would usually hear some new and interesting swear words about tearing down a perfectly good engine! On the other hand, I'll sometimes find a clear hidden problem in instrument, as I used to in engines. At least we don't glue mandolins together with silicone rubber!

[ShaneJ]

Steve, that's very interesting. If you could (and were willing), I'd love to see a pictorial on the whole process. It would help us understand better what you've explained.

(Now, that was a bold request!)

Actually, I think a DVD instructional video would probably sell. I'd buy one. You could show the process on mandolins (oval & f-hole), guitar, & violin. That would be interesting.

[Big Joe]

The "tricks" to optimizing a mandolin...or arch top guitar..or any other instrument are really not secrets, but established fiddle makers "tricks" that have been used for centuries. While each instrument and style of instrument has its own peculiarities, and have to be treated as such, there are certain things you do to get an instrument to reach its potential. It is repeatable but not all systems are the same for all instruments. It is knowing exactly what to do and when to do it that makes the luthier so important. It's nothing more than experience and knowledge applied to the instruments. Sometimes, luthiers, like doctors or lawyers, are practicing and sometimes they get it right .

Whether Steve's work would void the warranty would depend upon what is done. I really cannot answer that question specifically. If one were to interpret the warranty very literally it could void it. However, the real answer is in what is done in the process. I know that is not a very good answer, but it is the only one I can give you.

[Stephen Perry]

The typical demo here is "Hear the difference between this and this?" -- "uggh. no." "OK, now hear that the difference is gone." "if you say so." "Does this mandolin sound better now?" "!!!! how did that happen?"

So I don't know that a video would be much good! I'll see if I can get my act together to put a photo story together. On mandolins I use three specialty scrapers I made (Brazilian rosewood handles, of course) and a knife. That's it. Scrapers for the ribs and bars. Knife for the bridge.

[red7flag]

Steve worked on my old mahogany Webber Bitterroot. He did a limited mandovoodoo and replaced the Brekke Bridge with a CA. I will say that a week later the Weber was singing clear and pretty with increased volume and greater clarity. I would recommend Steve any time.
Tony

[Stephen Perry]

Thank you all very much for the support in this endeavor. I keep receiving more and more mandolin work. A bit odd for a violin guy. I suppose we're used to doing very picky and technical work on small things, so a mandolin looks big.

I explained my rapid turnaround policy above. This is going to have to change because of a serious illness in the extended family that will take Gianna out of much of her support role for an indeterminate amount of time. I will attempt to turn things around as quickly as possible, but I'm going to be rather short on time.

Anyone looking for a low paying job in the desolate and cheap to live in rural TN countryside - I could really use some help.

Thanks again

Steve Perry

[Bill Snyder]

Anyone looking for a low paying job in the desolate and cheap to live in rural TN countryside - I could really use some help.

Thanks again

Steve Perry

You better be careful what you ask for. You are likely to get a few takers.

[Steevarino]

I'll say this about Steve and his MandoVooDoo, it worked for me! #I have an '02 Gibson Master Model, and his voodoo really made the mandolin sound better, and I'm sure I didn't even get the whole treatment. #This is because he did it at my booth at SPBGMA. #Probably not the best environment to perform such and exorcism. #Steve was gracious enough to let me watch the whole process. #BTW, from what I saw, I wouldn't think this would have any effect on warranty issues, but of course, that decision would be for others to make. #

It has now been a couple of months since Steve VooDoo'd my MM, and it STILL sounds better. #Of course, I always liked the way this mandolin sounded. #Actually, I was surprised that he was able to make it sound better, to my ears, anyway.

As an aside, I set up mandolins too, but what that Steve and this Steve do are worlds apart. #My technique is far more "mechanical"; new bridge, truss rod adjustment, fine tune action, compensation, all that. #Steve did none of this, on my instrument anyway. #It almost seemed to not matter.

While watching him do his thing, it is clear that his background in violins has a lot to do with his technique. #Having said that, don't even ask me WHAT he does.... # I'll leave that to the VooDoo GooRoo....

Steve
http://www.cumberlandacoustic.com

[Stephen Perry]

That was fun. I'm not used to doing this type of work when I can't really hear. But found I could use my fingertips to feel the same stuff.