Rosewood

[Larryo]

The other day I got to play an oval hole. cedar top and rosewood back and sides. Lovely machine. Beautiful on slowish stuff but when I stepped it up into jigs and reels, I noticed that the sound got a bit cloudy on the D and G. There seemed to be no distinction between the notes on these strings.Is this a feature of Rosewood? Would Maple give a better separation in the notes. As I say, a beautiful mandolin for slow pieces and maybe backing songs but for the faster stuff, I am not sure and am wondering is this a feature of that combo? Thanks

[TomTyrrell]

I don't think it is a feature of the rosewood. I had a spruce top, rosewood back and sides mando that wasn't cloudy on any note from the bottom to the top. Every note was clear and sharp.

[Eddie Sheehy]

My rosewood mandos are bowlbacks, but I've not noticed any cloudiness in the notes.

[Michael Lewis]

If used properly, rosewood will impart more clarity and note to note separation. It tends to be rather reflective too, so it usually has some brightness to go with the clarity. To obtain the best results it needs to be flexible enough to allow more production of the lower frequencies but not so flexible as to allow it to become muddy, cloudy, mushy.

[Dave Hanson]

My Paul Shippey has a spruce top and rosewood back and sides, sounds amazing, every note clear and loud.
If your mandolin sounds ' cloudy ' it's the mandolin, not the wood.

Dave H

[weleetkaoutlaws]

I'm going to have Howard Morris build me an A-4 using a Cedar top....and Brazilian Rosewood back and rims. I have a source for the Brazilian...and it's relatively reasonable and has paperwork. I am looking for warmth, separation, and projection. I believe the oval soundhole coupled with the choice of woods will get me there. I am *NOT* playing bluegrass.

[DeamhanFola]

I've got a custom Weber Bridger A with East Indian rosewood back & sides and Sitka spruce top. Great separation of notes & the folks at the music store that I ordered it from were shocked at how loud it is. My search for the perfect mando for my style and ear is essentially over (though a teens-20s Gibson A3 might be a good second mando).

I play Irish trad almost exclusively & wanted a bit more bass and sustain than I heard with maple. The snappy sitka balances out the warmth of the EI rosewood. The Bridger is a carved top/ back, but Joe Foley's EIR mandos with flat tops/ back seem to have equally good separation of notes too.

Some (by no means all) cedar tops, while warm and responsive with a light touch, can get mushy with EIR back & sides and a heavy pick hand. I like the sound of cedar tops with maple back & sides on mandos and with mahogany back & sides on guitars--clarity & warmth balance one another out well with these combinations.

[Jim MacDaniel]

My Arches flat-top is cedar over cocobolo, a Rosewood variant, and I am playing JM-11's on it, and get nice clarity of notes accross the courses. Mr. Baird's description of cocobolo on his web site reads "A true rosewood from Central America. #Very dense and stiff this wood has an immense presence and complex dark tone. #It projects very well and is rather aggressive in quality. #The tones intermingle with one another and sustain very well." Although not "cloudy" per se, I do hear a little of the intermingling he describes on long notes, but to my ears the tones read clear off the pick. Maybe the cedar top and/or the strings on the one you play contribute to the cloudiness you heard?

[Larryo]

Thanks everybody for your thoughts. As far as I know they were Martin strings which were new but I only had it for a while before returning it. I suppose thinking about it, maybe the word cloudy might have been the wrong one. Maybe what I heard was the sound whilst loud, had very little cut, more a mandola sound. I have also found out that Joe Foley makes two sizes in mandolin and this was the bigger. So maybe it was no particular timber that was the issue just more of a combination of things?? But thank you all.

[Larryo]

or maybe as Micheal Lewis said "brightness" was missing?

[Jim MacDaniel]

Where did you play a Foley -- was it in a store, or a friend's? Aside from the G & D string thing you reported, was your overall impression of it?

[Larryo]

jimmacd, it was a friend's. What was my overall impression? I suppose to be honest, it wasn't good but I must qualify that in the following way.Shortly after he started making( about thirty years ago) I bought one based on hearing one of his first one's which even now people around here talk about as being a great one. But mine never really "came in" and I sold it years later. However, although most people love 'em I have never heard one since that I liked.But maybe it is just something going on with me and his instruments because when I got a chance to buy this one,nice as it is in some ways, like maybe backing singers or slower pieces, it just didn't work for me in other ways, but that could be just me, because as I say he sells a lot of them and they can't all be wrong !.But it has to be said that this particular one is sweet,plenty of volume, good action, wider body than usual and looks lovely.So the search goes on for what will work for me???
Another thing is that we don't have great options in Ireland on mandolins as there is no huge bluegrass scene and a lot of tenor banjo players just have mandolins as second instruments for some small amount of pieces- so we don't get to have many choices unless we import and that sure is pricey.

[Larryo]

Should have said that I am just back playing after a long lay off of about twenty years with absolutely no mandolin playing in the meantime and so am now looking for a good mandolin with maybe different tastes than I had before?

[trevor]

I only just spotted this thread and am in a bit of a hurry so haven't read it all, apologies if this has been mentioned already.

I got Bill Bussman to make 4 mandolins with different back and sides wood, inc rosewood, Simon Mayor and Dan Beimborn added their thoughts. There's also recordings by Bill's son.

I hope this ling goes straight there, if not go to the Old Wave pages.

http://www.theacousticmusicco.co.uk/erol.html#120x0

[Martin Jonas]

Interesting read on the Old Wave test drive. For one thing, it demonstrates that two players can hear something completely different: Simon Mayor thought the mahogany back had a specifically short sustain, and Dan Beimborn specifically highlights the "very long" sustain of the same instrument... For what it's worth, I have played the mahogany model of Trevor's first batch of Old Waves (i.e. not the same instrument as Simon and Dan have played) and thought it was lovely and warm on the bass strings but a bit muddy on the trebles. Stunningly beautiful instrument, too.

Martin

[trevor]

Quote "Interesting read on the Old Wave test drive. For one thing, it demonstrates that two players can hear something completely different: Simon Mayor thought the mahogany back had a specifically short sustain, and Dan Beimborn specifically highlights the "very long" sustain of the same instrument."

This was one of the objects of the experiment and a useful anecdote to tell folks who ask which is the best mandolin. Some get upset when I tell them I can't say which they will like best..

[Larryo]

I agree. I found was that the Spruce over Rosewood was definitely weaker or more quote "delicate" than the other three, to my ears anyway?

[Jim MacDaniel]

jimmacd, it was a friend's. What was my overall impression? I suppose to be honest, it wasn't good but I must qualify that in the following way.Shortly after he started making( about thirty years ago) I bought one based on hearing one of his first one's which even now people around here talk about as being a great one. But mine never really "came in" and I sold it years later. However, although most people love 'em I have never heard one since that I liked.But maybe it is just something going on with me and his instruments because when I got a chance to buy this one,nice as it is in some ways, like maybe backing singers or slower pieces, it just didn't work for me in other ways, but that could be just me, because as I say he sells a lot of them and they can't all be wrong !.But it has to be said that this particular one is sweet,plenty of volume, good action, wider body than usual and looks lovely.So the search goes on for what will work for me???
Another thing is that we don't have great options in Ireland on mandolins as there is no huge bluegrass scene and a lot of tenor banjo players just have mandolins as second instruments for some small amount of pieces- #so we don't get to have many choices unless we import and that sure is pricey.
If you haven't checked out this site's builders db, it lists 16 Ireland-based builders. Being from the US, I am not familiar with most of them, with the exception of Mr. Foley, as well as Paul Doyle (http://www.pauldoyleinstruments.com/home.php) over in Galway. Though I have neither played nor heard any of his instruments, it is interesting to note that the latter is a mandolinst as well as a luthier, and there are some very nice looking instruments posted on his web site.

[Jim MacDaniel]

Looks like Mr. Doyle eliminated some mandolin photos when he updated his web site, so here is an example I pulled from his web site in the past...

[Jim MacDaniel]

...and one more, this with Imbuya back and sides.

[first string]

I agree. I found was that the Spruce over Rosewood was definitely weaker or more quote "delicate" than the other three, to my ears anyway?
While I find this test very interesting, I'm not sure that we should rely on it for a completely accurate assessment of the tonal qualities of the different backwoods. If I recall correctly, when we discussed it originally Bill Busman mentioned that while all the instruments had Engelmann tops, that the rosewood backed one featured a substantially heavier piece. That very well may have a bigger effect on volume and tone, than the back wood.

To the original poster: Foleys are flattops right? I think if you are getting a muddier or blurrier tone than you like, that is the more likely culprit (at least to my way of thinking) than the rosewood back. I've never particularly cared for flattop mandolins. It works a lot better for OMs and bouzoukis, but even there I personally prefer the archtop versions. The flattops have great sustain which is something I look for, but the notes just aren't as full/round... As always adjectives to describe sound are fairly imprecise but hopefully you get my meaning.

I truly love rosewood as a tone wood, and I think the mandolin community here in the US has been somewhat foolish in largely overlooking it. Love the sustain and overtones. In fact I'm having a rosewood and spruce mando built right now by Austin Clark. It will have an arched top and back. The only two reasons I can think of that rosewood isn't more popular than it is, are that it isn't what Gibson used (which isn't a very good reason to my mind), and that it is pretty darn expensive compared to maple when you are talking about a piece thick enough to carve.

[Larryo]

Yeah First string, I like Rosewood myself and that is why I was a bit taken aback when I heard the sound and maybe as you say, it is because of the flat top and slightly curved back.Thanks jimmacd for those images. Strange, other than Foley, I have very seldom come across other makes in Ireland, just never saw them? Which doesn't mean of course that they are not there or are not worth looking into but when there is no reputation established among the community it's hard to trust?