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Andrew B. Carlson
Mar-06-2008, 2:45pm
I talked to a guitar player a few years ago about vintage guitars and mandos having better sound and he told me about some music shop down in Nashville (I think that's where it was) that have strumming rooms for breaking in new stringed instruments. We can probably all agree that, in general, instruments that have been played a lot have a different (better in my opinion)sound to them. This guy told me that the wood's molecular make-up changed from the vibrations. So this music store has a room set up with strumming machines to put thousands of hours of strumming on your stringed instrument for you so it sounds better. Anyone else ever heard of this or know any stores that do it? I'm facinated by the idea.

johnnymando
Mar-06-2008, 4:02pm
I once put a brand new Flatiron A Artist in a small closet with my stereo speakers cranked up to try the same concept.
Didn't notice any change in the mando after half a day, so I gave up. Although my ear is more developed than at that time, I'm not too sure if its fact or fiction.
I have seen mandolins that tend to "wake up" after being played for a while, so I think theres something to it.

auteq
Mar-06-2008, 4:02pm
I have heard of people putting string instruments in front of loud speakers, and exposing the instrument to different frequencies to get simular results, though I heard of this more for volume than tone.

mandolooter
Mar-06-2008, 4:18pm
While I don't discount that theory at all I've heard some mighty fine new instruments...less than a year old and hardly played in at all. I think each one should be evaluated based on its individual merits and "going old" or "pre-strummed" as it may be doesn't guarantee ya anything right outta the case.

Andrew B. Carlson
Mar-06-2008, 4:21pm
Does Gibson give any reason, beside asthetics, for the distressed models soundwise? Or any other company that offers "shopworn" mandos? I'd like to think that pre-wearing itself can't cost an extra $10k.

SternART
Mar-06-2008, 4:24pm
Roger Siminoff's dedamping process worked wonders for my Gil.
It is the black mando in the photos.

http://www.siminoff.net/pages/siminoff_parts13_dedamping.html

Siminole
Mar-06-2008, 4:27pm
If I am not mistaken, there is a Mandolin Cafe Member that has crafted a strummer for mandolins. Does the "Georgia Strummer" ring a bell with anyone. I remember that he posted a few pictures of the one he designed and made.

Al

JeffD
Mar-06-2008, 7:40pm
How about I volunteer to be a mandolin strummer for y'all. For a small fee plus postage you send me your mandolins, and I play the peanuts out of them for a week or two, and send them back. Seems like a reasonable thing. And hey, I am willing to provide that service for the mandolin community.

That's just the kind of guy I am. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

birdman98
Mar-06-2008, 7:53pm
Jeff...you are a true martyr.

Bravo!!!

Crowder
Mar-06-2008, 8:22pm
Roger Siminoff's dedamping process worked wonders for my Gil.
It is the black mando in the photos.

http://www.siminoff.net/pages/siminoff_parts13_dedamping.html
Can you be a little more descriptive of how your instrument changed?

Elliot Luber
Mar-06-2008, 9:28pm
You want to break-in a new instrument? Get used to it. Practice! Practice! Practice!

mandolooter
Mar-06-2008, 9:31pm
Santiago sez...well what he said...

MikeEdgerton
Mar-06-2008, 10:45pm
I'm going out on a limb here. If it doesn't sound good from the get go you can put it in front of your stereo speakers for the next 20 years and it still isn't going to sound good. The answer is to buy one that sounds good. Then, if and when it opens up it just sounds better. If it never opens up it still sounds good. The other thing is that you can 't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but I will admit, I'm always impressed by a sow's ear with Waverly tuners and a James tailpiece on it.

Andrew B. Carlson
Mar-07-2008, 4:22pm
I found this little gadget on the web.

Dedamper (http://www.violin-reverb.de/violin/dedamping.htm)

It "rehearses" your violin for you. I'm assuming it would do the same for a mandolin. If we hadn't been talking about it on here, I'd say they're full of it. Idk, if I wanna make the investment though.

Joe M
Mar-07-2008, 4:29pm
You said it Mike!

Rick Schmidlin
Mar-07-2008, 5:13pm
About four years back on the Martin Guitar group wrote that he hooked a suckion vibrator to his guitar. Every day for a week he ran the vibrators all day, others tried it and it worked.I didn't but knew one guitar player who was un happy with his sound and bought the set-up a a Hollywood Kmart and said it did work a little.

jk245
Mar-07-2008, 6:18pm
About four years back on the Martin Guitar group wrote that he hooked a suckion vibrator to his guitar. Every day for a week he ran the vibrators all day, others tried it and it worked.I didn't but knew one guitar player who was un happy with his sound and bought the set-up a a Hollywood Kmart and said it did work a little.
on a cheap mando the glue might come loose and you will have lots of wood on the floor

Red Henry
Mar-09-2008, 7:41am
I have seen age and playing turn a new mandolin I couldn't get much out of into a very responsive instrument that I liked a LOT.

A conspicuous example is owned by a good friend of mine-- it's a very high-quality instrument with an extremely close-grained top. Whether the top was the cause or not, the mandolin's sound was really tight to begin with. But now (20 years later) that thing really sounds out.

Red

Celtic Saguaro
Mar-09-2008, 10:13am
I think the myth is that extra volume will make it happen faster. I'd guess it's the vibrations over time that do the trick. #Setting the case front of a speaker at normal volume for a few hours every day for weeks may well help to develop that longer term break-in. But I doubt shaking the mando, vibrating it, blasting it at high volume and other things for overnight or even a few days straight will really help the mandolin more than fewer hours of actually playing it would do: Get over that extra initial tightness that some of them have straight from building.

Ken Sager
Mar-09-2008, 11:13am
I think the myth is that extra volume will make it happen faster. I'd guess it's the vibrations over time that do the trick. #Setting the case front of a speaker at normal volume for a few hours every day for weeks may well help to develop that longer term break-in. But I doubt shaking the mando, vibrating it, blasting it at high volume and other things for overnight or even a few days straight will really help the mandolin more than fewer hours of actually playing it would do: Get over that extra initial tightness that some of them have straight from building.
I agree with you that playing a new instrument is the best way to shake out the "initial tightness that some of them have straight from building", but sometimes that's not enough to open one up. Sometimes they don't open up after years. If a valuable instrument still seems tight after years of play then I don't see any reason not to try a non-destructive (not a wood removing) method.

I'm most curious to know whether the resonant frequencies of the top and back plates were different after the Siminoff process, and whether instrument temperature is a factor during this process. I'm assuming the chamber frequency wouldn't change over time, unless it's a function of the top/back plate frequencies not just the size of the chamber.

Measuring resonant frequencies is objective. I've seen it done, and I've seen the wave analyses. I've just not seen one instrument's measurements compared to itself over time to know whether it ever really changed, even though I've played the instrument and would admit I definitely thought it had "opened up" since measuring.

But now I look at all this and remember how little I know and that I should probably just read and not type....

Love to all,
Ken

macgiobuin
Mar-09-2008, 5:00pm
Seems to me, all the practicing, jamming and various vibration frequencies from the road due to all the traveling back and forth to those jams would work wonders...and the stereo blasting The Infamous Stringdusters couldn't hurt. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Mike Buesseler
Mar-09-2008, 5:13pm
But now I look at all this and remember how little I know and that I should probably just read and not type....


With this thought clearly in mind, I think I'll just dive here. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Has anyone tried 'exciting' the wood before assembling a mandolin? I know it is probably not the same as doing so afterwards, but just about everything else has been tried--baking, soaking, aging. It seems like vibrating the c##p out of pieces before they go together might produce some results.... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

Red Henry
Mar-09-2008, 6:40pm
Exciting the wood: it has been tried. Years ago, some friends of mine went to see an eccentric instrument builder named Harry Garmont, who lived in St. Augustine, Florida. When they got there, Garmont was out at the side of his (brick) house with some slabs of instrument wood, big enough for guitar and mandolin tops and backs. He was THROWING these pieces of wood at the side of his house, hitting the brick wall with them, over and over.

Garmont said he was getting all the stresses out of the wood, so that it would vibrate better when he made it into instruments. But I believe that this excitation technique is an extreme case...


Red

Mike Buesseler
Mar-09-2008, 7:16pm
But I believe that this excitation technique is an extreme case...


There's an understatement if I ever heard one! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

Hans
Mar-09-2008, 7:18pm
Oh brother! I can't afford to throw my tonewood at a brick wall... distressing before building? Hmmm, I think I have a bit more reverence for mine.

MikeEdgerton
Mar-09-2008, 7:22pm
Oh brother! I can't afford to throw my tonewood at a brick wall... distressing before building? Hmmm, I think I have a bit more reverence for mine.

You don't have to Hans, just sticker that wood and crank up a stereo in the same room with a little Black Sabboth and it will be ready to build in a day or so.

billkilpatrick
Mar-09-2008, 8:35pm
I talked to a guitar player a few years ago about vintage guitars and mandos having better sound and he told me about some music shop down in Nashville (I think that's where it was) that have strumming rooms for breaking in new stringed instruments. We can probably all agree that, in general, instruments that have been played a lot have a different (better in my opinion)sound to them. This guy told me that the wood's molecular make-up changed from the vibrations. So this music store has a room set up with strumming machines to put thousands of hours of strumming on your stringed instrument for you so it sounds better. Anyone else ever heard of this or know any stores that do it? I'm facinated by the idea.
i once read about a guy who flew to gig in a small, propeller airplane - the vibrations of which effected his guitar, causing it to "hum" audibly during the flight. said it sounded much better afterwards.

if vibrations induce a vintage sound, a diy method for doing this could be to turn on an electric shaver or something similar - anything with a small electric motor in it - and place it on the back of your mandolin.

... providing it doesn't heat up too much and damage the finish ... or cause your electricity bill to skyrocket.

Hans
Mar-10-2008, 6:23am
Actually Mike, I have a set of headphones where the cups rotate 90 degrees for storage. I store them in a mandolin case right over the ff holes and play classical music at V10...
Black who?

pigpen
Mar-10-2008, 7:27am
On a related topic, can not playing an instrument for a bit "tighten" it up? I am a relatively new player, and my first mandolin (which is a perfectly fine instrument) has been set aside for the past few weeks as I obssess over my new one. I picked it up again last night, and it seemed to have a much thinner, softer, and plunk-ier sound. I am not sure if it is the not playing of it, or just how my ears have changed by playing the definitely-opened up 1916 Gibson A (plus the contrast between the f and oval holes).

Anybody think that not playing an instrument for a few weeks changes its sound?

MikeEdgerton
Mar-10-2008, 7:34am
Actually Mike, I have a set of headphones where the cups rotate 90 degrees for storage. I store them in a mandolin case right over the ff holes and play classical music at V10...
Black who?
Hans, you need to get an amp that goes to 11.

arbarnhart
Mar-10-2008, 12:37pm
Hans,

Just ship 'em in a burlap sack. You'll save a bunch of money on supplies and UPS will distress them and condition the wood for you. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Red Henry
Mar-11-2008, 7:18am
On a related topic, can not playing an instrument for a bit "tighten" it up? #...
Anybody think that not playing an instrument for a few weeks changes its sound?
Oh, yes. If you have a really responsive instrument, even a few days can put it to sleep, or at least make it drowsy. The cure is to pick it every day!

There are some in our field who haven't experienced this (or, at least, haven't noticed it), but it has been known for a long time in other fields of string music. When the Butch Baldossari Trio was touring in Italy, they visited a museum of master violins in Cremona. A man there was the curator of violins-- it was his job to take each master violin out of its showcase and play it for a while every day, to keep it sounding its best.

After a few days' break, about 30 to 45 minutes is enough playing to make my mandolins sound the best they can that day. After a few days of that in a row, the mandolins sound about as good as they're ever going to (they're now 40 and 39 years old). It feels good to play a mandolin that's really responding and giving you a lot of good sound that way-- and it doesn't feel so good to play one that's gone to sleep, so play every day if you can!


Red