Little rubber circles on the end of strings

[kelsonz27]

Does anyone know what these little black circles on the end of the strings of some mandolins are called? Is their only purpose to muffle the strings a little? Because I bought my mandolin with them on and I took them off without thinking when I changed the strings. Should I try to get new ones for any reason? Here's a picture of what I'm talking about: http://www.no-bozos.com/Mandolins/Michael_Kelly_1.jpg

[mculliton123]

Those are harmonic suppressors and serve to dampen out unwanted vibration in the string below the bridge. Use to old ones if you still have them, they don't really wear out. if not, you can get them from most of the advertisers here @ the Cafe.

[Pete Counter]

Those are simple rubber grommets that can be purchased from any radio shack. They're actually manufactured to insulate wires from the metal chassis in electronic components but some have found them usefull to reduce harmonic overtones on your mandolin. If you dont hear these stray harmonic tones dont worry about it. If you do and it bugs you, trot down to the local radio shack.

[mandroid]

At Least a hundred years have passed where no one noticed a need , Bluegrassers that want the Chop Chords to be short and crisp , like a snare drum, with a damping hand on it,
may not want the strings between the bridge and tail-piece to continue potentially ringing .
in those cases there are several ways to dampen that string portion , the rubber grommets are just one of them.

[JeffD]

Some folks just weave a strip of felt, or leather, between the strings below the bridge.

[mandroid]

those sliding cover TP's, a piece of leather under the strings within the TP, and some thin felt inside the cover should do it .
string wont vibrate much if end is in a soft material at the end .. metal edge of the TP won't contact the string, last ..

[Coffeecup]

Inbuilt graphic equaliser

[MikeEdgerton]

You can also roll up a hundred dollar bill and weave it through the strings. If that works for you then replace the hundred with a single and you can mail the hundred to me. :cool:

[Ivan Kelsall]

Having played Mandolin for 4 1/2 years now,you'd maybe expect me to be able to answer my own question - but i've never heard these 'overtones' . My Weber came with one of their 'wood nymph' overtone suppressors on it,which because it slid all over the place due to my wrist resting on it,i replaced with grommets. However,the 2 Lebeda Mandolins that i've had,had no overtone suppressors on them & they sounded ok to me.
My question - what do these 'overtones' sound like ?. I'm not worried by this,simply curious as to what you folks are hearing. Personally i think that 'maybe' some of us are damping out things which aren't there in the first place,purely because we've heard about them,
Ivan:confused:

[Mandolin Mick]

Apparently, Bill Monroe had a "ghost note" in his Loar. He claimed it for years and then it finally showed up in the studio. Bb if my memory serves me properly.

[Malcolm G.]

Ivan,

Face a wall closely, smack a closed chord - hard, and immediately damp the strings with your left hand.

You should hear a faint, quickly decaying sound.

Then repeat with anything woven into the strings behind the bridge.

Now, some folk actually like the harmonics - including me on some mandolins.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Thanks Malcolm,i'll try that & see if my 65 year old ears can pick up anything. Possibly the only thing around 'decaying', will be me !!,
Ivan:))

[Roger Kunkel]

Inbuilt graphic equaliser

Ha! Someone actually asked me that after a show once. "Is that some kind of equalizer?"
I thought it was pretty weird that someone would think that.

[Roger Kunkel]

Ivan,

Face a wall closely, smack a closed chord - hard, and immediately damp the strings with your left hand.

You should hear a faint, quickly decaying sound.

Then repeat with anything woven into the strings behind the bridge.

Now, some folk actually like the harmonics - including me on some mandolins.

That's your built in reverb option.

[Coffeecup]

Ha! Someone actually asked me that after a show once. "Is that some kind of equalizer?"
I thought it was pretty weird that someone would think that.

Who are you calling weird? :crying:

[jim_n_virginia]

I only hear the overtones when I am recording with a sensitive condenser mic. I can't hear them when I play but I can hear them when I play the recording back with head phones on. Never used the grommets but I do weave a piece of rawhide between the strings when I record occassionally.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Quote from Jim - " but I do weave a piece of rawhide between the strings....". How macho can you get !!. I'm wondering if Grizzly Bear hide might be better - more 'bite' to it maybe.:grin:
Joking apart - i think that John Reischman uses a similar piece of leather woven thro.his strings,& i think that it does look a bit more 'rural' & workman-like,than the clinical look of grommets.
Yesterday,having chosen a suitable section of wall to face,i did as Malcolm suggested,played the open strings quite loudly & immediately damped then ( using my lebeda - the Weber has grommets). I didn't hear anything that resembled 'overtones',but my Lebeda does have a nice piece of leather under the front edge of the tailpiece,similar to the one that i fitted to the Weber t/piece after the felt came off.
I suppose there's no harm using some damping method 'just in case',
Ivan:cool:

[Ray(T)]

The other thing to remember is that, on a mandolin with a scroll, you shouldn't place the harmonic suppressors in a straight line but the one on the G strings should be set back towards the tailpiece by around half the horizontal distance between the other suppressors. You could, of course, take the tailpiece off and fit a "James".
Ray

[Bob Buckingham]

If I wanted to suppress harmonics I would have bought a cheaper mandolin. JM2C

[grumpycoyote]

Some folks just weave a strip of felt, or leather, between the strings below the bridge.

Yep. I use a strip of cheap leather laceing. Works like a charm and looks cool too.

[JeffD]

I think the deal is more for bluegrass, where you want that crisp chop clipped off and followed by absolute silence.

For other kinds of music the overtones may be desirable. For fiddle tunes or ballad melody or double stop tremolo and harmony, the richness of all those overtones may "add to the lovely" of the mandolin sound.

If you use one mandolin for both BG and other stuff, the leather strip is something easily removed and inserted, as needed. The grommets look really cool, so if you play predominantly BG, or if the mandolin in question is going to be the BG mandolin in your herd, then the grommets may be the way to go.

I like the sound of my mandolins without the supressors.