How do things affect tone and volume?

[Mike Floorstand]

I'm researching buying an OM instrument there is plenty of choice on the internet but not much scope for trying things out in shops. To narrow things down a bit can someone summarise the effect on tone and volume of (a) archtop vs flat-top (b) guitar-type fixed bridge vs floating (c) f-holes vs round holes (or oval and D-holes for that matter).

I'm really just after a summary of "received wisdom" on this, I realise there are always exceptions to the rule and a good luthier can produce instruments that break the rules.

Thanks

[Graham McDonald]

Different building styles will have an effect on tone, not so much on volume. Certainly there will be a difference in all those factors you mention. An arch-top will sound different from a flat-top, a floating bridge will sound different from a fixed pin bridge and f holes (on a carved soundboard) will have different sound from a round/oval/d hole.

If any of these alternatives are 'better' than others is another question. A lot of that will come down to how you hear the instrument in your head, what sort of music you want to play and how you want to play it.

Buying a bouzouki/OM is not really like buying a guitar or a mandolin where there are established benchmark instruments like Martin guitars and Gibson mandolins. If you go out to buy a dreadnought guitar you know the ultimate sound is that 1941 D28 someone famous plays. There isn't that same reference point for zouks (OK, that might open up a can of worms!)

Finding these instruments in shops, other than the odd Trinity College or clones, is often hard, it would be worth your while to at least find a couple to play. If there are Irish musicians about, there is likely a zouk amongst them.

Good luck with your search

graham

[first string]

I'd say there are a few generalizations, but they are just that...

Archtop VS flattop:
Archtops tend to be a little louder/punchier. Flattops tend to have more ring/sustain. Archtops are almost always dramatically more expensive, for the obvious reasons that they require a significantly larger hunk of tonewood, and that they take considerably more time to make.

F hole VS Round hole:
I think there is a similar dynamic with this comparison, though perhaps it is even more pronounced. As with mandolins, F hole instruments tend to project or cut a lot more, where as round hole instruments have a rounder and fuller sound. Once again, punch vs sustain.

Pin Bridge VS Floating:
I can't tell you much about this, as I've never played a CBOM with a pin bridge, though I would like too. Some people have claimed that a pin bridge imparts a more guitar like tone, which may not be desirable if you are looking for a distinctively mandolin family sound. On the other hand, a floating bridge on a flattop doesn't make much structural sense to me (but then what do I know...I'm not a luthier or an engineer, and there are a lot of flattops with floating bridges out there that seem to be holding up). Anyway, you're not likely to find any archtops with pin bridges, though it would be an interesting combo to try. The early Orivile Gibson archtop guitars have this combo if I'm not mistaken, but I don't think anyone has tried it since (which is a pity). Flattops can go either way.

Finally I would say that you are overlooking the biggest variable when it comes to CBOM family instruments, which is scale length. The typical range is from 20 to 26 inches. Here you have a very real conflict between playability and tone. I still haven't found an instrument that suites me, for this very reason. I can't play melody well on anything with a scale longer than 23 inches, but the sound that I love...the sound that I hear in my head, is that of the 26" Irish Bouzouki...

So many variables, it's easy to get confused/lost. And unfortunately, as Graham points out, it's not like you can waltz into your local music store and try a half dozen of these things. You'll be lucky if they have even a cheap import. A really good store might have a Webber... I say, just keep reading the cafe, and waiting for a bit of clarity. That's what I'm doing. In the mean time I keep playing my mandolin and tenor guitar, and when I finally come up with a design that I think will do it for me, I will try to find one of our excellent cafe luthiers to collaborate with. And for the record, Mr McDonald there would be an excellent choice if you are in the market for a custom luthier made instrument. Here is a youtube clip of someone playing one of his guitar bodied bouzouki/citterns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQOh2tRSWX4

[steve V. johnson]

Mike asked us to "...summarise the effect on tone and volume of (a) archtop vs flat-top (b) guitar-type fixed bridge vs floating (c) f-holes vs round holes (or oval and D-holes for that matter)."

Here's a combination of my experience, observation and rumor... In general, I measure the way I hear OMs/zouks along a scale with "mandolin" sounds at one end and "guitar" at the other, not having to do with pitch, of course, but the nature of the tone, the sustain and complexity.


a) Mostly you'll find instruments with "induced arches", that is the top is steamed or heated and shaped, but not -completely- carved to an arch. Very few builders do fully carved arch tops these days. Sobell, Steven O. Smith, Lawrence Nyberg come to mind as carving their tops, and I'm sure there are others I'm leaving out. But you may note that these builders' instruments are exquisite, expensive and somewhat rare, a breed apart, perhaps.

The sound... other than the carved tops, the arch and flat-tops, for me, are affected by a lot of other interactions, the bracing, body size and so on, so -I- can't quantify a difference. My Phil Crump zouk has an induced arch, tho.

b) I've had some pin-bridge, or fixed bridge, instruments, and I found that the sound had more of the body cavity of the instrument, and more of the fundamental overtones than instruments with a mandolin-type bridge and tailpiece. The pin-bridge instruments sounded (of course, to me) a bit more guitar-ish and the floating bridge ones a bit more mandolinish. The mandolin sound has a bit more attack and the fundamental of the note, while the overtones were less pronounced and further from the fundamental tone.

I expect, without experience, that some builders have refined the sound of the pin-bridge instruments of today. The ones I experienced were older, and I haven't heard any recently. I loved the sound when I had them, but when I went chasing the Next Sound, I found that it was the mandolin-type bridge sound I wanted.

c) I don't run across many OMs with f-holes, round or ovals seem to be much more common. I think the Weber Absaroka has f-holes. I think that, as with mandolins, an F-hole instrument may sound a bit "punchier" than a round or oval hole instrument.

In my experiements and inquiries, I've come to feel that really strong defining factors in the sound are the size of the body 'box', the depth and interior volume and how the top is made and braced. A smaller body goes to the mandolin side of my scale (examples would be the Weber Absaroka and the Corrado Giacomel) and larger bodies seem to have more bass and move toward the guitar-ish end of the spectrum. My Crump and the Fylde Touchstone OM are examples of instruments that have big ol' bottoms and a big interior volume.

It's really characteristic of the OM/zouk world that we can't play a lot of 'em in the usual ways, that is, going to shops and comparing them as we play 'em. I think that there's still no one fixed place, this city or that shop, that's a 'capitol' of OM/zouking where one can go and count on having access to a bunch of different ones. There are, however, events that can lead to some pretty broad and rich experience of instruments and players...

There's Roger Landes' wonderful Zoukfest in New Mexico in the summer, and I think that one can be guaranteed to see and hear the widest array of these instruments in the Americas. The Irish festivals, the summer ones in Milwaukee; Dublin, Ohio; Cincinnati, and so on, will generally have a few OM/zouk players around, either featured onstage or in the sessions that happen around the fests. Next along the chain are, as Graham suggested, Irish sessions around where you are. We folks who play in sessions are usually pretty networked and know who plays what within a good radius.

For sessions near you, go to www.thesession.org and you'll find a section of session listings all over the world, and you can search for such gatherings in your area.

I hope this helps...

stv

[man dough nollij]

It's fun to watch sound samples of the different kinds here at Folk of the Wood.

I strongly prefer the sound of oval holes (like my Weber Bridger OM) to the FF type. The cool, resonant sound of an OM gets muted by f-holes, in my observation.

[foldedpath]

I don't have the range of experience that others have here, but I have had the chance to hear a few different flattop OM's in person, and I just bought a carved archtop F-hole OM. Based on that limited sampling, my take on the family flavors is something like this:

The flattop OM's I've heard are a little closer to the guitar-sounding end of the spectrum... somewhat reminiscent of the sound of a small-bodied 12-string guitar to my ears. If you're familiar with terms used when applying EQ to recorded or live sound, it's sort of a "scooped" EQ curve. Nice bass, nice sweet highs, and a bit thin in the midrange compared to carved archtops.

The full carved archtops I've heard on recordings, and the one I recently bought (used Weber Yellowstone F-hole octave) have a punchy, midrange-heavy sound. It isn't lacking in lows or highs, it's just that the midrange is more prominent. It's the Les Paul of the OM world, with flattops being more in the Telecaster range, if we want to get into silly guitar comparisons.

I haven't heard one in person, but I imagine an oval hole, carved archtop OM dials back the midrange punch just a bit, in favor of a more balanced sound, while still sounding more on the archtop mandolin side of the spectrum.

I don't know if the tone of my F-hole Yellowstone is considered a "Celtic" sound, but I am starting to play it occasionally in local ITM sessions and house jams, and I think it works pretty well. It's loud enough that I can kick off a tune by playing the melody when my turn comes around, and people across the circle can still hear me, which isn't always the case with some quieter OM's I've heard. I wanted it for other things too like OldTime, or interesting flavors on backing tracks for folk and "world music." It's a versatile sound. But some folks may prefer the more traditional tone of a flattop or induced arch flattop for ITM and related Celtic music. I'm not that tradition-bound, I guess.... I play an archtop F-hole mandolin in sessions too, and so far they haven't kicked me out.

It's fun to watch sound samples of the different kinds here at Folk of the Wood.

I'm not normally a fan of that type of video comparison because they're usually not very well controlled for variables. But I think those recordings are pretty good for showing the tonal differences we're talking about. I can hear the more scooped (or neutral?) sound of the flattops, and the punchiness and midrange emphasis of the Weber archtop models. The sound of that Yellowstone with the F-holes is pretty close to what I hear when I play mine (allowing for all the limitations of a low bitrate video).

[steve V. johnson]

Foldedpath wrote, "The full carved archtops I've heard on recordings, and the one I recently bought (used Weber Yellowstone F-hole octave) have a punchy, midrange-heavy sound. It isn't lacking in lows or highs, it's just that the midrange is more prominent."

That's true, and Webers are distinctly American, and sort of have that Gibson Florentine DNA in there, so I'd attibute that midrange-forward sound to that.

The other fully-carved-top OMs I've known, by Smith, Nyberg, Brian Dean and Sobell don't come from that lineage, but a much more European root, and of course Sobell and Peter Abnett are some of the earliest creators of that sound. I'd say that the Sobells have a 'smiley curve' to them, with the midrange understated. And other builders' works, which don't have fully carved, but arched tops, have often sought to emulate that Euro sound. Sometimes these models can be pretty light on bass.

Having written all that, my Crump has, I think, more of the bold low-midrange than the European-paradigm (that's a terrible term, but in this context it works...) models, but it can be played in ways to get around that mid-prominence and sound quite ... 'smiley-curved'. I didn't know that it could sound like that until I heard a session recording one time... I was really tired and so I was playing very lightly and the boom was gone but the nice high 'chime-y' sound was right there.
But mostly I whup on it and the midrange is right out there.

Videos... Yeah, there's no baseline for comparison and the audio quality is often horrible. But I do enjoy the YouTube archives, and to some extent they're instructive. As with any set with random standards, it's best to take in a zillion of 'em... lol!!

There was one I saw recently of Paul Brady singing the song about 'never marry a girl who'll wear your britches' (or something like that...) from ... what?... 1974 or so, and he was playing a very decorated eight-string Eastern bouzouki. The television engineer (BBC? RTE?) was concerned about getting the voice out front, and so sort of sank the bouzouki underneath so that even when PB wasn't singing it was pretty soft. But there was still some definite timbral information there, and what he was doing with his left hand was truly remarkable and challenging (for me) to grasp.

I did it the hard way, buying cheap ones, having serial zouk monogamy to build critera and experience until I had enough information, money and prejudices, er... preferences, to choose Phil Crump and ask him to build me the one I have now.

Oh... and when I started thinking about these things I thought that scale length was a big determinant of the sound, but now I think that builders have a real good grasp of what it takes to make different lengths work just fine (from 20" or just over to as much as 27") sonically and timbrally.

Since my Crump is big, 25.4" scale, I've thought about having a short one, too, out of curiosity.
And the four or six builders I've spoken with felt that they could achieve their sound goals, and mine, too, at about any length in that ~20" - 27" range.

stv

[Mike Floorstand]

Thanks for all the responses they are really helpful. I can relate to the idea of a guitar family to mandolin family spectrum of sounds/tones, and as I already play guitar I guess I am looking for something quite different which would suggest something with an archtop/floating bridge is what I need; I'm not looking for a travel 12-string guitar! It seems odd there aren't more archtop OM's with f-holes?

I did play a few OM instruments in London's Hobgoblin shop, including an Ashbury, Hathway and Fylde. The Ashbury was the cheapest but struck me as a reasonably made and certainly playable instrument. The Hathway seemed a very good value handmade instrument but for some reason I didn't warm to it in the shop. The Fylde felt to me to be the most refined of the three instruments, but with a price to match. Although again seemed to be good value compared to other archtop prices on other builders' websites (is this because the Fylde arch is induced rather than carved?).

Anyway I need to go back to the shop armed with these ideas and listen out for features liked scooped and smiley curves!

Thanks again

[first string]

I already play guitar I guess I am looking for something quite different which would suggest something with an archtop/floating bridge is what I need; I'm not looking for a travel 12-string guitar! It seems odd there aren't more archtop OM's with f-holes?
Thanks again

Check out Andrew Mowry and Bill Bussman (Oldwave Mandolins)...They both build guitar bodied, archtop, f hole octave mandos. Despite the guitar shape, that may get you the sound you are looking for if you really want something that is tone wise, basically a scaled up version of an F5.

For my part I prefer a round hole for CBOMs. Archtop or flattop, an octave mando will sound distinct from a guitar no matter what (just as a function of the difference in tuning). Of course a few instruments do start to blur the line a bit (you can find some great clips of Any Irvine playing his guitar bodied, flattop, pin bridge Sobell bouzouki, which has a fairly guitar like sound) but a standard Foley, Crump, what have you will have a voice that is distinct from that of any twelve string. But with a round hole, you will get the sustain and overtones that to me define this family of instruments. I just don't think you are likely to get that jangly sound, and ringing drones with an f holed instrument.

[Graham McDonald]

Thanks for the link to the u-tube video. People ask me sometimes about sound or video clips and it is useful to be able to point someone in that direction.

cheers

graham

[steve V. johnson]

Mike wrote, from London, "... as I already play guitar I guess I am looking for something quite different which would suggest something with an archtop/floating bridge is what I need ..."

Yeah, that's how I felt, and still feel. I wanted something different, further out on the mandolin side of my imagined scale.

And he went on, "It seems odd there aren't more archtop OM's with f-holes?"

While I can't really count 'em off, I had the idea that they weren't that rare, until this conversation and now I can't think of many. I have the idea that luthiers might build one as a custom order, tho. And... in this crazy world of OMs/zouks, custom ordering is sort of nirvana. That's where you get to put all the stuff you like together and leave out the other stuff.

Mike went on about his shop observations, "The Fylde felt to me to be the most refined of the three instruments, but with a price to match. Although again seemed to be good value compared to other archtop prices on other builders' websites (is this because the Fylde arch is induced rather than carved?)."

I haven't ever met the other ones, and I am a fan of Fyldes and I've had several. To my mind, carved-top instruments are sort of ... uh ... the Ferraris of our world. Rare, anyway. So I don't think that the manner of the top arch is directly related to the cost/value of the one you saw.

Fylde has been in business a long time and has very consistently made good quality instruments.
They have a good distribution network and their marketing department seems to know very well how to manage to keep a good number of instruments out in the market without putting too much pressure on the production system, and they seem to be able to keep a really good balance between their distributed instruments and custom ordered ones. I think that the value of the instruments reflects both good luthierie and good business more than any one or any several aspects of the way their built.

I've seen some very nice Fyldes on eBay UK as well as here in the States. Not often, like one a week, but it's worth watching the classifieds and auctions to snag a nice used one. In fact, I've only met two brand new ones, all the ones I had were used.

stv