Certain Mandolins in Certain Rooms: Bad? Good? Can't Tell?

[Brent Hutto]

When I first received my new "custom" Mike Black A5 (#5) I knew instantly that I loved the wide fretboard, the shape of the neck and the overall feel of the instrument. I was not sure I liked the sound a whole lot better than my "The Loar" LM-400. It was obviously a very different tone but not sure about better as I had really liked the sound of the LM-400.

The last few days I've had a chance to play it in several settings outside my own music room. A tiny, crowded hospital room, a very large living/dining room area full of family having Thanksgiving dinner and then in my mother's fairly large living room. My conclusion is that this is an awesome-sounding mandolin...everywhere except my music room at home. I never thought the LM-400 sounded at its very best in my music room which tends to be a bit bright and echo-y (works fine for acoustic guitar though) but the sound here and in other places was similar, just a little too much added brightness on top of its natural tone. Not a problem, though.

But playing "The Five" here where I do 90%+ of my playing I hear almost nothing of its direct sound. Most of what reaches my ears has been projected out of the front, bounced off of untreated walls, ceiling, corners, hardwood floor and then jumbled up into a bright mess of cancellations and reinforcements. I'd been thinking that was a very strange effect but now I'm coming up with a theory.

It's because this mandolin is so projective. My wife and others tell me that every song I played could be clearly heard even from 30 feet away over people's conversations or tonight over a piano that to me seemed totally to drown out the mandolin. I don't think the LM-400 or any of my guitars can come close to matching the way that my new mandolin can reach out and deliver a clear voice to every corner of a large room. And it seems to do it whether I'm trying to play loudly or just noodling along at a medium dynamic level.

So in my reflection-ridden music room all that projection has no where to go. Even though my LM-400 was also a ff-hole instrument it seemed to deliver enough direct sound for me to hear it clearly before the tone became scrambled by bouncing off walls. This new one has a more classical ff-hole behavior where every ounce of sound energy goes out and none hangs around for the player to hear.

Time to get some room treatments in place, I suppose. Anyone else had this kind of bad mandolin-in-a-certain-room experience?

[John Flynn]

Some F-hole instruments, it seems especially the good ones, have great projection and tend to sound better to the audience than they do to the player. Oval hole instruments seem to spread the sound more, making what the audience hears and what the player hears more similar. Of course, those are generalizations, not true for every instrument.

All instruments will sound different in different settings, though. I was really shocked the first time I played in a room with a ceiling fan going. That makes a mandolin sound horrible, due to the doppler shift created by the fan blades. If you want to hear more of what your mandolin sounds like to an audience, play in a tiled bathroom.

[Brent Hutto]

That's a good test, John. Assuming the tile-bathroom sound is somewhat representative it's no wonder my wife says it sounds great. The upper register, especially anything on the E strings sounds much fatter in the bathroom. That's a rather thin, stringy sound to my ear when playing but it has a much rounder tone in the tile room along with a musical attack rather than a harsh "chip" sound. There is also much better balance than I thought between the E and A courses when playing double-stops that use the open A strings.

But mainly I think in my music room I'm getting mutiple-path reflections of the attack of each note. In the bathroom it was always a solid start to the note (more like Mike Black's sound samples with this instrument) while in my music room the start of notes is sort of spread out and indistinct, tending to be a either clicky or thumpy depending on which note is being played.

However, the bathroom test also points out every time I play a note slightly off the fret instead of perfectly clean. Those notes really stick out as being vague and not having a centered pitch like a clean note. Almost like a fiddle except not out-and-out sour, of course.

Wow, what a nice tone "The Five" makes!

[Markus]

Definitely in some rooms I hear all `players sound' and others I hear more `audience sound'.

I'll sometimes practice facing our plate glass windows as that definitely affects the sound I hear while playing [and can be helpful when tuning IME].

After hosting a weekly picking sessions for a few years in my home a decade back, I was made quite aware the difference in sound between where I practice in our raised-ceiling carpeted main living room, our kitchen table, and the tile and all raw wood of our 3-season porch that is filled with reflected sound [but can sound amazing with in groups of 2 or 3 where instrument volume is balanced ... not so nice with mando banjo duets].

Varying where you practice can be good [if inconvenient] as the sound that you hear when performing [or out at a jam] can vary wildly as well. Plus, it's nice to hear a more representative sound of our instruments from time to time avoid MAS [currently]. With my old crummy mandolin, ear plugs weren't enough to avoid MAS with.

[Brent Hutto]

Markus,

My mom's living room is carpeted with heavy drapes and a fair bit of furniture. But the biggest factor is the raised "tray" ceiling, most likely. And come to think of it the huge living/dining room where we ate with my wife's family is in an old farmhouse with 8-1/2 or 9 foot ceilings. Probably as much to be said for high ceilings as any other one factor in making a pleasing mandolin-sound room.

[Markus]

I love the raised ceilings, thick carpet, and open walls into adjacent rooms that our living room has ... when I record with a condenser microphone I notice the distinct lack of reflected sound there.

Thinking about it, I should try recording in some of the other rooms here as playing is so distracting that it can be hard to note these things. It's interesting what you miss but tape hears, and what tape misses and you hear. In general, though - I tend to think the microphone hears more what the audience gets than I do in most cases.

[Ed Goist]

Hi Brent:
First off, congratulations on the new Black A5! What a beauty she is! (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?64968-Black-5)
Just a few comments/observations:
* I bet the Black sounds better (likely substantially better) than the LM-400 to someone in the 'non-playing perspective' wherever you play it.
* I bet the more you play the Black, the more you'll become aware of its subtle tonal qualities; its improved projection; and it's better, quicker responsiveness.
* From a sound/tone quality standpoint in an arched-top mandolin, there is just no substitute for a professionally hand-carved and personally tuned soundboard.
* Interesting, I thought my first mandolin (an over-achieving Kentucky KM-172) sounded WAY better in my kitchen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA7F8kOwOw) (with it's ceramic tile, wood furniture, and mostly reflective walls) than anywhere else. I think the kitchen environment created a compensation for the less than dynamic soundboard on the Kentucky. (But I still think the KM-172 sounded pretty good, and that it was a great value, and a fine starter mandolin).
Again, congratulations on the Black!

[Brent Hutto]

Ed,

The reports I get from a couple people who've heard both of them is that this one definitely sounds Bigger 'N Better. Not to imply that the LM-400 was any slouch, I really liked its overtones and the way drone strings sounded. My wife's theory is this one knows it's beautiful and so it likes to announce its presence to whole world!

[Jill McAuley]

Hi Brent:
First off, congratulations on the new Black A5! What a beauty she is! (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?64968-Black-5)
Just a few comments/observations:
* I bet the Black sounds better (likely substantially better) than the LM-400 to someone in the 'non-playing perspective' wherever you play it.
* I bet the more you play the Black, the more you'll become aware of its subtle tonal qualities; its improved projection; and it's better, quicker responsiveness.
* From a sound/tone quality standpoint in an arched-top mandolin, there is just no substitute for a professionally hand-carved and personally tuned soundboard.
* Interesting, I thought my first mandolin (an over-achieving Kentucky KM-172) sounded WAY better in my kitchen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbA7F8kOwOw) (with it's ceramic tile, wood furniture, and mostly reflective walls) than anywhere else. I think the kitchen environment created a compensation for the less than dynamic soundboard on the Kentucky. (But I still think the KM-172 sounded pretty good, and that it was a great value, and a fine starter mandolin).
Again, congratulations on the Black!

Ed has hit the nail on the head here I think - what really jumped out at me was the line "the more you play the Black, the more you'll become aware of it's subtle tonal qualities...." In a way that's exactly what's happened with me and the Vintage A - initially I was trying to figure out if I liked the sound of it better than my old Gallatin, but the more I've played it the more impressed with it I am. One thing I'm realizing is that after a solid year of playing the Gallatin every single day, for several hours a day, the sound of it was such an aural reference point for me that it was almost as if my mind was defaulting to "that (the Gallatin) is what a mandolin is supposed to sound like...." Playing the Vintage A in different settings (outdoors busking/at a high ceilinged art gallery/in a room at work with a stone floor) has also really opened my eyes to just how awesome it sounds.


Cheers,
Jill

[Mike Snyder]

I played that mandolin. Outdoors, in the dark, in September. Sounded real good in THAT environment.