Intonation experiment

[vkioulaphides]

I have a funny ear, I guess— oh, make that TWO!

For as much as I love my Ceccherini, I have not been able to get used to how high the first and second frets are tempered: Painfully so; a simple V-I cadence from the second fret to the next open string, a jarring, microtonal interval. *teeth grinding in pain*

Baffling as this might have been, it was clearly Umberto C.'s intention. What to do? The Dogals the instrument was strung with were so stiff that they started off the (brass) nut at an arch; could that be it? Also, because of the same stiffness, it was next to impossible to bring the bridge any further down, cramped as it was by the characteristic "anchors".

So, then: Yesterday I switched to Marí lights (031, 021,012, 009). Now the strings come off the nut perfectly level; now I could move the bridge further down, i.e. closer to the anchors. The action, of course, feels like butter on a hot, summer day.

BTW, I did break an E at the loop upon stringing; had flashbacks of horror stories, as told by Jeff Shuniak. Still, at $3 per set of strings, I was not about to pick up the phone and holler at the Better Business Bureau.

My report on the results (mixed, at best): The first two frets are still sharp, but tolerably so; the instrument reaches p-e-r-f-e-c-t intonation around the 5th to 7th fret —Halleluja!— The octaves (i.e. at the 12th fret) are by natural consequence flat, but not horrifically so, piano-like.

The "topic" of this experiment was, of course, intonation. The tone-quality of "silver"-wound strings is not ideal. Perhaps next time around I will use Lenzner lights, thereby combining the new and intonationally improved setup with my favorite tone of bronze.

As said, a funny ear...

[Jim Garber]

Victor:
Were you using the Dogal Calace lights or mediums? The lights are RW92b.

I use the mediums (RW92) on my Pandini(rec'd by Sr. P) but the lights on all vintage bowlbacks.

Jim

[vkioulaphides]

They were lights, Jim. Dunno... The instrument, with a 34 cm. scale, does seem to require something special, I don't know what...

I am reluctant to perform any drastic surgery, as the instrument has clearly been restored to a remarkable, immaculate state. I have therefore no intention of filing the brass nut, or having Tom C. move it further up the neck; not yet, at least.

I gladly take the blame for my, ehm... eccentric ear. Intonation on a fretted instrument is obviously a matter of compromise. Still, each and EVERY time I have gotten an instrument back from Tom —whose work I respect immensely, by the way— I have been dissatisfied with his "compromise of choice" and have had to move the bridge to where I want it to be for the intonation to sound right to my own ear.

The common practice of setting the 12th fret at a truly perfect octave makes sense, I suppose. But, if so, ALL of my instruments (long-necked, bouzouki-family ones in particular) are tempered unbearably high at the 5th and 7th frets. I suspect this to be a general situation.

If, then, (as old-timers did) one tempers the instrument so that the crucial 5th and 7th frets are truly set to perfect consonances, then the octave at the 12th is flat, quite perceptibly flat.

Clearly, I have not reached MY own "compromise of choice"...

[Martin Jonas]

I checked through my Ceccherini last night. #I set the bridge position when I first adjusted the action and strung it up. As it happened to match exactly the visible bridge footprint in the top, I assume that it's pretty close to the original position (unlike some Ceccherinis, mine never had any pearl bridge position markers).

The action at the nut is a touch higher than I would set it by choice, but by no means uncomfortably for me. #I have set the bridge so that the G and E courses intonate fine at the 12th fret. #D and A are perceptibly flat at the 12th fret as a result. #I don't have a finely attuned ear (unlike Victor's professional musician's ears), so I opted for my trusty Seiko tuner. #On the G and E courses, every single fret, including the first two and up the neck to the 17th, is either exactly in tune or just off to the sharp side by one subdivision of the tuner. #On D and A, it's sharp all the way, to varying extent (but neither systematically increasing nor decreasing, just fluctuating). #Is that the optimum setup? #I don't know. #Maybe I've sold the middle courses short in my attempt to get the outer courses intonated. #Moving the bridge back a fraction might give me a better compromise. #I have a little bit of slope on the bridge, but probably not enough for a proper compensation by bridge height. #On the other hand, the current setup sounds right to my ears, so maybe I should leave well enough alone.

Of course I don't know whether I'm just not very discerning, or whether your nut, Victor, is really different in position and/or height from mine. #Time for that parallel mando tasting...

I should also say that this is with Lenzner Consorts. #The wound A string may have an effect on the intonation of that string. #As the winding is coming undone on one of the strings at the second fret, I'm going to change to an unwound A fairly soon anyway, so I'll see if that changes matters.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Hmmm.... this is certainly beyond my area of expertise. Still: if you are satisfied with the intonation on your other mandolins there is not real reason why that should not be achievable on your fine Ceccherini. Perhaps you could communicate to one of the excellent luthiers we know in NY your concerns with intonation. In addition to Tom C., Bob Jones is a master of fret work.

Jim

[vkioulaphides]

Part of this, of course, is the minuscule size of the mandolin, where every geometrical microinterval has a strikingly perceptible acoustical repercussion.

With time —and certainly over a century— wood shrinks. Would those instruments have been more accurate when they were new? I wouldn't know.

Still, my de Meglio (roughly of the same age as the Ceccherini) intonates very, very smoothly, very sweetly. Its only issue is that, with the slight warp of the neck, the "middle positions" are a bit high action-wise.

THAT dilemma (and, heaven knows, I face many) is that I have already spent well over "market value" on restoring it to its current, 99% structrural integrity; having a whole new fingerboard built, fretted, etc. would cost as much as acquiring a whole NEW de Meglio, if lucky.

The modern Calace is the sweetest, smoothest, most even-tempered instrument I have EVER played! (much unlike its apparently neurotic owner)

But the Ceccherini is an oddity: I can live with some degree of inaccuracy; life would be patently impossible if we couldn't. What is shocking is just HOW sharp the second fret is! Yes, major triads, e.g. open G, open D, B on the A-string sound gloriously sunny, luminescent—#a very high third, of course. But simple, dominant-to-tonic resolutions from e.g. A on the G-string to the open D are so jarring to the ear!

I think (and hope) that Lenzners —clearly superior quality strings than Marí's—#may solve the problem automatically. Let us see.

[jeffshuniak]

I dont have absolutely perfect intonation..where its off depends on how I tinker with it.. drives me insane.. makes me play bouzouki too much. but the Mari strings, I tune them up.. REAL SLOOOOOWWWWWWW. rediculously slow.. painfully slow...

I am so smart I left my bouzouki in my car and oops bowed in the neck.. well I dont have to worry about the back bow anymore... but now I have in unstrung and leaning (face in) to a corner in my room... I hope it doesnt take too long to correct, and I hope that works at all...

[vkioulaphides]

Ah... it seems you did a bit of accidental "thermal treatment" on that neck, Jeff. I know of luthiers (Dino amongst them) who do that as a matter of course, in order to correct bent/bowed necks. I still wonder how long the (positive, corrective) effects last, and what the countereffects would be.

[rosincloud]

Dear vkioulaphides
. . . If you can get a vernier caliper or even a decent steel rule with 1/64" units and then check out "Stephen Delft's compensated nut"
http://mimf.com/nutcomp/ (there are many other sites covering the same vexed topic) - and run a check on your fret positions and distances between frets using the accepted formulas. This will give you a good idea whether you have problems with the construction/layout of your current fretboard.

#Beyond that, if it turns out that you need to compensate your nut, you should not need to necessarily move this fixture - just build it up with bone (or horn? or plastic?) shims (well cemented). There are web-sites that will take you through this process.

# Provided your maths pans out O.K., your intonation problem is curable.

#Good luck. T.P.