Mandolin louder than fiddle...Piano??

[Barry Platnick]

Does anybody know of a chart that lists relative volumes of different instuments?

My daughter - violin and piano
my wife - trumpet..

believe that their instrument are no luder than my guitar and mandolin.

could this be true?

[Chris Biorkman]

Violin and piano are much louder.

[John Flynn]

Trumpets are louder also.

[John Flynn]

Your question got me curious. I did some quick reading up online. Percieved loudness includes some variables, including timbre and pitch ("dirtier" timbres and higher pitches seem louder to the human ear), but I found some of the following scientific comparisons online. Personally, I would put the mandolin down around where the clarinet is, but that is purely subjective on my part.

Power Output (watts)
Large orchestra 67
Bass drum 25
Snare drum 12
Cymbals 9.5
Trombone 6.4
Piano 0.44
Trumpet 0.31
Tuba 0.20
Double bass 0.16
Flute 0.055
French horn 0.053
Clarinet 0.050

Instrument Range measured in dB
Bass drum 35 - 115
Cymbal 40 - 110
Organ (orchestral) 35 - 110
Piano 60 - 100
Trumpet 55 - 95
Violin 42 - 95

[acousticnotes]

Not to be a wise guy but my National RM-1 is not only the loudest mandolin I ever heard but it's louder then most violins or pianos! I'm not kidding.

JOE

[Chris Keth]

Not to be a wise guy but my National RM-1 is not only the loudest mandolin I ever heard but it's louder then most violins or pianos! I'm not kidding.

JOE

Have you measured this?:confused:

[acousticnotes]

Have you measured this?:confused:

Of course not. Have you ever played one? Really. I would lay money down and go out on a limb a say it's has to be the loudest mando made. I'm not talking tone because everyone has a different idea what is good or bad but volume can be measured. That's all I'll say. I don't want to highjack this thread.

Joe

P.S. My point was to say with a "cone" mandolin it would not be hard to be heard with his wife on piano and his daughter on violin.

[Chris Keth]

Of course not. Have you ever played one? Really. I would lay money down and go out on a limb a say it's has to be the loudest mando made. I'm not taking tone because everyone has a different idea what is good or bad but volume can be measured. That's all I'll say. I don't want to highjack this thread.

Joe

I have no doubt that it's the loudest mandolin made. I do have doubts that it is louder than pianos. The high register of a mandolin throws off your ears' perception of loudness. It's nothing personal why I asked you if you've ever measured it. It's a matter of being tricked by physics and perception.

[acousticnotes]

I have no doubt that it's the loudest mandolin made. I do have doubts that it is louder than pianos. The high register of a mandolin throws off your ears' perception of loudness. It's nothing personal why I asked you if you've ever measured it. It's a matter of being tricked by physics and perception.

Nothing was taken personally Chris, all is good. I guess we were writing at the same time. I added this to the post: P.S. My point was to say with a "cone" mandolin it would not be hard to be heard with his wife on piano and his daughter on violin.

Yes, I do agree with your statement about perception. Yes it can be deceiving.

joe

[D C Blood]

Who cares??? As long as it's louder than that b@nj0!!!:))

[KanMando]

Who cares??? As long as it's louder than that b@nj0!!!:))

Funny that this topic should come up. At the insistence of my band-mates (not), I brought my 1930's vintage La Tosca Tuxedo model accordion to practice last night. It drowned out everything, including the banjo. It's a powerful instrument to be sure.

Which brings up a joke: Perfection is when you throw a banjo in a dumpster and it hits an accordion.

Bob

[Chris Keth]

Yes, I do agree with your statement about perception. Yes it can be deceiving.

joe

Very deceiving.

Not long ago I took a series of safety courses as part of the process of joining the camera union. In the hearing protection class the instructor put in a CD of generated tones (from lower than our hearing register to higher than our hearing registers) and told us the sound pressure level of the first tone. Then, we were to guess the sound pressure level of all of the tones that followed while he hid the CD player and dB meter and pretended to fiddle with the volume between each tone.

Universally, we all guessed higher and higher sound pressure levels until we hit something like a high soprano's pitch and then we started to guess lower and lower.

In the end, he told us that the CD is designed to produce the same sound pressure levels with each tone, and he never touched the volume control on the CD player. It was a pretty interesting demonstration.

[acousticnotes]

Very deceiving.

Not long ago I took a series of safety courses as part of the process of joining the camera union. In the hearing protection class the instructor put in a CD of generated tones (from lower than our hearing register to higher than our hearing registers) and told us the sound pressure level of the first tone. Then, we were to guess the sound pressure level of all of the tones that followed while he hid the CD player and dB meter and pretended to fiddle with the volume between each tone.

Universally, we all guessed higher and higher sound pressure levels until we hit something like a high soprano's pitch and then we started to guess lower and lower.

In the end, he told us that the CD is designed to produce the same sound pressure levels with each tone, and he never touched the volume control on the CD player. It was a pretty interesting demonstration.

Very Interesting Chris. After playing many years in Rock type bands I really try to protect my ears now. Better late than never I guess?

Joe

[Chris Keth]

Better late than never I guess?

Joe

Absolutely. It's about limiting the amount of time you're exposed to those sound pressure levels.

That reminds me, a good example of frequency having an effect on your perception of loudness is how you EQ a rock band. When you want the guitar to cut through the mix more you EQ it to be a little heavier on the mids, right?

[Tim2723]

Yes, and not only can the effects be cumulative over time, but they can be acute. A sudden, very loud sound can do damage as well. Protect your ears boys!! Beethoven was deaf, but he was a genius.

A surprising instrument to add to the list is the harmonica. You wouldn't think that such a tiny instrument could be loud, but several years ago there was a slow day at the music store and we were playing with the decibel meter. A harmonica is over 100 dB at source. It's volume drops off radically with distance, but right up at the reeds that little sucker is LOUD!

[dcc]

Does anybody know of a chart that lists relative volumes of different instuments?

My daughter - violin and piano
my wife - trumpet..

believe that their instrument are no luder than my guitar and mandolin.

could this be true?

:)) they're kidding, right?

i play everything except the trumpet from that list, and really, i have to say, no way. absolutely no way. but i suppose it might be true that your mando from the front (while you play and they listen) sounds as loud as them as their instruments from behind (while they listen to themselves play) but i can't believe your mando could possibly be anywhere near as loud as as the others.

pianos come in different lengths and if its spinet (short strings) parked really close to the wall it won't be loud to the player though it will certainly carry into the next room more than your mando. take the lid off a concert grand piano and you won't want to play it in a normal sized room.

a trumpet player is hearing the trumpet from behind the business end, too. it's not for nothing (it's for OSHA) that some orchestras have taken to putting plexiglass sound barriers between the brass and the woodwinds. (ever stand behind a french horn with the bell pointed toward you? you won't be able to hear yourself sing at the top of your lungs from there. it's positively tooth rattling. it's a good thing they usually sit against a wall.)

a bit of trivia: a good violin played full blast at the ear of the violinist is about 95dB (chain saws are 97dB). a lot of violinists go asymetrically hard of hearing (deafer on the left).

[Tim2723]

I wonder too if some of those numbers are correctly stated. Whether standing in front or behind, a trombone isn't 20 times louder than a trumpet, nor is it 128 times louder than a clarinet. Those instruments play together all the time, and the clarinet holds its own. And then there's the piccolo descant from Stars and Stripes Forever. One or two little piccolos over the top of a whole brass band? Yet it works all the time too.

[Chris Keth]

I wonder too if some of those numbers are correctly stated. Whether standing in front or behind, a trombone isn't 20 times louder than a trumpet, nor is it 128 times louder than a clarinet. Those instruments play together all the time, and the clarinet holds its own. And then there's the piccolo descant from Stars and Stripes Forever. One or two little piccolos over the top of a whole brass band? Yet it works all the time too.

Power in watts is not a linear measure of loudness. It's a logorithmic scale. See this discussion (http://www.amptone.com/g112.htm) of guitar amps for more.

[Tim2723]

Well, if we suppose that's true, then the piccolo is still heard over the band. Do the numbers mean anything significant? Are we measuring the right thing in the right way?

[Chris Keth]

Well, if we suppose that's true, then the piccolo is still heard over the band. Do the numbers mean anything significant? Are we measuring the right thing in the right way?

I have no idea how they are measured for the table that's posted or if it's been done properly, etc. Strictly speaking, one can't compare instruments' volume by only the wattage. Comparing wattage is only valid for comparing loudness if we are measuring within one category of sound producing equipment, such as "tube guitar amplifiers."

The reason for this is that different methods of producing sound have different efficiencies so a 1W plucked string instrument will very likely be a different volume than a 1W reed instrument or a 1W bowed string instrument. The power is probably a reasonable way to visualize an approximation of relative loudness, but it's not reliable if you want to view it with anything close to precision.

[allenhopkins]

Audibility ≠ loudness. Sound quality enters in. Why does the whole orchestra tune to the oboe? Because the oboe's nasal tone and treble register make it audible no matter what else is going on. And, also, because tuning an oboe, by sliding that pesky little double reed in an out of the end of it, is a real pain, so taking its pitch as a "given" may be easier than fratzing around with it. (My brother played oboe.)

I would be surprised if any unamplified mandolin -- with the possible exception of one of the resonator jobbies, National, Wailing etc. -- could come close to competing with an unmuted trumpet.

[Roland Sturm]

I measured a few mandolins compared to fiddle, trying to play the same thing with the same intensity. Distance was about 5 feet (so not right at the sound source).
When I played something where my "quiet" mandolin, a Rigel A, would measure about 70 dB, a "loud" mandolin would record about 73-75 or so (my Sam Bush or my Ellis), my fiddle or my National RM1 about 78-80. Trumpet blown can be much louder, my 9 year old daughter got it to 90 in the same setting. Even the loudest rattliest chop on the National didn't get much about 85. These are just relative numbers, depend on how you play and from what distance you measure.

So the National RM1 is about like a fiddle, when you chop bluegrass chords probably louder, when you play single note melodies maybe a bit quieter. While the National is without question louder than a normal mando, some of the difference might be perceptual because of the sound characteristics. A bright pick that accentuated the brightness made the National sound painfully loud (and unpleasantly shrill), it seemed quieter with a Dawg pick, but the measurements were unchanged.

[foldedpath]

I measured a few mandolins compared to fiddle, trying to play the same thing with the same intensity. Distance was about 5 feet (so not right at the sound source).
When I played something where my "quiet" mandolin, a Rigel A, would measure about 70 dB, a "loud" mandolin would record about 73-75 or so (my Sam Bush or my Ellis), my fiddle or my National RM1 about 78-80. Trumpet blown can be much louder, my 9 year old daughter got it to 90 in the same setting. Even the loudest rattliest chop on the National didn't get much about 85. These are just relative numbers, depend on how you play and from what distance you measure.

It's interesting to see these results, but sound meter readings like this don't take into account the ways that different instruments interact with room acoustics.

The best advice I've ever heard about how to record a violin is that you're not just recording the violin, you're recording how the violin "drives the room." It's a total system; room acoustics plus violin as a single instrument. In a large enough room with great acoustics, a fiddle can sound two or three times as loud as it will in a smaller, more acoustically dead space (or a microphone placed close to the instrument, that isn't capturing the room acoustics).

Mandolins... not so much, due to the very short string decay. There might be a fairly high sound pressure level on the pick attack, but because the note decays so fast (compared to a fiddle), you don't notice the contribution of the room acoustics as much as you do with instruments like fiddle, that can sustain the note.

You could get some objective SPL measurements in an anechoic chamber for different instruments like mandolin or fiddle, but it wouldn't tell you much about how they operate out in the real world.

[fred d]

It that comes on with intersting post! The other night just for fun I played with a light that comes on with sound. I set it about 8 feet in frount of me and played a couple of my mandolins intresting enought I played G chops on an ovel hole and 2 different F's and a F tuned in E the one I thought was the softest came out the hightest at 8 ft I didn't try my banjos or my national so I would guess it's not the sound we hear but what others hear:mandosmiley:

[fishtownmike]

At any volume bad playing can sound louder then it is.:)

[bevb]

:cool:Well after reading all the above, I can't wait to get my RM national (on order)...there are some seriously bad fiddle players in some sessions here ! So looking forward to drowning them out. ps what's wrong with banjo ? I have one too !

[Malcolm G.]

[. ps what's wrong with banjo ? I have one too ![/QUOTE]


I have two, but was too chicken to stick my neck out, solo.

But, I'm right behind YOU!

:)